Page 80 - 2024-25 Travel Guide to Canada

NEWFOUNDLAND
& LABRADOR
Timeless
Appeal
Come from Away—the Tony-winning hit theatrical produc-
tion that recently played to international applause is now
playing at home, on stage at the Arts and Culture Centre in
Gander. The acclaimed musical is a reminder that the
famously gregarious folks here tend to have big hearts . . .
and big personalities. Luckily, for vacationers, the province
itself also has big tourist attractions, some made by man
and others molded by nature.
540,552
St. John’s
www.newfoundlandlabrador.com
St. John’s International Airport,
8 km (5 mi.) from downtown
Reaching them will, admittedly, take a bit
of doing because the island of Newfoundland
(affectionately nicknamed The Rock) sits
alone in the North Atlantic, while ruggedly
remote Labrador (a.k.a. The Big Land)
borders northern Québec. The payoff is
huge, however, for anyone who makes the
conscious effort to come from away—four
unforgettable UNESCO World Heritage Sites
attest to that.
MARKED BY MANKIND
History lovers will appreciate the fact that
Canada’s youngest province is actually very
old. The UNESCO-designated Red Bay Basque
Whaling Station, for instance, is proof that
Labrador was already an international indus-
trial centre well before our “motherland”
made its first attempts to settle further south.
On-site, visitors can ogle archaeological finds
that recall the mid-1500s and catch a film
recounting the heady days when whalers from
France and Spain busily manufactured
much-coveted oil from blubber here
(www.parkscanada.gc.ca/redbay).
That seems like only yesterday compared
to Newfoundland’s millennium-old sister
site, L’Anse aux Meadows. Leif Eriksson and
his Viking crew arrived on the spot in 1000
AD, then proceeded to build shelters out of
the earth and craft iron from the bog-ore it
yielded. Their settlement was so shrouded in
time that its very existence was dismissed as
a myth until 1960, when Helge Ingstad and
his archaeologist wife, Anne, uncovered
what was left of it. Today it features
atmospheric sod huts, faux Vikings, and
an artefact-filled visitor’s centre
(www.parkscanada.gc.ca/meadows).
ETCHED BY THE ELEMENTS
While exploring the province’s coastal
waters in summer, you might observe
whales like the ones that lured the Basque
fisherman all those centuries ago, or see
supersized icebergs that predate the Vikings.
The land itself, moreover, is positively
primeval. Just witness another World
Heritage Site, popular Gros Morne National
Park, where you can float on a freshwater
fjord sculpted by retreating glaciers during
the last ice age and admire geological
anomalies formed hundreds of millions
of years ago when tectonic upheavals
BY SUSAN MACCALLUM-WHITCOMB
ICEBERG IN TORNGAT MOUNTAINS NATIONAL PARK,
LABRADOR • NEWFOUNDLAND AND LABRADOR TOURISM
NL
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