Rolling Around the Rock Part 2: West to the Spectacle of Nature

This post is the second of a series drawn from a trip to Newfoundland

which my husband Massi and I made way back in 2006. 

For me, it was a return trip, but for Massi it was a first visit. 

I've tried to confine myself in these blog posts to

information which will be useful and not outdated by 2019.

On my first visit to Newfoundland, back in the 1990s, I badly underestimated the size of the place.  I tried to drive from St. John's all the way to Corner Brook on the west coast, after arriving at St. John's airport around noon.  Daylight ran out on me before I got very far past Grand Falls, and I had a white-knuckle drive in the dark, hanging onto the tail of a transport truck the rest of the way.  Why, you ask?  The island of Newfoundland is the worst place in the world to have a collision on the highway with a moose.

Moose were introduced to the island back in the day, when people didn't understand the checks and balances of nature.  With no natural predators, the moose population has multiplied mightily.  These animals may be relatives of the deer, and herbivores, but they are massive -- full-grown adult moose can easily weigh a ton.  A collision with a car at highway speed will certainly kill the moose, but the animal will probably come right down on top of the car and kill the occupants as well.  In a typical year, there will be hundreds of moose/vehicle collisions in the island of Newfoundland.

Just the year before I took that first trip, three people had died in moose/car collisions right near my home in Elliot Lake, Ontario -- and just before that transport truck came along west of Grand Falls I had seen two moose in 10 minutes by the roadside in the dusk.  I wasn't taking any chances.

These two internet photos will give you the idea.  For all their size, moose can run very quickly and can pop out onto the road with no warning.

The aftermath of a moose-car collision.  It isn't pretty.

Moral: 

Do not, repeat, 

DO NOT 

plan a nighttime drive 

across Newfoundland.

So, on the 2006 visit which I'm describing here, we split the trip in two with an overnight stop in Gander.

Gander is a small town, but it has a number of hotels and restaurants, and a large airport/air force base, and is home to several thousand of the world's most hospitable people.  That was amply proven on 9-11, when dozens of transatlantic aircraft had to land in Gander, and the local population opened their homes, their hearts, and their wallets to help care for, feed, and house the thousands of passengers and crew members until the airways reopened.  

The story of those events has been movingly retold in the international hit musical show Come From Away.  In Newfoundland English, "come from away" is used as a noun to identify a person not born on the island ("He's a come from away.").

The drive from St. John's to Gander was an easy 4½ hour drive with stops.  Along the way there were a couple of scenic views worth enjoying -- a rocky stream at Ivany Cove...

...and "Joey's View" at Gambo, named after the province's first premier after Newfoundland joined Canada, Joey Smallwood.  Gambo was Joey's home town, and he loved to come up to this viewpoint.

In Gander itself, we visited a sombre reminder of the worst air tragedy ever to occur on Canadian soil.  On December 12, 1985, an Arrow Air stretched DC-8 with 256 people aboard crashed on takeoff after a refueling stop at Gander Airport.  There were no survivors of the military charter flight.  The memorial stands on a hill overlooking a clearing through the forest down to the shores of Gander Lake.  That clearing was torn through the forest by the plane as it crashed.  The cross at the bottom of the hill was sculpted from the plane's wing.  I remember vividly reading all about this terrible disaster when it happened, and I found the memorial intensely moving.  The soldier is depicted gazing out in the direction of his military home base, the 101st Airborne Division's headquarters at Fort Campbell, Kentucky.

We also found the people of Gander very hospitable and friendly -- they're not just like that in emergency situations.  After checking in at the hotel and having a nap, there was time for a side trip north to the shoreline town of Twillingate.  At one time, this trip would have involved several ferry crossings from island to island, but the road now crosses all the channels by bridges or causeways, and it's an easy drive from Gander as you traverse the evocatively named New World Island on the way.  Twillingate itself is a peaceful place, but becomes more of a tourist attraction in the spring months as the ocean currents obligingly drift many of the huge icebergs from the north right up to this part of the Newfoundland coastline.

The next morning, bright and early in beautiful sunny weather, we were off and away to the west coast via the zig-zag Trans-Canada Highway.  Consult a map today, and you'll find "T'Railway" marked on -- this is a hiking trail along the former right-of-way of the Newfie Bullet.  You'll notice that it cuts off a huge bend in the highway between Badger and Deer Lake.  But don't be deceived.  The railway builders mistakenly located that portion of the line across the high plateau of the Topsail Range, and the winds and snows up on that plateau proved to be so ferocious that trains periodically had to come to a stop and have the cars chained to the rails so they wouldn't be flung off the track by the howling gusts.

So the modern highway detours around the Topsails, although it does give you an eyeful of some sizable mountains along the way.

At Deer Lake, it's time to leave the TCH and -- after a stop at the all-essential Tim Horton's -- to set out on Highway 430, which runs all the way to the northern tip of the island.  But for this day, it's enough to drive northwest an hour or so into Gros Morne National Park, to the fishing port of Rocky Harbour, which is the main service centre in the park.  Here you can find motels, restaurants, gas stations, and a very large and completely accessible public indoor swimming pool.  Rocky Harbour's biggest attraction is the scenic bay, placid in the early morning, glorious at sunset.

Gros Morne is the name of the largest mountain in the park, a brooding, hulking rocky ridge (seen here from the far side of Bonne Bay).  It's the highlight of several major-league hiking trails threading through the back country.

For more sedate tourists like us, the two scenic highlights of the park are found on boat cruises at two former fjords which are now enclosed fresh-water lakes: Trout River Pond and Western Brook Pond.  Western Brook Pond's spectacular scenery is well-known, but Trout River offers you a chance to get a close-up view of something that isn't visible anywhere else (as far as is known) on the entire surface of the earth.

Here's a map of the park to help you get oriented to where we went and what we saw.

To reach Trout River, we had to backtrack down Highway 430 to Wiltondale, just outside the National Park, and there turn west again along Highway 431 which runs along by or near the opposite (south) shore of Bonne Bay.  There are some lovely views along this road, which takes about an hour to drive.

That tall orange mountain looming in the distance looks peculiar, to say the least.

The road climbs up and away from Bonne Bay, and cuts across part of that plateau area with a rather odd appearance -- we noticed that there were almost no plants or trees growing anywhere on the orange areas.  It looked almost like a desert, but the climate here most certainly is not dry.

We then dropped downhill into the hamlet of Trout River, and followed the signs to the boat dock at the end of the road.  Almost as soon as we cruised out into the broad, placid waters of Trout River Pond, we saw two very oddly contrasting views.

That strange orange rock, which here appears on the north side of the pond, goes by the name of "The Tablelands," but it's the rock itself that is unusual. This is actually a protrusion of the earth's mantle, the layer that normally lies well hidden many kilometres beneath the outer crust of the planet. Mantle rock does not contain any of the nutrients necessary to the growth of surface plant life, so the only greenery on the Tablelands is seen where small pockets of more favourable soil have become trapped in folds of the sterile orange surface.

The mountains on the south side of the pond are composed of gabbro, a volcanic rock which does break down into usable nutrients and therefore holds much more greenery. The steeper hills on the south side continue plunging deep down under the water, a common feature of glacially-gouged valleys.

The rocks in this photo look much like the others -- but notice the striped rocks just above the waterline.  At the time when this strange portion of the earth's interior was uplifted, those striped rocks formed the Mohorovičić discontinuity (say that three times rapidly), the boundary zone between the crust and the mantle.  We can make life simpler -- it's often referred to in short form as "the Moho."

The guides on this cruise have a good working script that gives you just enough geological detail to truly understand this weirdly compelling place, without overwhelming you with too much technical scientific language.

The next day, we set out for the far north, stopping on the way (about 30 minutes north of Rocky Harbour) to take in Western Brook Pond.  Unlike Trout River Pond, you can't park at the boat dock.  We had to park in a parking lot next to the highway and then walk inland along an improved trail for about 3 kilometres (a bit less than 2 miles) to reach the shore of the pond itself.

Along this trail, we had our first encounter with a unique type of Newfoundland forest. These tangled and stunted trees which grow along or near many exposed coastal areas on the island are known to Newfoundlanders as "tuckamore."

The next section led across a boardwalk over a bog.  The white water whipping across the bog gives you a good idea of the wind that was blowing (normal).  What the water doesn't show you, the haze in the atmosphere does.  The air temperature at 9:30 in the morning was already up to 26 degrees Celsius (79 degrees Fahrenheit), and that is abnormally hot and sticky for Newfoundland, even in summer.  Those high temperatures persisted for most of the almost two weeks we were on the island.

In the distance we could clearly see the frowning walls of the Long Range Mountains across the water, and the deep cleft which is the glacier-carved scenic highlight of this place.

When we wound our way down to the boat dock, there were two vessels waiting.  Both were filled to capacity when the tour began.  You definitely need to make advance reservations for Western Brook Pond cruises; the last thing you want to do is to hike all along that trail and then find there are no seats available.

It takes about 2 hours to cruise up to the head end of the pond, and back again.  And with that, I'll just let my pictures of this awe-inspiring natural wonder speak for themselves.

Western Brook Pond may be the more spectacular sight, but Trout River Pond brings you face to face with a far more unusual phenomenon.  I strongly recommend that you give yourself enough time to take both trips.

After leaving Western Brook Pond, we carried on northwards to the most remote part of this unique island.

Rolling Around the Rock Part 1: Eastwards to Avalon

This post is the first of a series drawn from a trip to Newfoundland

which my husband Massi and I made way back in 2006. 
For me, it was a return trip, but for Massi it was a first visit. 
I've tried to confine myself in these blog posts to

information which will be useful and not outdated by 2019.

Compared to the vast landmass of mainland Canada, the island of Newfoundland doesn't seem terribly large -- at least, on a map.  But set out to travel around it, and you'll find that it's very big indeed, and requires a lot of time to do it justice.  This is not the place for a 48-hour express tour!  

If for no other reason, you'll want to spend a week or more on this island, fondly referred to by resident and expat alike as "the Rock," to get some flavour of a unique and highly developed local language and culture.  This culture is the product of centuries of relative isolation -- isolation from ancestral homelands in Ireland, Britain, and France, isolation from the rest of Canada, and isolation of one community from another.

In some respects, Newfoundland's cultural and linguistic heritage bears a passing resemblance to the Maritime provinces to the southwest.  By and large, though, "unique" remains the essential adjective.  One of the first indications you will see when you get there is the assortment of "intriguing" place names appearing on signs along the highways.

This backwards look at an extended 11-day visit from 13 years ago doesn't do much more than give a nod to the culture, for the simple reason that it's hard to photograph (apart from those signs).  I'm going to give you a photo tour of some of the parts of the Rock which we visited, and leave it up to you to go there and immerse yourself in this endlessly fascinating and austerely beautiful place.

Travel to Newfoundland is by air or sea only.  Although a road link to the continent of some kind is often discussed, it's never been built because the distance is too great and the volume of traffic too small.  For all practical purposes, such a link would likely have to be a tunnel because of the fierce storms, strong tidal currents, and heavy winter ice jams.

The government of Canada operates a year-round vehicle ferry service by Marine Atlantic, from North Sydney in Nova Scotia to Port aux Basques at the southwestern corner of Newfoundland.  In summertime, this main route is supplemented by a longer 3-times-weekly run from North Sydney to Argentia, much farther to the east.  Vehicle reservations are essential for the Argentia route and very nearly so at peak holiday times and in the summer for Port aux Basques.

If you choose to fly, there are direct flights into the capital of St. John's from Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, and Halifax.  You can also fly direct from Toronto to Deer Lake and Gander.  Smaller regional aircraft operate from Halifax and St. John's to Deer Lake, Stephenville, and Gander, while other flights go northwards to St. Anthony and on to Labrador.  We flew on a 3-hour nonstop from Toronto to St. John's, and rented a car.  

Travel Trivia:  The capital of Newfoundland is "St. John's."  

The port city in New Brunswick is "Saint John." 

Yes, the spelling matters -- obviously. 

Don't wind up in the wrong place!

Back in 2006, when we made this trip, unlimited-mileage rental car rates were already common everywhere in North America but the best we could get in Newfoundland was 100 free kilometres per day -- which didn't take us very far.  Yes, we put a great many kilometres on that car and yes, the rental company took a great many dollars off our hands.  Advance reservations for rental cars are also essential.  Or at least "very strongly recommended" -- which in every-day-speak means "essential."

To put that all into perspective, here's a map of the island of Newfoundland.

First question for many people is, "Why doesn't the Trans-Canada Highway go directly from Port aux Basques to St. John's?"  The answer is that the south coast is so rugged that many of the communities there have no road access at all, and are dependent on provincial government ferry services to keep them linked to the outside world.  These remote communities are the last of the "outports," the isolated coastal fishing villages formerly found all around the shores of Newfoundland and the many adjacent smaller islands.  Most of the outport villagers were relocated to larger centres during the 1950s and 1960s to allow for more efficient and reliable delivery of health care, education, and transportation services by the province.

At any rate, the road distance from Port aux Basques to St. John's is 905 kilometres, or about 550 miles, give or take a bit.  That long, winding, two-lane road explains the popularity of the summertime ferry to Argentia, a mere 135 kilometres (80 miles) from the capital.

Okay, enough background, already -- let's get rolling with a photo tour of St. John's.  This small city sprawls over the steep hills on all sides of the tightly-enclosed harbour.  The entrance channel, called The Narrows, is guarded on the north side by Signal Hill.  On the summit of Signal Hill is a small stone castle, renowned as the site at which Guglielmo Marconi claimed to have received the first radio signal transmitted wirelessly from Europe.

You can drive all the way to the summit of Signal Hill (if you choose to walk or bike, be warned that it is a stiff climb and usually very windy).  From the top, you get a splendid view back over the downtown area of the city.

From the summit you can look down onto the Narrows far below, and imagine how easy it would be to guard this harbour against any seaborne attack.  The Narrows is a shooting gallery -- it would be very difficult for gunners on either side to miss an enemy target entering the channel.

After you descend Signal Hill, swing around the north side (the back of the hill, so to speak), and you'll find the quaint old neighbourhood of Quidi Vidi village (that's pronounced "Kiddy Viddy," by the way).  

Quaintness of another kind is readily found in the streets of St. John's proper, where many of the old wooden houses -- Victorian and earlier -- are painted in assorted eye-catching colours.

Newfoundland and Labrador Travel photo

As in so many other places in Canada, established religion played a significant role in the life of St. John's in earlier days.  Here are pictures of the Anglican cathedral...

...and the imposing Roman Catholic basilica, a major landmark on the city skyline.

St. John's is a city of multiple museums, and one which I could not resist was the museum of railways, housed in the former railway station down near the waterfront.

The Newfoundland Railway was a narrow gauge line which crossed the province along a route more-or-less parallel to that now followed by the Trans-Canada Highway.  It was a challenging line to operate, and speeds were necessarily limited by the many curves, stations, and frequent problems with weather.  It's no wonder that the tediously slow passenger train from St. John's to Port aux Basques used to rejoice in the ironic nickname of "The Newfie Bullet."

One fascinating exhibit was this 1905 menu.  The prices certainly made my eyes pop, but we must recall that many workers were paid a dollar or less per day in 1905.

A relatively new arrival in 2006 was "The Rooms," a sizable cultural and museum space in a brand-new building punctuating the skyline of the hills north of the harbour.  Here's a view of the tall, glass-enclosed atrium lobby.

The main tenant of The Rooms is the provincial museum, which contains all kinds of fascinating exhibits and artifacts.  A terrace outside the building gives this grandstand view of the harbour, with Signal Hill in the background.

Downtown St. John's rises up quickly and steeply from the edge of the harbour.  Walking around in this town certainly gives you a good leg workout.  For visitors, the most important street is probably Water Street, parallel to the harbour, and home to an extraordinary variety of pubs and restaurants, many with live entertainment.  More spaces are occupied today by chain restaurants, but Water Street is still the easiest place to find multiple choices for good old Newfoundland food and good old Newfoundland music.  

If you've arrived in St. John's by air, as we did, you will also find yourself starting your language lessons here.  Newfoundland's version of English is so laden with unique words that a sizable, academic dictionary of Newfoundland English has been published.  Bring on the fish and brewis, cod tongues and scruncheons, and bakeapple pie!

A quick drive from St. John's to the southeast brings you to Cape Spear.  It's not a spectacular sight, by any means, but this flat headland is the most easterly point of North America -- and the next solid land over that horizon is in Europe.

Inland from the rocky shoreline, the grasslands were speckled with beautiful wild flowers.

St. John's lies on the eastern side of the Avalon Peninsula, a sizable chunk of land connected by only a fairly narrow strip to the main island.  Here's a map to show the routes we travelled around the Avalon Peninsula, on two day trips out of St. John's.

The Avalon Peninsula got its name from an early settlement south of St. John's, the Colony of Avalon.  The name was drawn from the mystical "island beyond the West" of Celtic mythology, but this Avalon proved to be a good deal more intractable than its mythical counterpart.  Before long, the leader of the settlers, Baron Baltimore, headed south to more fertile country with memorable historical results -- and his title now graces a major American city in the other colony he sponsored, Maryland.

The historic site of the Colony of Avalon just south of Ferryland was a fascinating look at an archaeological project in progress -- with slow and meticulous digging continuing, and reconstruction of historic buildings and facilities underway.

Misty days are not uncommon along this eastern coastline.  Sometimes, as here at Admiral's Cove, the mist lifts and thins out under the influence of the sun.

Another day was given over to the longer circle tour to Cape St. Mary's and Placentia Bay.  First stop was at Colinet, where a turbulent river tumbled over some ancient rock layers.

Continuing south towards Branch, you get a good look at the characteristic Newfoundland landscape features of moorland and the ancient, gnarled, and slow-growing trees of the coastal forests (the trees are often much more twisted and contorted than these ones).

Before the road turns west, you get a distant view of the prominent headland of Branch Head.

Arriving at Cape St. Mary's itself, down a narrow local road, you find a parking lot and a lengthy walking trail out towards the towering coastal cliffs.  At this point, my arthritic knees cast a deciding vote and I had to settle for some zoom lens photography from a distance.  

You have to look much more closely to make out the multiple little white spatters on those distant sloping rock faces.  Those are thousands upon thousands upon thousands of seabird nests, complete with comparable numbers of birds, of many different species.  Even at this distance, their squawking cries filled the air and beat on the ears.  The zoom lens helps a bit.

That large chunk in the middle, which goes by the prosaic name of "Bird Rock," is actually a rock stack, completely separated from the surrounding cliffs.  Here's an internet photo giving a closer view of the thousands of gannets nesting on top of the rock.

By Big iron - Own work, CC BY 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2543400

After leaving Cape St. Mary's, we continued west and north to Placentia Bay, where a more placid kind of scenic beauty was on display.  The entire coastal road along this side of the Peninsula swoops up and down steep hills, with numerous heart-stopping views at every bend and bay.  The scenery is very reminiscent of the far more famous Cabot Trail in Nova Scotia.

The Argentia ferry terminal is just a couple of kilometres from Placentia, so the highway from there back to St. John's is a straight, fast drive -- a real contrast to the twisting narrow roads which made up the rest of this circle tour.

In the next post, I'll be taking you north and west across the island to the scenic Long Range mountains which stretch along the entire west coast of the island from south to north -- the northernmost outliers of the Appalachian ranges.