The annual tradition of utilizing every last pleasant weather weekend was in full swing.

This specific weekend I only had a single night available for camping and had to be back around noon the next day, but that was enough time to go check out some abandoned work trailers in Central Newfoundland.

Even though I certainly would drive two or three hours for abandoned work trailers, they also held a little more history than that description would lead you to believe.

With plenty of time this afternoon, I had a window to go do one of my favourite things here in Newfoundland: stroll around the interesting town of Grand Falls-Windsor (GFW).

I've always admired and wondered about the above apartment building, which stands out in province that typically builds unremarkable apartment buildings. Sure enough, I finally figured out that it was an adaptive reuse of the old Loyal Orange Lodge, built around 1932.

The original Orange Lodge stood in the same spot since at least 1912, until it was replaced by the cinderblock building that stands today.

Next up, was this strange and slightly hidden part of Grand Falls that's home to three strips of retail buildings. I call it strange because it's removed from the highway, main street, and both of the roads travelling between Grand Falls and Windsor.

I guess at one point this was an empty part of town near the hospital and various apartment buildings, where developers could build a couple of 1960s-style plazas?

Continuing down the road, I came to the crisp ruins of the Central Dental Group building.

I find it insane that I can't find anything about this building fire except for one facebook video where the fire department wouldn't comment on whether said fire was suspicious.

Maybe I wasn't able to find anything because GFW was overwhelmed with a firebug and had eight suspicious fires between the summer of 2018 and the end of 2019.

The Central Dental Group building caught on fire on July 23, 2019.

In addition to the dental clinic, arsonist(s) set fire to Islander RV, an equipment shed at the local ski club, a siding company, a dance studio, the abandoned school board building; they burned down a picnic shelter at a local park, then burned down its replacement a year later, a Centennial Field ticket booth, a campground structure, and a firefighter training ground derelict bus.

The abandoned school board building is the one that really sticks in my craw as I didn't even know that building existed!

Thankfully a path and some woods isn't much of an attraction for an arsonist, leaving me to enjoy a forest path between the back of the Terrace Apartments and over to Bank Road (here).

I'd walked around enough and it was now time to dive into the woods and find those abandoned work trailers. Fresh off of learning of their existence thanks to the internet, I scoured Google Earth until I finally matched up the website's crummy satellite image, with the buildings and roadway on the ground.

Now with coordinates in hand, once again I couldn't figure out how to put them into my car's navigation system (even though I've watched so many videos on it and read so many forum posts). I had a backup plan though, as I knew it was 21km (~13mi) from the start of the road, allowing me to reset the trip odometer and cruise down a surprisingly decent woods road.

Kilometer 21 would come and go. I stopped shortly after, sure that I must've went too far as this was outside the possible range created by inaccuracy.

Three-point turning, I went a couple of kilometers back, taking my time and peering to the south, where surely I would be able to spot the buildings I'd seen online.

The firebug or the government better not have got here before me!

After two more passes I finally, barely spotted a tiny notch in the woods, back behind an area where someone had their trailer parked. Pulling in and squeezing through, the woods opened back up and jackpot.

Living in Newfoundland, I would drive four or five hours just to check out some abandoned work trailers, but these have much more history as this is Winston Hollett's old woods (forestry) camp, the last woods camp to be open on the Island of Newfoundland as it only closed in 2008.

There's also the fact that forestry has played an important role in Newfoundland's history and economy, with both of the towns of Grand Falls-Windsor and Corner Brook being almost entirely built by paper; while a third paper mill also made great contributions to Stephenville. Therefore, when you have something like forestry playing such an important role in history here, I want to check out the paper mills and forestry camps that were involved.

I always figured there has to be some classic woods camp out there somewhere, one of those camps with logs nailed together and moss stuffed in between as insulation. Even if it was one of the later ones where they sawed the logs instead of using them whole, I always figured with over a hundred woods camps in Central Newfoundland alone, that at least one must survive after being turned into someone's cabin.

While this wasn't your classic log cabin woods camp, I was still pretty damn excited when I found out this place existed - even if they are work trailers like I've seen multiple times at quarry sites, construction sites, etc.

Plus, these work trailers have history in another way, as they came from Bull Arm after use in the construction of the offshore oil platform Hibernia!

I loved the history here, but really there wasn't much of anything left behind. And anything left behind was now covered in a slurry of insulation and mushy drywall.

I wandered back to that trailer I first encountered and sent a picture of the above scene to Isy, asking her if she realized that this was the best cabin/camper site on the whole island. Forget somewhere in the backcountry of Gros Morne, forget anything seaside, forget anything on the barrens - this was it was right here.

She responded asking how far it was to the nearest swimmable lake, but pfft, that's not what's important about a cabin!

How great would it be to have this big cement platform to stick rails into the ground, build ledges and get a sweet DIY skatepark going? Standing here, it was bumming me out that this wasn't closer to Corner Brook and I half-wished my work was in Grand Falls-Windsor, so I could claim this spot for my cabin/DIY. Just a heavenly spot.

Back behind the buildings was a small clearing with a little ridge that provided a solid view over the surrounding lands. With my tent already easily popped up, it was time to post up here and enjoy the day's last light.

A half-hour later, I'd get a small fire going before eventually hitting the hay.

Needing to get back to check on the dog, I was up early with hopes of getting in a quick round of golf. I'd never played the Grand Falls course before as it's always so busy, but I figured late September might be a good spot to find an emptier course.

Except as I slid back on to the woods road, the truck in front of me was going slow enough, but then we came to another truck at a complete stop. The truck in front had apparently seen a moose and now it was time to sort out whether they had a shot at getting their moose.

Didn't these b'ys know I have a game of golf to get to? I really should have worn my bright pink Nike golf shirt to let them know, smh.

Managing to make it to the course by 7am, there was still a lot of hubbub for late September. Going inside, the woman working informed me I wouldn't be able to play today because there was a tournament. Frig.

Except that the guy next to her was puzzled and said the tournament was starting on the 10th hole, where I should be able to play the first nine as long as I didn't take all day.

Perfect! Especially on such a gorgeous fall morning.

(Damnit, now I want to go golfing and that ain't happening here until May, lol.)

Grand Falls-Windsor popped up almost overnight, with the owners of The Daily Mail wanting a North American paper source. After taking the train through Newfoundland in 1904, they found the Grand Falls site suitable for a paper mill with its wood resources and possibility of hydroelectric power. The Anglo Newfoundland Development Company was formed in 1905 and the newspaper owners came to an agreement with the government of Newfoundland to take possession of the land. By 1906, the mill site was cleared and the town had water and sewer lines already serving approximately 60 houses.

One of the developments around this time was the clearing of land at the meeting point of the Exploits River and Rushy Pond Brook, in order to open up land for farming. It's on this land in 1924, that local golf enthusiasts opened up a 6-hole golf course on the site of the failed farm. The course was soon increased to nine holes, and then they just added another nine holes back in 2004.

Although I haven't been able to find any solid reference to say that this concrete wall was from that farm, I have to imagine that's the case.

Remember that this was still Covid times, so as I returned to the clubhouse and there was now 150 people all milling around for this tournament, I thought better of going inside to ask about the concrete wall. This decision might've also been influenced by the awkwardness of being an outsider in a small town.

Fresh ruin discoveries plus a lovely morning spent smashing brilliant shots along the Exploits River? This was definitely worth getting out of the tent at an early hour.

Only playing nine holes, I actually had time for biking before getting back to Kingsley. And in the course of quickly sorting out what to ride, I made the amazing discovery of this concrete block/step!

Grand Falls-Windsor is confusing enough that I question whether I've found everything there is to ride, but that's not for a lack of trying through hours of driving GFW's residential streets, hours of walking around, and days of looking at satellite images and Google StreetView. This was a pretty sweet find considering all that.

At the same time, I can't believe this is an exciting find, but really, only Stephenville, Corner Brook, Pasadena, Deer Lake, Baie Verte, the PAB, Springdale & Grand Falls are big enough to have a find like this within a 2.5-hour drive. It's crazy sometimes to be somewhere like Halifax or Wichita and think about how long it would take to find every last concrete block (and how you'd probably never manage to exhaust a city of that size).

Boy that must be sweet; versus being quite certain you've found 98% of rideable objects over a distance equal to that from Windsor to Kitchener.

Oh well. Today I had this new concrete block to ride, and for that I was elated.