Day 8 - North America’s Far East
To the uninitiated, navigating a vessel the size of the Norwegian Jewel into St. John's harbour looks more than a little nerve-racking. The city sits in the pocket of a natural harbour grand enough to dock the ship many times over, but the passage from ocean to harbour is narrow and high on both sides. As we slip through the channel, Signal Hill - where Marconi sent the first transatlantic wireless message - rises above us to starboard, and on fishing docks to the port side, a number of locals have turned out to wave.
St. John’s doesn’t immediately look like a metropolis, but it is. Thanks to three offshore oil fields and a fourth underway, the city has been booming. Oil money might be drawing a larger population, but other aspects appeal to tourists. George Street, just a short walk up from the harbour, has the highest concentration of pubs in North America.
“Whatever you do, do not try to out drink a Newfoundlander,” says Blair, our guide. He works for McCarthy’s Party, a travel and tour outfit that also organizes pub crawl expeditions in St. Johns through 23 bars and pubs on George Street. “The hardest part is to get everyone fed,” he says, and talks a bit about fish and chips – one of St. John’s most popular meals.
When the Vikings initially landed in Newfoundland a thousand years ago, they settled L’Anse aux Meadows, a barren area at the northern point of the island, and they only stayed about eleven years. Blair says that they found it a bit “tangly” – some local dialect meaning troublesome or difficult. Down in St. John’s, close to the most easterly point in North America and a lush harbour filled with seabirds and excellent fishing, most anyone could be tempted to stay a decade or more. The city seems easily walkable and has a pioneer attitude to it, the houses are neatly arranged and painted in cheerful primary colours, and rows of local shops near the harbour seem to have kept much of globalisation away despite the booming economy. Even though St. John’s has been inhabited for more than 500 years, it still feels a bit like Canadian frontier.
With only a day to spend in St. John’s and the surrounding area, the highlights are to either side of the harbour – Cape Spear to the southeast and Signal Hill to the north. The trek out to Cape Spear winds up a series of hills below the town, taking us back towards the ocean. There, at the most easterly point in North America, the wind is fierce and high. The Cape held strategic importance in the past – as the site of a lighthouse since the mid-1800s and as a defensive battery during the Second World War.
The historic buildings, however, are somewhat upstaged by the natural surroundings – cliffs making a frightening drop towards the sea, ocean-sized waves crashing on rock, and flocks of sea birds. In the spring and summer, the spot is popular for iceberg-spotting and whale-watching, but in September, the striking show is one of colours as the low vegetation is starting to show colours of autumn.
After Cape Spear, the journey continues back down to the harbour and up to the other side of town for a visit to Signal Hill and the fishing village of Quidi Vidi, which also houses a popular and award-winning microbrewery.
View interactive map of the voyage
Back to Travel Diaries
Read the other articles:
Day 12 - Air vs Sea
Day 12 - Homecoming
Day 10 - Battle of the Brews
Day 10 - A Taste of Halifax
Day 10 - Halifax: Ghosts and Breweries
Day 9 - The Cultural CV
Day 8 – A Very Special Privilege
Day 8 – Quidi Vidi Brewery – Beer, with a side of history
Day 8 - Signal Hill and the Village of Quidi Vidi
Day 8 - North America's Far East (you are here)
Day 8 - New Found Land
Day 8 – Land! Land! St. John’s, Newfoundland
Day 7 – You Have Permission to Enter the Bridge
A Peak at the Inner Workings of the Norwegian Jewel
How to Pour Champagne in a Moving Vehicle
Days 5-6 Shetlands to Iceland
Days 0-4 Dover to the Shetlands
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