North by Northeast

Delayed post because there was no wifi on the ferry. Yesterday was our last day in Newfoundland, but we packed a lot in! It was a beautiful day- bright sun and upper 70s- probably the best weather we’ve had since arriving here. A few days ago we read about several geological sites in the Port aux Port area, and since it was on our route south back to the ferry we decided to stop there. We’d driven the coastal route around this peninsula two weeks ago on the morning we got off the ferry, but it was overcast and rainy so we figured it would be fun to see the views in the bright sunshine. It was totally worth the side trip! We wanted to see a coastal feature known as the “folded rocks.” Online sources said to stop at the nearby convenience store to ask for specific directions to the site, which we did, and were given parking directions a short distance down the road and told to just walk down the beach til we got there. I think I talked about this last time, but Newfoundlanders are not ...

Today was another beautiful day on the west coast- a mixture of sun and clouds and I think it topped out around 80 degrees. On July 4th I’m thinking about how nice it’s been to not be bombarded by American political news (or really anything American) for the past two weeks. We headed north today into Gros Morne National Park to have a really good hike. Earlier in the trip we were able to take a shortish hike in Twillingate to the sea arch there. We had lots of options for what looked like great hikes around St. John’s including trails in the coastal hills that surround the city, but the weather put an end to that! We drove through Gros Morne last time we were here and were able to stop at several lookout points as well as the great interpretive centers at the north and south ends of the park. It covers almost 700 square miles on the central western coast and the unique natural landscapes of the park make it a UNESCO World Hertiage Site. The park includes fjords, baby glaciers, and j...

Today we travelled back across the province from the east coast to the west, which is a seven hour drive along the Trans-Canada Highway. There really aren’t any alternate routes- the majority of central Newfoundland is uninhabited by humans and unimproved except for snowmobile/ATV trails. We broke this drive up on the first part of the trip- staying one night in Corner Brook, then two nights in Twillingate, then one night in Trinity/Port Rexton before landing in St. John’s. It was a long drive to come back to Corner Brook in one shot, but we decided we wanted to spread out our driving days and we’ll be able to stay on the west coast for two nights and just about two full days before we head for the ferry back to Nova Scotia.   We left St. John’s under cloudy, damps skies but it didn’t take long for the sun to come out and the temperature to go up, up, up as we moved west. Finally! By the time we arrived in Corner Brook it was in the low 80s with bright sun in a cloudless blue sky...

  Newfoundlanders have a lot words and phrases to describe the weather, and today is definitely what they would refer to as a “ mausey day ;”   overcast, rainy, and foggy. It rained alllll day today with on and off low fog, but since we knew it was going to be a wash out day we tried to plan some indoor or at least minimally outdoor activities. First up was breakfast at Rocket Bakery in downtown St. John where they are know for their raspberry flakie . It was really good! Then we headed to the Johnson Geo Centre , an earth science museum that’s part of Memorial University. One very cool feature is that the building is cut into the rock of Signal Hill, so part of the interior foundation wall is exposed bedrock. Today with all the rain there were actually small rivulets of water running down the walls. We got to see displays about a lot of the geological wonders we’ve seen on our two trips to Newfoundland which was pretty cool. The place was crawling with kids today but the mu...

Today is Canada Day (also known as Dominion Day) which celebrates the 1867 Canadian Confederation when the colonies of United Canadas, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick were joined to create the Dominion of Canada within the British Empire. Newfoundland was its own dominion until 1949, and since 1917 it also celebrates Memorial Day on July 1- so two national holidays in one here! This year Memorial Day in St. John’s is even more significant because it marks the one hundred year anniversary of the city’s National War Memorial which commemorates Newfoundland’s soldiers who fought in World War I. As part of the centennial, the remains of an unknown Newfoundland soldier who died in France were returned a month ago and today there was a huge ceremony where they were entombed in the monument. Princess Anne, who is the colonel in chief of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment (you probably know this if you’ve watched The Crown) and the president of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, was supposed...

  Today’s explorations shifted a bit from natural to cultural. We visited the Colony of Avalon National Historic Site in Ferryland, located on the eastern shore of the Avalon peninsula. The Ferryland Site is a 1621 English commercial fishing plantation and the oldest sustained colonial settlement on Newfoundland. One of the oldest English colonies in North America. The site was settled on a narrow protected peninsula with a good harbor and was founded by George Calvert who was the First Lord of Baltimore. He didn’t last very long because he couldn’t deal with the cold and the climate and later got a royal charter to start another colony to the south in what later became Maryland (he died before it was established so his son became the governor). The colony served as the seat of Newfoundland’s English colonial government until the 1690s when the French attacked the settlement.   The site is managed by the Colony of Avalon Foundation , so one of the few historic sites in the...