Hundreds of miles of refurbished coastal trails between fishing villages recreate the traditional means of locomotion in olden days. Baggage transfers arranged. See whales, icebergs, and seabirds. Meet the descendants of the Irish who settled here and retain a strong brogue, a quick wit and lively music. Or, take a guided hike in Gros Morne National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site famed for its fjords, scenery, and, well, trails. Let the experts take you to the best locations – and get you back again.
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Gros Morne inspires all who visit, but artists really get off here. Gros Morne Theatre Festival features local plays, stories and music performed by a professional troupe. Gros Morne Summer Music is a classical festival feature top international musicians. An offshoot, Earth to Human, carries the festival’s theme of environmental responsibility to a new level with lectures and tours of significant ecological and cultural sites in western Newfoundland. Writers at Woody Point allows festival-goers to chat with authors in an informal setting. All are happening during the summer of 2006.
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Battle Harbour on the coast of Labrador was bypassed by modern times, and many of its rustic charms and buildings remain as they were originally. Bed down without electricity, if that’s your thing, and experience what true quiet is like. It was from here that Commodore Peary telegraphed to the world that he had reached the North Pole. Learn more at www.battleharbour.com.
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Before he founded a colony in the Chesapeake Bay area, Lord Baltimore tried his luck at Ferryland in Newfoundland. It didn’t work out for him, but those who came after prospered. Contemporary colonies were established in Cupids – actually the first English colony in Canada – and at Placentia, where the French ruled for a century. There are digs at Ferryland and Cupids, and a National Historic Site at Placentia. All three are on the Avalon Peninsula and can be explored during a short break.
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The eastern edge of North America – a.k.a. Newfoundland and Labrador – hosted a bevy of pioneering aviators, like Alcock and Brown who made the first successful Atlantic air crossing, and Amelia Earhart, the first woman to fly the Atlantic solo. The airfield from which she took off remains as green and inviting today as it was then. Lindbergh, the Pan-American American Clippers, and Ferry Command all left their mark here in aviation history. Discover the stories at the North Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, and then explore the sites where it all happened.
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The Johnson Geo Centre in St. John’s was built in a lake – after it was drained, of course, so its walls could tell part of the rocky story of this planet, using the ample geology of Newfoundland and Labrador as illustration. The No. 2 mine on Bell island, just a few miles and a short ferry ride away, shows the practical application of geological knowledge to mining iron ore. These mines operated for 70 years, and its wharves were targets for German U-Boats in World War II. They make a complementary duo just right for a short break.
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More than 50 navigation lights doe the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador, but only two offer accommodation in traditional lightkeepers’ quarters. Cape Anguille Lighthouse Inn is in southwestern Newfoundland and offers guests no TV, no telephone, and no smoking. Just quiet, golf nearby, bird watching, and many other treats. Quirpon (pronounced car-poon) Lighthouse Inn has the longest iceberg and whale watching season on the Island of Newfoundland. It’s located on an island near where the Vikings established the first European settlement in North America 1000 years ago.
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Off the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador is where the confluence of the frigid Labrador Current and the warm Gulf Stream over a shallow continental shelf creates an oceanic nursery where marine life explodes with productivity all along the food chain. For more than five centuries this productivity has sustained the economy of Newfoundland and Labrador, from the early days of the European migratory fishery to today. Catching fish is still a mainstay, but marine nature viewing on a grand scale - thousands of humpback and minke whales, millions of seabirds and 5,000-year-old icebergs - combine for a unique triple treat that attracts nature enthusiasts from around the world.
You can take more than 60 tour boats to see whales, birds, and bergs. A favourite viewing area is the Witless Bay Ecological Reserve just south of St. Johns, where one of the favourite birds is the colouful Atlantic Puffin, the province's official bird. On shore you can hike the East Coast Trail that winds hundreds of kilometres along this rugged shore, visiting centuries old fishing villages where Irish culture is strong and vibrant.
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The first people known to have lived in Newfoundland and Labrador were aboriginal hunters who moved into southern Labrador following the retreat of the glaciers about 9,000 years ago. The oldest known funeral monument in North America is here at LAnse Amour, constructed 7,500 years ago by the Maritime Archaic People, long before the pyramids were built. Whalers from the Basque country lit the oil lamps of Europe from the blubber rendered at a whaling station at Red Bay in the 17th century. They built it here because whales migrated this way - and still do. Today the area is a National Historic Site. The first people to live in Newfoundland probably crossed the Strait of Belle Isle between Labrador and Newfoundland. The first Europeans to reach North America, Vikings from Greenland and Iceland, built a settlement near the northern tip of Newfoundland 1,000 years ago - half a millennium before Columbus and Cabot and Corte Real. Its now a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the only authentic Viking site in North America.
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Along the northwest coast of Newfoundland at Port au Choix, a barren peninsula juts into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, bringing the resources of the sea just a bit closer than adjoining areas. Thats why Maritime Archaic, Dorset, French, English, and other people have lived here for thousands of years. The archaeological resources are still being discovered, but the National Historic Site at Port au Choix tells the stories of the people who lived here.
The bounty of the sea is what ties all these peoples together. Bones found in middens thousands of years old tell of a way of life remarkably similar to that lived today. Only the technology seems to have changed. A visit to this part of the coast lets you touch, see, explore, and witness the enduring power of the sea on peoples lives.
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Geologists discovered a thing or two about continental drift in Newfoundland and Labrador. In Gros Morne National Park, also a UNESCO World Heritage Centre, are rare rocks that were forced from deep in the earth by unimaginable tectonic forces. These Tablelands, as they're called, resemble buttes from the American badlands, and are just one geological attraction in the park. Fjords are another. Carved by glaciers, these fresh-water lakes with high, steep sides are reminiscent of those found in Norway. Of course, in both areas glaciers carved the landscape. And in Newfoundland and Labrador, what's known as a lake elsewhere is here referred to as a pond, a relatively small body of water. Not many people would call Western Brook Pond a pond, because its a huge fjord. You can take a boardwalk to the pond and catch a boat tour of the fjord where you can look up, look way up - more than 2,000 feet - to the top.
The geologists also noticed that the trilobite fossils in Gros Morne were different than those in eastern Newfoundland. The Gros Morne fossils matched those found in the Appalachian Mountains, of which the hills in Gros Morne are a northerly extension. The fossils in eastern Newfoundland matched those found in southern Spain and Morocco, and the case for continental drift was proved.
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In todays polyglot world, its unusual to find a place as homogeneous as Newfoundland and Labrador. Here, 95 per cent of the population can trace its routes to a handful of counties in southwest England and southeast Ireland. Aboriginals have been here for thousands of years. And in the first couple of centuries after the Europeans arrived, Portuguese, Spanish, Basque, French - and even Dutch and Welch - fished these waters, but few stayed. It was only the English and Irish who took to the place in any number, and they had to adapt to a much more robust environment than that of their home counties. But adapt they did, surviving factionalism, catch failures, bad weather, and worse luck. That's bred a unique outlook on life, including the ability to laugh at ourselves for the foolish creatures we are. The natural environment here instills humility. That great big ocean with all its resources and romance can turn from life giver to life taker in a minute. The remarkable stories of the peoples who have lived here over the ages is told at ten national historic sites, nine provincial historic sites and 150 community museums.
The remoteness of Newfoundland and Labrador from the warp and woof of the world in past centuries preserved language and music that died out elsewhere. In tiny fishing villages on Newfoundlands northeast coast, peopled by ancestors from England, you can still hear words and expressions commonly used in Shakespeare s day. And the music? Well, its literally taken the world by storm the past few years as bands like Great Big Sea have brought the Newfoundland version of Celtic rock to a worldwide audience. Books, movies, theatre, paintings, crafts - all have flourished in the past quarter-century, as well, drawing on deep wellsprings of culture.
That reliance on the eternal sea lends a timeless quality to the natural and cultural attractions, so much so that we say: come to the place that stays the same, but will change you forever.
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For more information, please contact Gillian Marx: Email gmarx@gov.nl.ca, Tel 709-729-2832.
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