Canada

St. John’s, Newfoundland: Out and About in Town

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St. John’s, Newfoundland: out and about in town St. John’s, Newfoundland, is the oldest city in North America. It’s farthest east, unless you count towns in Greenland. There have been ships in the harbor since the 1500s, probably earlier. The port was critical to North Atlantic convoys in World War II. Along with enjoying Newfoundland’s rugged beauty, there’s plenty to learn by staying a while in St. John’s. The Murray Premises Hotel is a National Historic Site on the waterfront, former warehouses that survived the great fires that you’ll learn about when you go. That sounded like a great reason to stay there. I found it to be a modern hotel that retains the character of its warehouse days, with old warehouse beams left visible. Some of the creaks are still there, too. Importantly to me, my room rate included breakfast, available only steps across a small second floor lobby from my room. The coffee and food choices were good, the staff congenial, and the room cozy. So even if it was a rainy cold day, which it was about half the time, I was fortified and ready. Most of the big hotel brands have a mid-range property in St. John’s and there is the usual assortment of B&Bs and vacation rentals. I went on an excursion with some women who were enjoying their stay in a pretty VRBO house up the hill. Good to know: A Lot of Uphill If you walk around St. John’s, you’ll be walking uphill a lot. Downtown St. John’s rises steeply from the harbor. It’s hard work to walk some of the streets, but you can find stairs here and there and footpaths through some neighborhoods. Crossing streets wasn’t bad. Drivers actually stopped without threatening pedestrians in zebra crossings. Still, I looked for quiet crossings with the fewest converging streets. Why tempt drivers coming from five directions, especially when two are downhill? Above all, wear good shoes. Also good to know: the great fires Nineteenth century fires periodically destroyed the congested, wooden city and harbor front. The Great Fire of 1892 destroyed two-thirds of the city and several ships. That fire started in a stable (does this remind anyone of the Chicago fire?) and burned most of downtown. Down on the harbor, the Murray Premises survived, as did the Catholic (now) Basilica of St. John the Baptist on top of the hill. Government buildings that were farther uphill beyond an undeveloped area survived. Guarding the harbor The Great Fire of 1892 figures into a lot of conversations today. Signs and plaques describe what was rebuilt after the fire and what survived. I walked uphill just about to the corner where the 1892 fire started, but didn’t see much except an ordinary street of small buildings. Not sure what I expected to see since there’s been plenty of time to rebuild. The Rooms – The Provincial Museum Don’t neglect The Rooms. Exhibits cover the diverse human and natural history of Newfoundland and Labrador, a unique, faraway, big place. There’s a lot for visitors to learn. I was going to miss the summer activities that were just about to get started, but I did get a feeling for the province in this modern, open building. I saved a visit to The Rooms for a rainy day and started at the top floor, working my way down. One special exhibition along with a series of events in 2016 commemorates the centennial of the World War I battle of Beaumont-Hamel. It was brutal, devastating, bloody. The Newfoundland Regiment was almost wiped out. When roll call was taken, only 68 men answered their names – 324 were killed, or missing and presumed dead and 386 were wounded. So many from a small place touched every family. The event is embedded in the province’s consciousness. As you look at the soldiers’ and nurses’ pictures, you see they look just like us. Not old fashioned. That’s just the clothes and maybe the haircuts. Look at their faces and think how appalling it all is. St John’s harbor Touring Around on Foot – Signal Hill and Quidi Vidi Village I was equipped with my list from TripAdvisor and eventually got maps of self-guided walking tours from the Visitor Center. My first day in St. John’s was sunny and I set out for Signal Hill, my longest walk and highest elevation. Signal Hill is on top of the cliffs that guard the north side of the harbor entrance. From Signal Hill you see clearly how narrow the entrance to St. John’s harbor is. Hence the entrance is called the Narrows. Makes sense. You can take a trail along the cliff face, or use sidewalks. I opted for sidewalks. Well, half way there I thought I was going to croak. And when I was sure I was almost there, I crested a hill and saw the rest of the climb ahead. So think about how you get there. Taxis and excursions are available. But if you’re game, try the cliffside trail, which I am sure is much more beautiful that the sidewalks. A woman at hotel reception told me that part of the trail is a narrow ledge with the water below. “But there’s a chain you can hold onto,” she continued. I decided not. Physically, OK, but mentally, no. Didn’t want to hold onto a chain and pussy-foot along the ledge. However, some nice people from New Jersey I met did that and they were fit and happy the next day. Now I’m sorry I didn’t try it. Colorful houses line the hillside Once on Signal Hill the views of the ocean and harbor are stunning. You’re looking out there into the North Atlantic, and you can feel that northern-ness. Cabot Tower on the hill offers a gift shop and small museum celebrating the earliest days of the wireless telegraph. Another first – St. John’s is where Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi received the first transatlantic telegraph signal. Part way back down, there’s

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St. John’s, Newfoundland: Puffins, Cod, Cod Tongues, and Farthest East

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St. John’s, Newfoundland: Puffins, Cod, Cod Tongues, and Farthest East I went to Newfoundland see the puffins as much as anything so let’s dive right in. There is a lot of other wildlife, but I had to see the puffins, so signed onto O’Brien’s Bay Bulls Boat Tour. There are never guarantees what you’ll see, but this was puffin nesting season and puffins were pretty much guaranteed unless they’d all flown off during the night. And we were guaranteed an iceberg, too, because one that had been floating south grounded itself in the bay. “Guaranteed to see an iceberg,” said the boat’s guide as we watched kayakers heading out to view it. Sunny, chilly. Wearing all of my layers and a new knit hat I’d had to buy in St. John’s because I was freezing. Our safety demo done and we were off, passing the berg and an oil rig that had stopped at the entrance to Bay Bulls on its way elsewhere. It was monstrous. Puffins Galore! And were there puffins? Yes! There were puffins! Lots of them, thousands. The puffins were flying around or sitting in long turf outside the burrows that they dig too deep for a gull or other predator to reach in and snatch an egg or chick. They dig them two or three feet inward with those little webbed feet and cute colorfulPuffins bills. Burrows were spaced out all over Gull Island’s steep grassy slopes, like a hilly neighborhood. Puffins fly very fast and beat their wings so fast that they’re a blur. They are just oblong things in the air. “Flying potato,” said our guide. This was perfect. A nice day, an easy swell, a lot of birds. Puffins, puffins everywhere Along with the puffins, there were thousands of murres, or turrs if you prefer, standing crowded together on bare rocks where they lay their conical eggs. Because of its shape the egg rolls in a circle instead of plopping off into the ocean. A young man at my hotel told me his grandfather eats turrs. “It tastes awful,” he said, adding that old timers like to eat turr because it had once meant they wouldn’t starve. He also told me that there are only about 200 people left in his home town, “and they’re all older than you.” A young man acutely attuned to old timers, I’d say. But back to birds. Black-legged kittiwakes were nesting on the rock faces. Not your average dumpster chicken, our guide said. These birds spend their lives at sea. Bald eagles nest in the area, and we saw an eagle fly-over scatter the adult murres nesting on the rocks. The adults all flew to the water leaving the eggs and chicks exposed. At that point the gulls had a feeding frenzy. It was a little depressing to watch but that’s real life nature. There were other sea birds also, which I won’t list, and a minke whale did a star turn but I was looking at something else. The captain turned to look for the whale but as the guide said, “that whale is 100 percent not interested in us.” And so it wasn’t. A cod and its tongue The cod fishery is central to the story of Newfoundland. A few years ago I read Cod; a biography of the fish that changed the world by Mark Kurlansky. The prologue opens in Petty Harbour, down a way from St. John’s, where I went one foggy, wet day. Cod fishing was the way of life, but in 1992 the Canadian government shut down the cod fishery that had collapsed from overfishing anyway. “The problem with the people in Petty Harbour, out there on the headlands of North America, is that they are on the wrong end of a 1,000-year fishing spree,” concludes Cod’s prologue. I think everyone eats cod some time or other. I like cod. Not as easy to get any more. But cod tongues? I found out that cod tongues are a local favorite, mostly fried, but there are other ways to serve them. They might be a local favorite, but none of the places I ate had cod tongues on the menu. Or I skipped by that item. Cod tongues aren’t really tongues. As I understand it, the “tongue” is a bit of meat at the base of the tongue. And then there are cod cheeks, too, meat also found in the head. Two men who had grown up when the fishery was still Newfoundland’s only way of life told me that when they were little, cutting cod tongues was how they earned money. They’d get the fish heads, cut out the tongues and cheeks, and get paid by the piece. The restrictions on fishing also limited seafood choices for restaurants, according to the June 2016 Westjet Magazine I thumbed through on the way home. But “just last year, officials relaxed the laws restricting direct wharf-to-restaurant sales.” So go, and enjoy the seafood offerings. Newfoundland has an abundance of creative chefs from what I’ve read, and I did eat well in St. John’s. Cape Spear – Where Canada Begins or Ends Another important place. This is the easternmost point in Canada and I had to be there. Newfoundland farthest eastI went via an excursion with two other people who I think had seen Cape Spear before. I alone got out of our van and walked the path to the edge of Canada through wind-blown drizzle, fog and cold. But then I thought “how North Atlantic” and enjoyed my moment staring out at the rocky edge of the nation. Even better, I thought this was the eastern tip of North America until I went on the O’Brien boat trip. Loyola O’Brien, one of the boat tour company founders (after the cod fishery shut down . . . ) told me Greenland is part of North American so I have to go there for farthest east. I was crushed. But Canada’s edge is pretty good!

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St. John’s, Newfoundland: North America’s Oldest City

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St. John’s, Newfoundland: North America’s Oldest City One day I realized that I hadn’t been anywhere in Canada for a while. As I thought more about it, my attention was drawn toward the east, toward Labrador and Newfoundland. Logistics to Labrador were tricky. Newfoundland is easy to get to, has a city to stay in, and is beautiful, rugged and remote. It’s a bit off the tourist trail for U.S. visitors. And it’s a long way away, about half way to London for us east coasters. A long way from the rest of Canada, too. What finally drew me there? Partly, it might have been that remoteness, that being on the edge. And maybe it was an old Audubon magazine with an article about puffins. They are so cute and the largest North American colony of Atlantic puffins is off Newfoundland. Then there are superlatives. Newfoundland is the easternmost tip of Canada. St. John’s is the oldest city in North America. I like the north. All these things came together over a few days and I decided to go. The Oldest City in North America – a Few Facts St. John’s is the capital of the Canadian Province of Newfoundland and Labrador. It’s remote, but then not so remote. From St. John’s to New York, it’s a four-hour flight. But it’s also only four and a half hours’ flying to London or Dublin. St. John’s is the easternmost city in North America. Cape Spear, just down the road is the eastern tip of Canada. It’s where they say Canada begins or ends, depending on which way you’re going. St. John’s harbor There is wildlife to see – there are those puffins and much besides, especially the moose that can wreck your car. So watch out. And don’t forget the dogs. Someone said when I told them about my trip, “There’s a dog named Newfoundland, isn’t there?” This is the very homeland of the Newfoundland dog! And the Labrador dog (yes, it’s from Newfoundland, not Labrador)! It’s hard to beat a pair like that. As far as European settlements in North America go, St. John’s and Newfoundland are likely the oldest. After Columbus stumbled into the Americas in 1492, the English hastened to get into the action. In 1497 John Cabot arrived in Newfoundland and claimed it for England. In the late 1500s, the explorer and promoter Sir Humphrey Gilbert got a charter from Queen Elizabeth I to plant a colony in North America, and in 1583, he arrived in St. John’s and staked his claim. When he entered the St. John’s harbor he found 36 ships “of all nations.” St. John’s might be a new claim for Gilbert, but the Vikings had come here hundreds of years before, and Europeans had been fishing the abundant cod fish and sheltering in St. John’s harbor for generations. When Gilbert arrived, the English “found no inhabitants” in the south, but did in the north. The local people, he figured, had abandoned the south because of the European traffic. Old it is, but Newfoundland is the newest Province of Canada. Newfoundland was a Dominion of the British Empire until after World War II. It joined Canada in 1949. Newfoundland is one big island. It’s bigger than Ireland or Iceland. Bigger than Cuba, and bigger than Tasmania. By latitude, St. John’s is south of Paris and all but a tiny bit of Newfoundland is south of Ireland. But it has a northern climate. Keep this in mind even in summer. Newfoundland sits out in the “storm-tossed, ice-infested North Atlantic waters” as I read on a sign honoring Newfoundland seamen, and the weather can turn chilly and rainy even in the summer season. But it has the third mildest winter in Canada and cool to warm summers. And clean air. Very clean air. Go to Newfoundland to admire the views and breathe. So what did I do with six days to spend? See my St. John’s posts about my excursions and out and about in town for that! Trip date: May-June 2016.

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