30 Hours in Newfoundland
Spending a day eating fish and driving trucks in Canada's eastern-most province
The clouds were thick and low as we descended into St. Johns. Normally you can get a sense of a city from a few thousand feet up but with zero visibility right up until the point we landed, foggy was the only aspect of this town I could gather from the air.
I had no idea how far east Newfoundland actually was until I landed in Toronto, my only layover on my trip from my hometown of Denver, Colorado to St. John's. The flight to Canada’s most populous city was three hours gate to gate. Having not yet looked at my ticket, I had assumed a Toronto - St. John’s jaunt would be, at most, ninety minutes of my life. Little did I know that Toronto was only a halfway point. In fact, it was another three hour flight before I was in Newfoundland.
The history of this island is the longest of any in North America. In fact, it was here that the viking Leif Eriksson first landed on this continent in the 11th century, the first European to set foot on North American soil. The island later became the first of many overseas British colonies, and with 57% of the current population claiming British or Irish ancestry, the influence is still apparent.
After picking up my bags from one of the two luggage carousels at the airport, I had only a short drive to my hotel. Immediately I was reminded I was in a different country. St. John's feels more European than any city I've been in in the U.S. or Canada (though I have yet to travel anywhere in Quebec). Colorful houses line picturesque suburban streets which turn into slender urban alleys the closer you get to downtown. A metropolis, St. John's is not. The city is home to 200,000 Newfoundlanders or roughly the same population as Salt Lake City or Grand Rapids, Michigan.
The island itself is the size of Iceland, and at first glance many of the geological features, the notable exception being the lack of active volcanoes, are similar to the Nordic European country. The Long Range Mountains line the west coast and are home to the Lewis Hills, the highest peaks on the island, the tallest of which, The Cabox, rockets from sea level to 2,671 feet (814 meters) only a few miles inland.
I spent my night at the JAG Boutique Hotel downtown. With a long day of travel behind me and a shoot time of 5:30am to catch North America's first sunrise ahead, I quickly got to my room, unpacked my bags, and ordered dinner, a dish poorly described as "pasta" in the room service menu featuring a plate full of peppers, onions, peas, a handful of noodles, and four large scallops. I happen to love all of those ingredients, but if you were expecting a plain spaghetti with meat sauce, I could see this surprise being troublesome. My hanger momentarily cured, I was about to fall asleep when I got a text message notifying me that due to poor weather, the morning shoot had been pushed back two hours to 7:30am. Good night indeed.
As my coworker, Autoblog Associate Editor Reese Counts, and I pulled our 2019 GMC Sierra up to our first stop, Cape Spear, the most eastern-point in North America (outside of danish-controlled Greenland), it was abundantly clear why our sunrise photo shoot had been cancelled. Visibility was nil. As the waves crashed into shore, we piled into two igloo shaped buildings for a quick discussion on how the day was going to go.
From Cape Spear we drove along the coast to Harbour Grace, a sixteenth century fishing town that in more modern history is best known for being the starting point for twenty transatlantic flights in the early days of aviation, some of which were piloted by the now infamous Amelia Earhart.
With early afternoon plans coming up all too quickly (not to mention quite a bit of video to still be shot) we hurried onward, leaving the Spirit of Harbour Grace behind and passing quickly through the towns of Heart's Content and Heart's Desire, pulling into a harbor side parking lot in Heart's Delight. It was here that we met up with the kind gentlemen of Ocean Quest Adventures, who loaded us onto a zodiac inflatable boat powered by two 90 horsepower Yamaha outboards, and piloted us out onto the waters of the Atlantic in search of whales.
