Newfoundland Canada - 2019

We have always been interested visiting Canada’s most remote eastern provinces and it made sense to visit them after our time spent in the USA in 2019.

Having really enjoyed driving an RV dubbed ‘Homer’ through western Canada, the Yukon and Alaska in 2014, why not use an RV again to visit Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick.

The four provinces we visited in east Canada

This time we would be using something called a ‘truck camper’ for about 25 days, we named it Homer2 and no… not very original and by being in this part of the world mid September we additionally hoped to enjoy some autumn colours.

Homer2 uses a Ford F350 6.7 litre turbo diesel and has an internal floor plan, including slide out table & fridge that looks like this.

Indicative layout of truck camper RV

So after reaching Halifax, the capital of Nova Scotia and enjoying this relaxed city for a few days (more in future post), we collected Homer2 and drove to North Sydney at the top of Nova Scotia to stay overnight in a Walmart car park.

Homer2 and Rob in Walmart carpark, North Sydney for overnight stay

Newfoundland

Now before starting, a few crucial facts about Newfoundland would be helpful to provide context for any descriptions of our 11 days there.

Newfoundland is an island a little smaller than the north island of New Zealand and Inuit and Indians originally settled it.  

It was officially discovered by John Cabot in 1497 and claimed for England, and after some skirmishes between France and England, it became a Dominion dependant on England then later gave up self government to be the newest of Canada’s provinces joining in 1949.

During the 17^th & 18^th centuries there were different settlements scattered over Newfoundland, mainly established by the French & English, driven by fishing.

Newfoundland now has a population of ~530,000 of which ~114,000 live in its capital St John’s, but the rest as we discovered, are mainly scattered around the island living in many very small coastal fishing villages.

The locals or ‘Newfies’ as they call themselves, told us their summer lasts for only 2 months so they are a hardy bunch used to a plenty of cooler weather.  It also rains a lot on the island and is windy due to the seas influence.

Being an island meant taking a 7-hour ferry trip from North Sydney across the Gulf of St Lawrence with a few other tourists and a bunch of semi trailers.  Our description of the events on Newfoundland will be discussed by using the topics:

• Winterizing
• Moose
• Roads
• Timber
• Sightseeing
• People

Sister ferry of the one we travelled to Newfoundland

Winterizing

A good place to start is ‘winterizing’ but what on earth is ‘winterizing’?  In this part of the world it starts with what was said in Game of Thrones… “winter is coming” but here they actually mean it.

Many parts of the ocean around Newfoundland becomes ice covered and the massive numbers of lakes throughout the island also freeze over, in fact as we drove to catch the ferry back to the mainland, snow had fallen overnight on the mountains around the port for the first time this season.

The usual maximum daytime temperature we experienced was around 10c but most of the time it was around 6c and one local living in the north shared with us, it has dropped to -20c and their biggest issue due to wind, are large snowdrifts across the roads.

Was a bit chilly at times

So before we arrived, many of the touristy locations were beginning to winterize which means preparing their facilities for the onslaught of the freeze.

Their actions include emptying all exposed pipes of water and putting some anti-freeze down them to stop pipes bursting due to ice expansion when they freeze.  

Buildings and structures that could collapse under the weight of heavy snow are bolstered and anything, which could be crushed by ice, is removed from the water, for example many boats were dry docked on land.

Many things were already closed down for the season

For us it meant 75+% of the campgrounds were already closed and had meant a lot of planning and checking 12 months earlier to ensure we could visit where we wanted.  Originally we wanted to take another ferry across to the even more remote Labrador, but essentially it had already closed for the season, so we gave up on that.

Moose

There are a lot of moose on Newfoundland with estimates of greater than 150,000 and are not native to the island.  Four were introduced here in 1904 to develop big game hunting and the numbers have grown strongly ever since.

Moose are big, standing at over 2 metres high, about 3 metres long and weighing up to 700 kgs and you see plenty of signs warning you to be careful when driving, especially at night, a message reinforced by the semi drivers during the ferry trip.

So when the ferry arrived at Channel-Port aux Basques on southern Newfoundland in the dark, we had a 30-minute drive to our first campground… well it seemed there was a potential moose behind every tree, even though there wasn’t.

Signs warning of moose are all across the island

During our entire time on the island we actually only saw 4 moose.  There was a big live male grazing in a forest and a dead one on the side of the road.

Big male moose and only live one we saw

There was another still with its skin on that had been cut into large portions and lying in the back of a pick-up truck after earlier being shot, and one all dressed for freezing hanging in a tree in our camping area one night… the hunters were in the camping area next to ours!

Hunted moose dressed and waiting to be frozen

At this time of year after a large ballot for moose hunting licences, the successful Newfies can then hunt and shoot 1 moose for a limited time.  This helps control numbers and is also very important food source for the locals.

At one campground, the host let us try some of her moose stew which was spicy and delicious, then gave us 2 moose sausages to take away with us and cook later.  Moose tastes a bit like a sweet lamb.

They also have black bears roaming the island and they are larger than their cousins on the mainland weighing in at up to 270 kgs.  Bears are also hunted at the same time of year but we didn’t see any bears.

Newfies rubbish is put in plastic bags in these holders
designed to stop bears rummaging for food

So as we drove around the island we constantly saw pick-up trucks with or without ATVs, parked sort of half on and half off the side of the road and we knew somewhere out in the forest were hunters with high calibre rifles looking for something to shoot.  

This included cars stopping on the main Trans Canadian Highway, which crosses the island, to go hunting, and we heard rifles being fired a number of times as we passed by.

Trans Canadian Highway across Newfoundland

Roads

Now if you look at our actual route map below, you might notice there is not any form of grand loop around the island.  Their Trans Canadian is a pretty good highway, going from the ferry point we landed into to the capital of St John’s 900 kms away in the east. 

Ferry route in blue then actual route taken through Newfoundland

Other than that, parts of the island down south you can’t get to at all and elsewhere you have to backtrack on many of the roads, for example like the one that took us up the west coast to the northern tip.  We created a few small loops where we could and tried to visit different places when returning down the same road.

Pretty well all the main and secondary roads are on raised foundations using dirt bought in specifically from elsewhere on the island due there being lots of marshes and soggy peat plains in Newfoundland.

Consequently there is only a small verge on each side of the road, so people literally pull over with most of the car still on the road.

Pull off the road too far and you would rapidly slide down the side into the mush or trees, so something to be avoided.

So when we wanted to stop and take a photo of something, we did what the locals do, just pull over slightly, and turn on the emergency flashers and everyone carefully took a wide path past us. 

The bulk of the secondary roads and smaller ones are in very bad condition due to the climate and this made Homer2 do a LOT of jumping and ‘rockin & rollin’.  
Often… it felt like we were on the ocean during rough seas.

The secondary and minor roads in Newfoundland are not too good!

Now there was an crucial upside for the locals of all this raised road construction.  For quite a few days we saw square or rectangular patches with rough made timber fences around them, seemingly randomly located down off the side of the road and they looked like holding pens.

We wondered what sort of animals did the locals catch and hold in these structures?

One day though we saw a man working in his pen and when we saw a scarecrow in it, we worked out they were actually all small veggie patches and the barriers were actually to keep moose and deer out of them.

Locals veggie patch next to the side of the road in middle of nowhere

A local also told us the selection of each spot was not random, it was where the best dirt was brought in for the road building and everyone left everyone else’s garden bed alone.

Timber

We quickly learned there is an enormous amount of timber all over Newfoundland, along with its huge number of lakes.  Consequently, apart from making it harder to find moose, paper and pulp manufacturing is a big source of the islands revenue.

Newfoundland has a LOT of trees all densely packed together

Timber is also the main source for Newfies to heat their homes, so as we drove throughout the island, a constant sight again seemingly randomly on the side of the roads, were large, neatly stacked rows of cut timber.

Timber cut and stacked drying for the following winters heating needs

Another local told us that the timber we see stacked near the sides of the road was drying for next years winter, not the one about to arrive.  This years timber had already been moved manually and re-stacked in sheds which also explained why we saw lots of cars parked in front of houses with perfectly good looking sheds or garages nearby.

Sightseeing

If you read the very well presented marketing material available from the Newfoundland tourism bureau, there are a number of things they promote for the island:

·      Iceberg Alley – where you can go look at icebergs floating past Newfoundland during the spring. Closed for the Season

·      Puffins – the island has numerous locations where you can see one of our favourite birds during spring & summer.  Closed for the Season

·      Whale Watching – they have a lot of people offering whale watching but the whales had already gone further south.  Closed for the Season

·      Provincial Parks – all the ones people camped in were already closed.

·      Road Tours – they promote driving around the island on the western, central and eastern routes, which is what we did because it was open for the season… but there was no mention of the quality of some of the roads you have to travel on, oh well.

So what of major note did we actually sightsee for you might ask?

Gros Morne

This is located on the west coast, is UNESCO listed and a National Park.  It is very rugged and consists of a number of large mountains; one looking like a round grey foreboding rock, but the main attraction for us was a 2 hr boat cruise into what was a fjord.

Actual Gros Morne 'rock' mountain as you enter the park

Fjords are defined in part by having seawater in them but this one used to be in seawater until it became land locked thousands of years ago.  To reach it, you park just off the main road, hike through the forest for about 3 kms to reach a lake where the boats await.

Actual route for Western Brook tour with red showing
the walk in and blue the boat tour itself

Due to the previous days tour being cancelled for very bad weather, almost 100 people did the trek the same day we did and 2 boats set out across the lake.

Boats waiting to take us on the tour up the ever narrowing 'fjord'

Perched right up at the front of the boat like Kate Winslet in Titanic, the scenery was really stunning with the soaring cliffs either side of us as our boat travelled as far into the narrowing ‘fjord’ as far as it could, jagged rocks either side and waterfalls tumbling great distances to the lake below.  Even the bitterly cold weather didn’t dampen our enthusiasm to take a few photos.

Photos show a little of our progressive tour to the end of the 'fjord'
where a magnificent waterfall awaited

Little Villages

With so many Newfies living in small predominately fishing villages, we worked hard to try and find the more picturesque ones, which unfortunately were few and far between. 

Each village had a splattering of fishing vessels and colourful houses

With fishing a large source of income, the other villages on the coast especially were real working places, with fishing boats in small harbours and lobster pots stacked haphazardly everywhere, along with drums, timber and anything else.  

Lobster pots 'stacked' waiting for the next season

They were all interesting in their own way.

Newfies in the small villages live in some more extreme locations

Newfies are very pragmatic people and not prone to massive neatness, more likely because of the weather driven environment they live in constantly.

Lighthouses

With Newfoundland being an island, and with a very rugged coastline, there was an abundance of lighthouses to visit of varying sizes and some even had gun emplacements nearby to protect the fleets of convoys heading to Europe during WW II.

This lighthouse had its own public toilet located on far right... most remote one we have ever seen

Lighthouse above is at Cape Spear... most easterly point in North America

Because of England’s keen interest in Newfoundland in days bygone… French pirates were known to scour the coastline looking for bounty.

St John’s

The capital of Newfoundland is a really nice city with a mixture of new style houses packed closely together on the outskirts, but near the centre of town which has a large country town main street feel to it, there is a combination of very colourful almost terrace style timber homes…

Very small selection of the colourful homes in St John's

…and some very grand timber homes

One of the grand homes in St John's

High above St John’s on the coast stands ‘Signal Hill’, the site of St. John’s harbour defences from the 17th century until the Second World War and where the world’s first transatlantic wireless signal was received in 1901.

Signal Hill buildings built by the English in the mid 17th century

The port of St John’s is also quite stunning with its narrow and protected entrance into a large port with a long stone throw from the main street.

Pilot boat re-entering the entrance to the port of St John's

The city of St John's behind its very protected port

Vikings

Very near the northern tip of Newfoundland at L'Anse aux Meadows is located a World Heritage site.  Here is the location of the first landing of the Vikings onto North America over 1,000 years ago.

They built a small settlement, traded with the local indigenous people and then after about 3 years left, never to return.

Replica of the buildings the Vikings created ~1,000 years ago made with timber and peat

Inside one of the replica Viking buildings

So what’s the big deal?  After humans reportedly originated in and left Africa then spread across the globe, when the Vikings eventually landed at this location and met the indigenous locals, they were the first Europeans to do so and it was the final closing of the loop of human travel around the planet.

People

Finally we get to the Newfies themselves!  What a wonderfully industrious people they are, very down to earth, welcoming and warm, along with a very mischievous sense of humour.  When they found out where we’re from, almost to a person their next words were “welcome”!

They have a very interesting accent which has a mix of the Canadian combined with a little Irish and Scottish thrown in and Newfies talk really fast, so much so, quite often we had trouble understanding what they were saying.

Whilst taking some photos in one small coastal village, a local stopped next to me in his car, wound down his window and sternly asked “which cabin are you photographing, not the green one I hope?”  “I am as a matter of fact, it’s a beautiful one,” I replied to which he said, “just joshing ya” and with that drove off laughing his head off.

That little green hut in one of the villages

So after almost 4,500 kms of driving on many lurching roads, wet and windy conditions and Homer2’s suspension a little worse for wear, we re-boarded the ferry and bade the fascinating island goodbye.

Leaving Newfoundland from Channel-Port aux Basques

Newfoundland is certainly a ‘because its there’ destination and if you’re interested in visiting, suggest you go in summer, but we did manage to see a little early autumn colours amongst all those trees.

Autumn colours were just appearing on Newfoundland

CLICK HERE for more photos of Newfoundland