The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Travel
‘This is where Norseman Leif Erikson became the first European to discover North America’
Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada
“One could stand on the cod; they were so thick in the water,” exclaimed Italian explorer John Cabot when he sailed along the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador in the 15th-century.
There is far more to Canada’s most easterly province than fish – delicious as it is. It was once its own country and still operates on its own time zone, some 30 minutes ahead of Atlantic Standard Time. It is also the spot where Norseman Leif Erikson landed and became the first European to discover North America – some 500 years before Christopher Columbus. You can visit his 1,000-year-old Viking settlement on the northernmost tip at Unesco-listed L’Anse aux Meadows.
Happily, travellers will have to do far less paddling to reach it, with WestJet set to launch new direct flights three times a week from London Gatwick to St John’s in May.
Visit in the summer to see 10,000-year-old ice giants waltz down from western Greenland – something that happens with such regularity that the coast is nicknamed Iceberg Alley.
In Gros Morne National Park, visitors can walk on a stretch of the Earth’s exposed mantle known as the Tablelands. The park itself – a staggering jostle of jagged cliffs knifing into deep blue fjords – has just celebrated its 50th anniversary.
Plus, you will have a hoot wrapping your tongue around local specialities such as colcannon, brewis, toutons, doughboys and figgy duff – not to mention mastering the hotch-potch accent, which is such a bewildering mix of English, Irish and French that it is nicknamed “Newfinese”.
How to do it
Audley Travel (01993 838700; audleytravel.com) offer a 15-day self-drive trip to Newfoundland from £3,985pp including flights, rental car, roomonly accommodation and excursions.
Emma Thomson is a regular Telegraph Travel contributor who has visited Newfoundland and Labrador, where she met Vikings and ate salted cod by the plateful.