CANDY CRUSH
‘Jelly bean’ homes in St. John’s add splash of colour to fascinating port city on Canada’s East Coast
“Colourful” is a word thrown around the travel-writing world like clichéd confetti. But the “painted ladies” of San Francisco, terraces of stately and vividly clad Victorian houses, and the “jelly bean” row houses of St. John’s transcend the hackneyed with their splashy paint schemes. Indeed, no less than the New York Times has described the hilly streets, artsy vibe and sweeping harbour views of the Newfoundland capital as a “smaller but earthier” version of the Northern California tech hub.
The rainbow row houses of St. John’s are not confined to one row, either. They spill down to the harbour along several tightly packed streets in the haphazard downtown core, exciting Instagrammers who are prowling for perfect backdrops and an injection of joyousness into the “mauziest” of wet and foggy days.
Alas, there is no “colourful” explanation for the candied homes (and later, businesses) of St. John’s. It seems they were not beacons for fishermen returning home through the fog, romantic as that may sound, but rather a 1970s civic initiative to revive a flagging downtown that caught the public’s imagination and rapidly spread.
Today Jelly Bean Row is as much part of the St. John’s tourist experience as getting “screeched in” at a cod-kissing, a ceremony whose authenticity is on equally dodgy ground. But who cares about provenance when you’re a comefrom-away looking for a fun time in one of Canada’s most fascinating cities?
The largest city of Newfoundland and Labrador, to give the province its proper title, St. John’s is awash in legends and lore as befits one of the oldest settlements in North America. Declared a British colony in 1583, it became part of Canada only after Confederation in 1949.
Its landlocked harbour allowed the fishing industry to flourish, latterly overshadowed by the energy and tourism industries, but its seafaring traditions are deeply entrenched and nowhere better appreciated than from atop Signal Hill, a National Historic Site, and its many trails.
Ghoulish, but in keeping with the Newfoundlanders’ love of a good yarn, is the pathway up Gibbet Hill where, in the 1700s, the bodies of executed criminals were displayed in hanging cages for purposes either of deterrence or disgust, depending on how close you were and how ripe the condemned. The practice thrived, and for a number of years St. John’s was the last outpost in the British Empire to dip executed villains in hot tar and encase them in chains as “a comfortable sight to the relations and friends of the deceased (victim).”
According to local author and folklorist Dale Jarvis, who runs Haunted Hike tours, the bodies of pirates, murderers and other miscreants were eventually removed from the gibbet cages, placed into barrels and rolled down into Dead Man’s Pond, where they would descend rapidly to hell through its bottomless depths. The pond is certainly deep, rather eerie and still prone to tragedy: a drowning was reported as recently as 2015.
Less macabre, but no less enthralling, Signal Hill is also home to Cabot Tower, where Guglielmo Marconi received from England the first transatlantic wireless message in 1901. But as early as 1704, fluttering signal flags warned merchants that ships were approaching — and whether their intentions were hostile or friendly. Here also is the Johnson Geo Centre, dedicated to the province’s geological history.
Dominating the skyline views are the twin towers of St. John the Baptist Basilica, consecrated as a cathedral in 1855 and at one time the largest church on the continent, and cultural hub The Rooms, built in 2005 to celebrate Newfoundland and Labrador through archives, museum displays and art galleries.
Wildlife is a big draw, and the Signal Hill North Head trail is your best bet for catching whales and seabirds. The oldest and most popular of the trails, it cleaves along nearly two kilometres of narrows to a “hanging valley” formed during the last ice age and was once home to a small quarantine hospital called “Prowse’s Folly.”
For a truly raw experience, venture 17 kilometres from downtown to the Cape Spear Lighthouse, another National Historic Site and the most easterly point in North America. Walking trails reveal a Second World War coastal defence battery, and whales and icebergs are common sights in the summer.
Closer to the core, the throwback fishing village of Quidi Vidi begs to be visited, with several trails, including the Ales & Tales walking tour, bringing idlers to its quaint cottages and wharf-side, the closest you’ll get to a traditional outport without packing an outboard motor. Quidi Vidi Charters brings its history alive with two-hour fishing tours that trace the St. John’s story to its discovery by Cabot in 1497. Afterward, beer beckons at the Quidi Vidi Brewery.
Speaking of brews, St. John’s channels its Irish heritage in heel-kicking style at its heaving pubs. With a metro population of just over 200,000 people, the capital boasts it has more bars per capita than any city in North America. Most are concentrated on George, Water and Duckworth streets.
The downtown, lacking the grid pattern typical of North American cities, is delightfully esoteric, with strict rules regarding development and building heights to preserve its old-world character. Boutique shops, restaurants and galleries tempt patrons from winding streets and narrow laneways, while a stroll along Harbour Drive recalls 500 years of adventurism, fishing, mercantilism and empire-building. Feeling ambitious? The Grand Concourse is an integrated trail system that takes in the best of St. John’s, as well as suburban Mount Pearl and Paradise, covering roughly 125 kilometres of rivers, lakes, ponds and parks.
While it’s “earthiness” is debatable, there’s no doubt the saltof-the-earth charms of walkable St. John’s are every bit as colour-filled as flashy Frisco.