WELCOME TO THE ROCK
Friendliness and food make a stranger feel at home in stunning NEWFOUNDLAND
By HANA R. ALBERTS T O Newfoundlanders and other denizens of Atlantic Canada, I’m a “come from away.”
The term — popularized as the title of this year’s hit Broadway musical about airline passengers stranded in Newfoundland after 9/11 — has been panned as an epithet for foreigners.
But to me, the phrase aptly sums up what it feels like to touch down in Newfoundland. Lovingly nicknamed “The Rock,” it’s vast, rugged and remote. Because there are no direct flights from NYC, it takes about seven hours to get to St. John’s, the capital of Canada’s easternmost province. (You could get to Europe in less time!) Newfoundland, incidentally, is the size of Pennsylvania but has a population that is a mere 4 percent of the state’s.
It feels at once familiar and exotic: a craggy, lush topography with a fickle climate evokes the British Isles; small houses painted bright hues are reminiscent of Scandinavia; the presence of icebergs, seals and moose recalls Alaska.
But Newfoundland has a culture all its own, with warm, welcoming people who utter adorably slangy phrases in charming accents. (“A mug up” is a snack or a cup of tea, offered by caring hosts at all hours.) Another oddity is the time zone, 1½ hours ahead of NYC. How delightfully off-kilter!
Last autumn, when this chilly corner of Canada harvested produce from partridgeberries to wild mushrooms, I landed in St. John’s for a self-guided road trip plotted out by Toronto-based
Quench Trip Design (from $3,074 per person for a week with lodging and most meals included; QuenchTravel.
com). So I hopped in a rental car and set off to explore 450 miles of a place that can only be described as enchanting.
To St. John’s
Forty percent of Newfoundland’s population lives in St. John’s, so it feels downright cosmopolitan. My first meal is at Raymond’s ( RaymondsRestaurant.com), which has a seven-course locavore menu that wouldn’t be out of place in Brooklyn. Dishes, by chef Jeremy Charles, can include scallops handpicked from the Atlantic and Arctic and cake infused with spruce. The chef serves seal when it’s in season; an enlightening visit to a grocery store reveals freezers full of seal flipper.
The next morning, I scope out the colorful houses of Jellybean
Row and feel the wind at North America’s easternmost point, Cape Spear. I bed down at a hotel with woodsy accents and exposed brick (from $173; BlueOnWater.com).
To Port Rexton
I merge onto the TransCanada Highway, which stretches across the continent. After two hours of driving past pristine ponds and fields of boulders, I snake my way up the Bo
navista Peninsula. I cruise by quaint homes clustered around semicircular shores, then crest another grassy knoll to find Port Rexton.
In 1989, John and Peggy Fisher bought a house on this hillside as a vacation retreat. They fell in love with the area’s charms and moved from Toronto. Along with their two sons, they now oversee Fishers’
Loft, with 33 rooms across six saltbox houses and a restaurant specializing in dishes prepared using local ingredients, many from the inn’s own garden and greenhouse (from $123; FishersLoft.com).
I don lightweight hiking boots, jeans and a waterproof parka every day. Drizzle be damned, I hike the Skerwink Trail and take in
glorious views, steep cliffs and black sand beaches.
It’s overcast when I clamber into Bruce Miller’s motorboat to learn about the history of cod fishing, which used to sustain the economy ($70 per adult; Rugged Beauty Boat Tours.
net). A fisherman himself born nearby, Bruce steers the vessel past icebergs, whales and bald eagles (depending on the season) all while explaining, in a gentle brogue, the impact of the disastrous 1992 moratorium on cod fisheries. Wielding a binder with plasticcovered pages, Bruce holds up historic photos of villages while idling in their harbors; I see they’re now abandoned, thanks in part to Canada’s controversial resettlement program. We dock at Bruce’s cottage offshore, where he serves tea and crackers with Newfoundland staple partridgeberry (or lingonberry) jam.
I stumble across a new brewery ( PortRexton
Brewing.com), order a blonde ale and spot Bruce grabbing a pint with some friends. Friendly banter ensues. I end the day at Fishers’ with some freshly made zucchini-dill soup and panko-crusted halibut.
To Fogo Island
If Newfoundland is far away, Fogo Island is farther still. A frontier of sorts with otherworldly vistas, this island an hour off an island has a tiny population — some 2,000 people across 91 square miles — with an outsize spirit.
Though it’s been a trading and fishing hub for centuries, 2013-opened
Fogo Island Inn put it on the radar of deep-pocketed adventurers (from $1,320; FogoIslandInn.ca).
Designed by Todd Saunders, a Newfoundlander with projects worldwide, the inn is a boxy masterpiece on stilts.
The brainchild of Zita Cobb, a millionaire who returned to her native island after corporate successes, the hotel is a case study in new development done right. The cod industry had collapsed, so Cobb sought ways to shore up Fogo’s economy. Via her nonprofit, Cobb gives micro-loans to small businesses and helps run artists’ residencies.
Justin Trudeau and his family spent Easter 2016 on the island; Gwyneth Paltrow visited last summer and posted a fitting hashtag on Instagram: #heaven.
Trudeau and Paltrow stayed at the hotel, staffed almost entirely by islanders. Each of its 29 rooms are lined with fanciful wallpaper depicting area sights, from saltbox houses to foxes. Colorful quilts made by residents set off turquoise-and-orange chaises. Binoculars are provided for iceberg-spotting (April through July) and whalewatching (May through September). Woodburning stoves, plus hot tubs and saunas, keep guests warm.
A double-height dining room dripping with light fixtures is a jaw-dropper. Every stay comes with three outstanding meals — based on seasonally foraged ingredients di en ts and locally caught seafood in nova ti innovative ly prepared pa red by ac collective of chefs — as well as a slate of activitiesties from geologyg walks to onon-theme movie screenings.scree Each gueguest gets an orient a orientation. So I climb in the passengerpas
seat of a truck driven by retired math teacher Al Dwyer, who points out where he taught calculus, the ice hockey rink and a local bar called Foley’s Shed that is literally in a shed. We retire to a rocky beach; Al lights a fire and hooks a metal kettle over a stick to boil water for tea. Tiny towns — like Seldom Come By (named for the frequency of visitors) — dot the place. But a sense of belonging takes over as I hike, drive and jog around the unfamiliar speck on the map. Because fruits and vegetables ripen later; fall is a wonderful time to go — even with the nip in the air. (I buy a wool hat with a pom-pom from Al’s wife.) From the inn’s dining room, I can see a word spelled out in driftwood. I scramble over The Rock’s rocks to see what it says: “LOVE.”
To Gander
The trip draws to a close. Good-bye, Trouty, and all you other fantastically named towns I sped by and didn’t get to visit!
I return the car in Gander. Though it once had the world’s largest airport, Gander downsized when jets stopped needing to refuel. Half the airport is now closed, a time capsule of midcentury design that a staffer at the information desk will let you see if you ask nicely.
The extra space came in handy: On 9/11, when American airspace shut down for a week, 38 planes were diverted there; the town practically doubled its size and took in all the “plane people,” those “come from aways.”
Now I understand the origins — the depths — of the generosity shown to those visitors. It turns out that Newfoundlanders’ capacity to love is as massive and captivating as its landscape.