Nature Friday - St John's Newfoundland

 The cats have agreed to let me have Nature Friday for a few weeks to share our trip to St. John's, Newfoundland. This was my last province to visit, and I feel I may have saved the best for last. While we stayed just in St. John's, it is exactly the type of place I want to live, rocks and ocean, and few people. 

We landed at about 1 am Sunday morning, after a short, direct 2.5 hour flight. The fog was so thick, it is amazing the pilots and hotel shuttle driver could see! After a night at a hotel near the airport, we headed on to the adventure. 

Before we begin the tour, a little about this province. The province of Newfoundland and Labrador has a populations of about 550, 000 people. It was Vineland as discovered by the Vikings, and was the last province to join Canada (it only joined in 1949), It is distinct from other parts of Canada because it has it's own time zone and the people have kept Irish accents. Anyone who has seen Come From Away, will have heard one of the Newfoundland dialects. 

Here are some highlights from our first day. 

We began near the spot where Canadian icon Terry Fox dipped his foot in the Atlantic to start his Marathon of Hope on April 12, 1980. Sadly, due to his cancer returning, he was forced to end his run in Thunder Bay, Ontario on September 1, 1980.  The Terry Fox Foundation holds annual runs in Terry's honour ever September, in over 30 countries and to date have raised over $1 billion for cancer research. 

The Man met him when he ran through the Ottawa area in August 1980.

In several places in the city were statues of the official dogs of Newfoundland, the Newfoundland dog (developed by European settlers and fishermen in the 17th and 18th century as working dogs), and the Labrador Retriever, (developed in the 18th century to retrieve for local fisherman). 

We went up to Signal Hill.  While made famous as the location of the world's first transatlantic wireless signal, it has also severed as a military fortification as well as a spot where locals would signal which ships were coming to port. 

Cabot Tower - built in 1900 

From Signal Hill we did the 3 km/1.98mile walk down. Here are some of the beautiful sights we saw. 

We ended our walk in the fishing village of Quidi Vidi. This fishing community was settled in the 1600s. 

Families of fisherman lived here for generations until the over fishing caused by the Canadian Government. The closing of the fisheries in 1992 left at least 60, 000 Newfoundlanders out of work overnight and is one of the biggest economic disasters in Canadian history. Slow the cod are returning.

In our wandering from Quidi Vidi to our hotel, we passed some of the Jellybean houses. These former fisherman family homes were originally painted with left over boat paint. Because you wanted to have a boat you could see in the fog, bright colours were used. If you had a yellow boat, you would also have a yellow house. Now, residents must keep them bright colours, any colour as long as it isn't he same as a house directly beside it.  

I hope you enjoyed some of the 17 000 steps we completed on day one. Next week, we will visit the most Eastern part of North America!