New Found Newfoundland
We continued our exploration of the Canadian provinces by visiting Newfoundland and Labrador. This was Tim’s first visit, and my second, having visited, and in fact driven completely across Newfoundland island, twice, in the 1990s. Technically, we visited the Newfoundland part of the province although the name incorporates both very different regions. Labrador is the mainland part of the province, bordering Quebec and the territory of Nunavut. Labrador is very lightly populated aside from a couple of towns that either support enormous mining operations and/or the Canadian military. There are also some traditional “outports” that continue to survive that are only accessible via either government ferry or small planes. While Newfoundland has some of these outports as well, it is a way of life that is dying due to the collapse of the fisheries of the Grand Banks. Odd as it may seem when visiting, Newfoundland is the decidedly more developed and populated part of the province even though that is a hard sell to someone smack in the middle of the mostly empty space in the middle of the island driving across the Trans-Canada highway, which either starts, or ends, depending on your perspective and starting point, in the capital, St. John’s.
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Getting to Toronto
We chose to visit St. John’s because it is by far the easiest part of Newfoundland to access. Granted, you can’t really drive to Newfoundland since it is an island, but you can take a car ferry or fly in. While there are several other towns in Newfoundland that receive air traffic, St. John’s is the only one available through Delta, our hometown airline that we use essentially exclusively. Delta planes don’t actually land in Newfoundland, instead they operate code-shares with WestJet, a Canadian airline, second only to Air Canada in its home country for volume of passengers and flights. WestJet is a low-cost airline akin to Southwest in the United States and we were apprehensive about flying with them since we have no status and no familiarity as we do with Delta. As the name implies, the airline was founded in Western Canada in 1996. The airline has grown routinely since that time and now has international routes including service to several cities in the United States. The St John’s service is routed through Toronto and/or through Halifax, either of which are accessible with Delta directly from Atlanta, although in the end we would chose Toronto because Delta has many more flights there than to the much smaller market of Halifax. The Delta flight was uneventful although we did experience the new Maynard Jackson International Terminal at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. We didn’t like the fact that parking requires the use of shuttle system since parking, aside from very pricey hourly parking, is not available adjacent to the terminal, thus meaning that we have to add at least 30 minutes to our departure time for arrival at the airport. The terminal is of course brand-spanking new, having only opened a few weeks prior so it is nice and clean. The architecture is soaring and there are lots of windows and open space. Sadly, the only departing flights we noted were an Air Canada flight and a flight to New Orleans, not exactly exciting “international” destinations, but we were there at the slow time of the day; in the late afternoon, much more exotic destinations would be serviced. The SkyClub was nice and new, again with lots of open spaces and windows, but oddly, only two stalls in the men’s room, which seemed a bit small to me. Anyway, our flight to Toronto was on time and completely uneventful as our upgrades had come through 6 days prior, although I was surprised at the large number of people wanting to get to Toronto on one five flights per day.
Once in Toronto we easily cleared Immigration and Customs. I know it is their job, but they always seem so suspicious of why you would want to visit Canada. We used coupons from WestJet for reduced cost admission to a lounge at Pearson International Airport that proved to be decent enough if a bit pricey at $25CAN per person.
Getting to St. John’s
We boarded our flight without incident and were treated to the privilege of priority boarding because we booked into the exit rows. Now, to be clear, when you buy a ticket with WestJet, you do not buy a seat. You buy the seat, optionally, at an extra cost based on the duration of the flight. Otherwise, you wait until no more than 24 hours prior to departure to choose a seat, or wait for luck of the draw. With a 3-3 configuration on all of the Boeing 737 aircraft, which is all that WestJet flies, again, modeled on Southwest, you stand a decent chance of ending up in the middle seat if you don’t pre-choose, and pay for the privilege. Exit rows are an additional charge for the extra leg room. We lucked into row 11, D and E, which is the only row with only two seats although still limited leg room compared to row 12, but row 10 can’t recline into you as you are technically in an exit configuration. It was entertaining to watch passengers in front of us repeatedly try to force a recline when there wasn’t even a button for the option! Unfortunately for us, and for our initial impression of WestJet, the equipment was late which meant that we boarded late and would depart late on a flight that was already scheduled to arrive slightly after midnight. Then, two passengers with checked bags failed to show up for the flight, which I totally don’t understand how your bags make it but you don’t, which means that legally, for safety, they had to locate and remove those bags from the luggage hold. These delays added up to slightly over an hour meaning we now had no chance to arrive in St. John’s before 1:30am NDT! Suffice it to say we were tired and irritated and the tension in row 11 was pretty steep between the two of us. Insult was added to injury when the food for sale cart proved to be sold out by the time it reached us in the middle of the plane (they started from the front and back) so we had to content ourselves food-wise with some crackers and processed cheese product. We survived the flight, yes, but we weren’t too happy about it some three plus hours later. And yes, we realize that our experience is the norm for most travelers these days, but honestly, how could you tolerate those seats and that service for, say, a flight to Tokyo that is 14+ hours! If I had to hate the process of getting to my vacation that much, I think I might just stay home. Thankfully, being Diamond Medallions with Delta eliminates most of that pain! And did I mention that you could have a blanket on WestJet? Yep, no problem, only $3.25CAN, credit or debit only please! NOTHING with WestJet is complimentary, and you can bet that the price of that ¼ can of soda they “gave” you is built in somewhere.
Despite it all, we arrived, swearing we would NEVER fly WestJet again. Finding food at 1:30am in St. John’s meant a gas station store for foraging for nasty pre-packaged sandwiches and chips. But at least, unlike in Seattle, our late arrival at the Marriott Courtyard hadn’t resulted in our room being given away; we crashed and burned grateful for a place to sleep!
A Bit of General Information about St. John’s
With a population of almost 200,000, roughly 40% of the provincial population lives in greater St. John’s, and it is in fact the 20th largest city in Canada. The province was devastated in the 1990s by the loss of the cod fishing industry, but recent off-shore oil finds have revitalized the city and province, slowing, if not completely reversing, the former mass flight of residents to particularly Alberta to find jobs in the Edmonton area with the oil sands projects. St. John’s is also an old city, with year round occupation established by 1620 and seasonal population long before that. The city claims to be the oldest in North America, but this claim is disputed by the city of Cupids, as well as by Harbour Grace, both also located in Newfoundland. This doesn’t even consider the claim of St. Augustine, Florida. It all seems to come down to how you define things like “founded,” “established,” and other modifiers including “town” versus “city.” I think can all agree that a city that was permanently populated by 1620 is quite old at the very least.
Signal Hill
We started our investigation of St. John’s with a trip up Signal Hill and to Cabot Tower. Signal Hill is a hill which overlooks the city of St. John’s. It is the location of Cabot Tower which was built in 1897 to commemorate the 400th anniversary of John Cabot’s discovery of Newfoundland, and Queen Victoria‘s Diamond Jubilee. The first transatlantic wireless transmission was received here by Guglielmo Marconi on December 12, 1901. Today, Signal Hill is a Canadian National Historic Site and remains incredibly popular amongst tourists and locals alike; 97% of all tourists to St. John’s visit Signal Hill. The views from the top on a clear day simply can’t be beaten. We continued our exploration on foot along the waterfront streets full of shops and restaurants. In addition, we booked our tickets for the whale and puffin watching cruise the following day.
Colorful Houses and Hills
Some say that St. John’s is reminiscent of San Francisco because of the steep hilly topography, with some streets actually being staircases, and because of the very colorful clapboard houses and shops that line the streets. Some claim that this style of house painting was popularized in the outports to make it easier to identify the harbor from at sea when weather was foggy, as it often is. I can’t say whether this is true or not, but there are many streets in St. John’s, especially Victoria Street, that are beautifully painted and maintained, despite the ravages of the cold and sea air. The colored houses are a popular point of folk art, making their appearance in crafts ranging from painting on canvas and paper to ornaments and wooden decorations. They even grace the wrappers of the local gourmet chocolates.
Pubs, Food, and Money
St. John’s has its rowdy side to be sure, with the pubs of George Street hopping late into the night with local music. The local music and the local vocabulary and accent are both reminiscent of the Scots-Irish who first settled the island. You can easily distinguish most locals by the distinctive lift of their voice.
Another characteristic of the island that will characterize your visit is the sheer cost of most everything. Meals in standard cafes on the main streets will cost a minimum of $20CAN per main dish and it only goes up from there. And don’t count of the food being anything to write home about either. Let’s just say that you don’t generally come to Canada for the quality of the food. I love Canada with all my heart and soul, but it can be bitter hard to find a decent tasty meal! You can eat a bit more cheaply by sticking to pub fare but the lower prices are compensated for by the volume of the music and the potential inebriation of the crowd. You won’t get away with much of anything on the cheap in St. John’s, at least not in summer, the few months of the year when tourists descend in relative mass numbers. I first visited in November and I don’t recall the expense, although I do recall lots of things being flat out closed down for the winter. I think prices rise during the 2-3 months of the high season to try and stock up cash sales for the leaner winter months.
Tim Horton’s Anyone?
An absolutely beloved Canadian stand-by is of course Tim Horton’s. You can’t spit without hitting one of these places, which seem to me to be a donut shop on steroids in that they have some other food-stuffs, but the bulk of it seems to be coffee and donuts. They are always packed and they are literally everywhere, even in gas stations and airports. Tim liked the maple-iced item they had the last time we were in Canada, but they didn’t have them now as it was a special deal item at the time, although you would think it would fit the general theme of Canada all the time. We did one night succumb to impulse and hunger and bought some donuts that might have been fresh at about 6am but certainly were not when we got hold of them. I don’t think I will ever completely understand the nationwide appeal of Tim Horton’s and honestly can’t think of a comparable phenomenon in the United States. Waffle House comes close in the South of the United States, but it actually serves a wide variety of food, certainly not just donuts (they don’t have them at all actually) and certainly NOT pancakes!
Woolens
One of the most exceptional of the local crafts for sale, at NONIA, was hand-knitted woolen sweaters, blankets, caps, mittens, etc. that are made by local “empty-nesters” to supplement incomes and to stave off boredom in retirement. Certainly one could buy a sweater for a great deal less money if you wanted a machine loomed acrylic, but I thought the prices on the hand-woven woolens, about $180CAN for a man’s large sweater in a cable knit, were really quite reasonable considering the investment of both time and wool. Suffice it to say that I came home with a beautiful piece of sweater craft in blue along with a hand-loomed Newfoundland commemorative blanket. I also greatly enjoyed several of the antique stores along Duckworth Street in addition to the numerous attractions along Water Street.
The Rest of the Island and the Rest of the Province
I certainly would not want to imply that the sum of Newfoundland attractions can be found in St. John’s because that is simply not true. St. John’s is located on the Avalon Peninsula which has numerous attractions of its own, particularly along the rocky coastline. One of the most intriguing, to my mind, of the possibilities is a trip by ferry or short plane hop to a tiny bit of France, in the form of the islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon, just off the southern coast. Everything about the islands is French from the language to the food to the Euro and yes, passports are required! In addition, the farther afield Bonavista Peninsula and the islands of Twillingate win rave reviews. All the way across the island on the western edge are the twin attractions of Gros Morne National Park and the historic site of L’Anse aux Meadows, the site of a former Viking village dated to be about 1,000 years old. The attractions of the Labrador portion are more primal in nature, the Artic coastal landscape and the massive and seemingly endless boreal forests. The problem with sightseeing in Newfoundland is that you either need massive amounts of time to transit between attractions, or you need to spend a great deal of money on air transportation to move about on small regional airlines. Barring either the time or the money, Newfoundland and Labrador has to be taken in small chunks, and St. John’s is a perfectly reasonable chunk to start with.
Moving South
Our next day was planned for some early shopping at locations that had been closed the day prior (I know, I rag on people for excessive shopping and then even at the ends of the Earth, there I am, credit card in hand…) and then moving south to Bay Bulls, a small fishing village, for a whale and puffin watching tour with O’Brien’s, a long-time local operator of such tours. As we traveled south we noticed that alongside the road utility poles were not necessarily sunk into the ground, but were instead supported in massive boxes filled with rocks. We could only guess that the soil is too thin and gives way quickly to rock, similar to the situation in Ontario above Lake Superior, to actually bury poles. After all, Newfoundland Island is referred to as “The Rock” for a reason. Geologically, it is very old, with exposed rock as old as the formation of the Earth itself, and top soil is admittedly minimal. It was another reminder of how something so familiar can take on a very unusual aspect given such a different location.
Buying Warmth
Part of our shopping was to buy enough warmth to survive the boat tour. We knew that temperatures in St. John’s would be in the 50’s for the highs, so we did take long sleeves and jackets, but we wanted something extra having felt the bite of the wind and knowing that on the water everything gets wetter, windier, and colder. I ended up with an undershirt, a long sleeve flannel shirt, a hooded sweatshirt, a hooded rain poncho, and finally my jacket over it all. It was just enough!
Whale and Puffin Watching
The boat was rough but I think it was well worth it. We located a pod of about 4 humpback whales, one of which had a calf. The sheer enormity of these creatures has to be seen to be believed. We are talking about a 50 foot long animal that weighs in at up to 80,000 pounds (that’s forty TONS) that manages to appear graceful in the water. It stuns and saddens me to think how many were formerly slaughtered just for their oil and bone, and it infuriates me that the Japanese and the Norwegians (amongst others) insist on continuing the slaughter when very viable replacements are available for all except the meat, and that is a taste I think they could learn to do without given the consequences for such ultimately fragile populations. They are huge creatures, but size doesn’t protect them from diminishment in the face of human rapacity. Granted, it must be born in mind that 98% of whale watching is waiting for something to be seen, but the 2% of the time when you can see the whales makes up for the cold and the wait. The whales only come to Newfoundland in the summer, spending the winter, like many Canadians do, in the Caribbean! We were also treated to a species of dolphin, white-sided I believe they were, seals of a species I don’t recall, along with large numbers of gannets diving into the ocean. Another main attraction was a visit to a large breeding colony of pelagic seabirds including puffins, kittiwakes and common murres. Literally millions of seabirds come ashore in Newfoundland during the summer to lay eggs and raise their fledglings. These are birds that otherwise spend their entire lives at sea, but they have to have land to lay an egg. Murres and kittiwakes lay eggs on bare rock, but the eggs don’t roll off because they are shaped with flat sides to prevent this, while puffins burrow up to six feet into the soil farther above the cliffs. Puffins are awkward on land, similar to penguins, and also not graceful in flight as they most closely resemble a flying baked potato, but they are master swimmers. Their colorful faces and comical expressions make them popular for stuffed animals sold widely around town as well as gracing many a postcard and painting. I had also seen them in Iceland, but in Newfoundland we had a much closer and better gander (also a town in central Newfoundland, Gander that is).
Cape Spear
On our return drive, we drove out to Cape Spear which is generally considered to be the easternmost point in North America. This can be disputed if you consider Greenland to be a part of continental North America, and if you don’t get technical about the parts of Alaska that lie to the west of the 180 degree of longitude. Suffice it to say that Cape Spear is GENERALLY considered the easternmost point, and is decidedly where Canada either begins, or ends, again depending on your perspective. The Cape is home to a lighthouse, both a modern automated one and the traditional one kept by the same family for generations, as well as the remains of gun emplacements intended to protect North America from a Nazi invasion that never came.
The Return Home
Since our flight back to Toronto was scheduled to depart at 6am, we returned to St. John’s for a delightful meal in a restaurant most famous for their breakfasts (we tried to have breakfast there but the wait was interminable). We actually went to bed by 8:30pm, which made getting up before 4am much easier. We actually had to de-ice the plane prior to departure, even in June, but otherwise the return to Toronto was pretty standard with the same seats and the predictable ill-behaved child with helpless parents. I would have been delighted to beat the creature senseless for the duration of the flight but I didn’t expect that offer to be favorably received so I focused on my reading and was happy to find that when not exhausted and hungry WestJet didn’t offend quite as badly as it had before and I would be willing, if absolutely necessary to get somewhere I really wanted to go, to fly with them again. Maybe. Delta brought me home in first class comfort exactly on time.
Final Thoughts
I give Newfoundland in general and St. John’s in particular, my heartiest of recommendations as a destination for traveler’s interested in shopping, in nature, in the pub scene, the music scene, or in Canada in general. We ultimately had a delightful time and I am confident that other travelers will as well in the days, weeks, and years to come.