The Tale Blazers, Episode 4: Gander
okay so here we are central newfoundland and labrador region yep heading into gander right well we are right now yeah yeah here we are we're gonna learn some amazing stuff here in gander yeah here in ghana right great stories it's going to be it's going to be a really memorable meet some more nice [Music] people [Music] i'm marley and i'm morella and we're the tailblazers we're out here on the road in newfoundland and labrador in search of stories a place where there's a story around every single corner in this week's episode we're heading to the gander area for some of that world famous hospitality that's been gracing stages all over the world plus we'll learn about a high-ranking military pooch and one story that literally changed the world let's go story hunting [Music] marley yes i didn't read your text where are we going to now don't get me started we're going to learn about sergeant gander oh oh i don't know anything about it i just know that yeah we're going to go in without your gander this should be cool right on perfect thank you and look at your sounds coming out it doesn't get much better than this marilla [Music] hello hi i'm marley hello i'm eileen elms hi eileen and you are i'm pete blackie hi pete thanks for watching welcome to gander hi wow no are you sergeant gander no is this sergeant gander no okay well we need a story then because we're not sure oh this is sergeant gander oh okay no i gotta know how that happened well if the first regiment that was posted to gander took him and the reason they did is he played with us children there was just very few children and he ju he'd jump up on our shoulders and knock us down in the snow but this time he missed my sister's shoulders and scratched her face so he was a bit rough and he had to go into the arms to pit and he was caught and enlisted and his name was pal and then he was given to the regiment by the people that owned him the haydens and they were posted to hong kong right and he went with them all the way to hong kong and what happened there well the dog was on the front line with the royal rifles against the japanese army in hong kong and it was a ba it was a battlefront scene and a grenade was la thrown in amongst the canadian soldiers oh wow obviously recognized it at some sort of a threat and grabbed the grenade and ran away from the soldiers and the grenade exploded and killed the dog but none of the soldiers were hurt wow it's highly noted these these people were then in the prison camp the japanese captured the soldiers that survived they did survive but he he protected them he was a real hero yes he gave his life for the for he did yes and they gave him a medal or something well that was quite a long time after i knew the story we had heard it because we were still living here on a military base and the story came back but we were only children and i hadn't given it a lot of thought until i heard it on the cbc that somebody asked the question could a dog get a medal and they said yes as a matter of fact this newfoundland dog named gander was getting a medal for having saved some of the soldiers during the war right and you're like well that's that was our dog that was our daughter but we knew him as pal but you know the regiment called him as gander because that's where they got him as their mascot wow i wish i could pet a real dog well you can because we have one here now oh my gosh oh my god oh my god gorgeous he's a gorgeous dog isn't he yeah that was wow that was very much stories thank you very much thank you for bringing the dog and bye bye so fun have a great day bye bye oh boy baby he's gorgeous oh my gosh can you imagine having one of those dogs it's like having your own bear the people were so gorgeous yep you know that dog he loved me i think he took a total liking to you yep a total shine to us yeah yeah well you love me but that's that's the story of sergeant gander what a hero saving all those humans i know okay um is this the way to the airport yep yep just over here okay you've got it good oh yeah yeah yeah i see this and then we're gonna talk to the chief executive officer what does that mean of the airport and we're going to learn all about the airport the history of the airport a bit about the art that's in there there's apparently an amazing mural nice so we've got we've got a lot to cover yet here today all right i'm excited i know you're gonna really like this one and is he gonna talk about that when 911 and all those planes had to come down that sign said this was opened in 1959 by queen elizabeth isn't that cool the whole thing i think so i think that's what that sign said this is like a time capsule hello guys welcome hi nice to meet you i'm reg hi rich and marley marley pleasure yeah nice to meet you thank you you're the ceo here i am fantastic come to the gander airport international lounge oh we love it i'll show you around love it please do take us we'll just follow you sounds good okay wine capsule it is it's great there's no elevator huh no the escalator oh steps marley's favorite okay i've got my fitbit on it's leg day it's big day let's get our steps in look at this look at the color oh my gosh oh my gosh it's like mcdonald's from the past so this mural which is spectacular um what would have been painted in do you know so it's egg tempera they used 3 000 eggs ken lahi did in the making of this so that that involves extracting the yolk right so it's a pretty finicky technique and that's crazy oh my you have to be a cook and a painter now can you tell us a little bit about um 911 and what happened here 911 was uh a lot of people showed up sort of unannounced yeah yeah how many roughly well you were looking at close on was 38 aircraft and close to 7 000 people and crew and this this would have been the room where they originated the plane after spending a very long time on the tarmac right when airspace closed so so the whole town i mean we kind of all know the story but but i just want to talk to somebody who was actually you know here yeah it was i don't even know how to describe it things just kind of came together right gander always had a plan in the event something happened we didn't accept respect anything in that scope yep but i think there was some readiness and uh the people in the communities that helped vote and gander and surrounding areas and across the country it's not really a gander story they kind of volunteered and that's what you do right that's what you do when that happens that's right yeah yeah you just help out this place newfoundland and labrador really special do you have any stories about celebrities that came through um well i mean i think one that sticks out for me probably is that john travolta was a big favorite here he was a pilot so and what it's not so much the story is why he was so revered which is the kitchen staff in the in the restaurant could coerce him to dance for them when he was here that's awesome what kind of dance did he do pulp fiction this was pre-pulp fiction no it was not vincent vega dancing of course no no it would be saturday night fever dance right yeah to my understanding i wasn't there i would have joined in if that were the case oh you would have could you show us a little move you got you got any more uh my back my lower back is for sure sure yeah yeah yeah that's all this air airport management's hard on your back i find so sure well this is wonderful thank you so much for talking all my pleasure taking time out of your busy day my pleasure yeah we brought that delightful honestly wow that was awesome again right he was such a nice man and he was dashing but really you know what what the people of gander did in that emergency yeah proves to the world what a wonderful hospitable people they are here it's true and now we're gonna go meet this guy named sid who's gonna tell us more about the gander airport because there's you can't just cover it all in one story no there's so much history there here we are oh look at these planes yeah that is so cool look at the building looks like a plane i wonder if you can get into one of the airplanes oh no i don't think we should get you in there you should be in here somewhere so many things oh hi sid welcome to the museum thank you i'm marley and i'm mirella hi so how can i help well we have been searching for stories all around newfoundland and labrador and uh we wanted to come here just to get a sense of a little more about the airport yeah if you go back into the mid-1930s uk and u.s government were about to launch or wanted to launch trans ocean air service from the uk to the united states and needed refueling bases on the edge of the north atlantic and there's no place more on the edge of the north atlantic than newfoundland but you know i noticed that like um they call this the the crossroads of the world or something gander yeah yeah the town's motto and it goes back to the days when any aircraft flying from europe to north america uh had to refuel and this was the refueling stop and so you saw movie stars and politicians and statesmen and the famous came through gander so if you're at the terminal you might well see somebody who was very notable so listen can i can i check out stuff sure yeah wow so this has a whole bunch of levers and buttons and is this what they would use to learn how to fly an airplane yes more specifically how to fly in bad weather this was the very first of the uh flight simulators oh okay now see videos on the multi-million dollar devices yeah if you touched every one of those things i like the way this sounds you know like click click click click click that's good that's great and and i saw this this is like a simulator for nowadays right this is yeah this is more this is more 2000s oh there we go look at that and oh and you change your views by pressing that button there you go okay now you get to fly there we go oh that's got the propellers going okay i don't think you're supposed to face the ground like that okay whoa [Music] it's not just me okay oh that was fun that was so cool thank you so much sid we really appreciate your time and glad you guys always great stories thank you so much please come back again with your will okay take care see you later bye bye oh wow there's so many cool things here great and the best part was you crashed two i did sister yes all right next we're heading to dover falls dover phone do you know what that is no okay you not much but that's why we're going so we can learn right exactly [Music] is that where all of your faults go to die that'd be awesome i don't think there's a valley big enough down there oh this is going to be a beautiful view i can tell already perfect let's hear this woman we're early birds because we want to catch the worm yep this is unbelievably beautiful so fabulous oh my gosh oh it was worth those stairs yes i told you that hey you must be tony i am hi i'm marley hi welcome to dover hi and welcome to the door fought looking site so tell us a little bit about what what we're seeing here sure uh the dover fault is a geological break in the earth's crust uh it's it's registered around 410 million years old and it's also a boundary and when i say boundary it's a boundary between the north american rock type the appalachian mountains and the eastern side is known as the european and asian rock type so you got two different rock types that came together and continents that collided and when they separated that's what was left behind and and when you're on one side of dover we always say you're in north america and then on the other side you're in europe or asia so this is where the world comes together exactly right so sweet like uh we gotta do that song well no maybe we're not right now so we've been hearing a lot of stories and learning so much i imagine there's some pretty good stories around this area tell me there is actually there's one interesting story during 9 11 yeah and when all the planes landed in gander we had two visitors that came to our locate on a tour one was from um england and one was from texas and they were on the same plane but they didn't know each other but when they came to the location itself they realized that they were falling in love oh my god i love that and they got married a year after and we always promote that you know the love story of those two people you know they realized that not only continents collided here but love collided here right isn't that beautiful that's fabulous oh my gosh let's warm the little cockles away thank you so much no problem thanks for coming hey take a picture of me what are you doing i don't have any double chin oh yeah you look like a lumberjack look oh my god i do look good i got a tiny little pinhead on that lobby so i bet after all of that scientific talk yeah you uh you found the favorite part for you was the love story right the love story yeah and he was really he was very handsome there's some good looking men in newfoundland all right on to the next now do you feel like you learned something from that i did it's where the worlds collide it is the point where all the worlds come together well one way to put it in asia yeah and north america just where the plates what's the best [Music] [Laughter] all right we're heading to city hall yup taking your tails from our way we sure are cool this is one of my one of the things i'm looking forward to the most yeah yeah and aren't we going to meet bonnie and oz that like we've heard about good memory from that uh play i didn't expect you from the play no they're not from the play they're the real people that welcomed the people from the planes that were stuck here during that yeah but they were written about oh yeah they're famous yeah all right okay we're here oh this is gonna be so interesting oh here they are are you honest yes well we've come to see the wizard i love it your friendly neighborhood fudge hanging on to these people bonnie i heard so much about you and of course an eyes this is amazing this is really exciting for us you rescued the the animals yes tell us the story of that um we found out there was animals on the plains although we were told to begin with there was none that's my fault a guy who takes the blame she called me and asked me about that so i made some inquiries and i was told no so i phoned phoned her back and she said no sir not accepting that there's got to be animals on those planes so any and we we ended up gathering everything we could think of that we would need went to the airport and there there's three of us and uh a little army of women a little army of women and that's all we need to make an army for for for women men need they need we just need three yeah so uh we were taken out to each plane and uh climbed the steps to the cargo holds and uh some of the planes we had to actually find the animals because they were behind the luggage so were there like snakes and uh antelope and i'm not a snake person that's good that's the most exotic animal that was there oh it it has to be the bonobo monkeys bonobo yeah they were they were uh there was two of them kosana and unga and uh it was amazing to have bonobo apes on newfoundland soil what did you bring them food i guess like you would have brought supplies fruit and vegetables mainly and they cleaned their own kennels so we really didn't have a lot to do oh yeah that was very helpful you barely do that the amazing part about it is uh unga later um when she finally reached her destination um in columbus ohio okay she had a baby and guess the name yesterday destiny [Music] [Laughter] i threw the hint as much as i could what was the name awesome the name was gander oh [Music] i want to go see gander i mean the monkey you just want to travel don't you yeah i do just want to go anywhere with me though yeah okay yeah for sure well marilla that was our last story no [Music] yeah it's time our trip's done i don't i'm not ready to go i don't i don't want to leave i know me either but you know we have seen so much and talked to the best people and we've learned so much about this place and and the and the generosity and the it's just i don't want i'm not ready to go i wish i wish we could stay i i feel like i'm gonna miss this place so much youtube it just really gets to you you know it gets under your skin i know it does and i want to see so much more like what icebergs and whales and you know what that means what we're going to have to come back in a totally different season and go to labrador as well oh wow you want to do it yes totally it's a deal all right all right this will serve as a final boarding call for flight 607 okay that's us we're gonna miss our flight come on come on girl okay we gotta go oh we gotta go we gotta go on the labrador push harder much harder trying i'm doing my best maybe we should get some help you
2021-03-27 22:18
