St John's Newfoundland

St John's Harbour from the top of my hike

St. John's Harbour from the Rooms

The 1800's Home's Bright and Colourful

Newfoundland / Labrador was the last province to sign into Confederation.  It has a population of 505,469. The capital is St John’s. To the rest of Canada is known as the rock.

Alanna’s new home is within walking distance of downtown St. John’s, in fact I would say she is situated middle town. Not downtown or uptown. Just blocks away. It’s easy going down but muscle building coming up!

St John’s has a population of 100,646 and is fairly well spread out in the region due to the hilly landscape. St. John’s is one of the oldest cities in North America and is the oldest city in Canada. It was founded in 1497 by John Cabot. The city has a perfectly sheltered harbour and quite reminded me of entering Cartagena Colombia with the Forts guarding over the narrow entrance.

St. John’s achieved much of its importance because of its geographic position. It is closer to Europe than any other city in North America.

I have been leaving the car behind and touring by foot. I find this both more interesting and challenging. I can concentrate and take my time on the scenery instead of traffic.  Historical buildings are in a 20 block radius so it’s a bit of a jaunt from one end to the other. The streets are typical of old cities that were established 100’s of years ago with the intent of horses or feet as the main mode of transportation. Now a days most old cities make them into one-way streets. One has to be very careful and look for the signs.

My first sightseeing trip led me to the Geo Centre and Geo Park. This is Newfoundland and Labradors’ “Earth Geological Showcase”. I spent hours intrigued with the history found under all these rocks.  The Johnson Geo Centre tells the story of “Our Earth and Our People” as explained by the geology of the province. The building is built into the ground and the whole attraction is all underground.  There is no other place on earth that reveals the fascinating story of our Earth going back almost 4.5 billion years ago. The rocks are amongst the very oldest rocks ever found on Earth. Coming from Alberta I found this interesting as we can date our rocks quite far back with the dinosaurs but not as far back as Newfoundland.  Within the Province, scientists have found powerful evidence to back many geological theories. These include the evolution of our planet and the happening, right here, of colossal continents, the formation of oceans and volcanoes and the occurrence of devastating ice ages.

A special exhibit showcasing the timeline and eventual ending to the Titanic as it hit an iceberg not far off the Newfoundland shores. This was interesting as it showed factual evidence how greed and arrogance of one man and the ego and bad judgement of another that caused the accident. In the end the one with the ego (Captain) lost his life but the man with the greed continued.  Over 1500 lives were lost just 350 miles off shore.

ExxonMobil Oil & Gas has an exhibit that explains the drilling and production platform at the Hibernia Oil Field.

Signal Hill is probably Newfoundland’s most notable tourist attraction but I did it differently through a new program that very few have caught on to; you can take a GPS and take hiking paths that have had special way points entered to inform you on facts that you would otherwise miss. I did about 10km of hiking paths and was amazed while getting in a very good work out. Climbing to the top of Signal hill was a wee challenging. Nothing that no one could handle or I wouldn’t be doing it! Anyways if any of the other Federal Government Tourist areas across Canada are doing this program I highly recommend trying it. I plan to go back and try again with the other hike I didn’t get finished. On this hike I took a fork to the right as a local told me I should take the path to a out port harbour called Quidi Vidi. The site was originally built by the French after they captured St. John’s in 1762. The British rebuilt  in 1780.

I have also walked the side streets and am intrigued with the architecture.

The Rooms is a museum, art gallery and archives situated where the old Fort Townsend once stood. Again I spent hours walking through the building. The art gallery was not my cup of tea as it was pop art which I had a hard time seeing any art in. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions however. A nice gentleman helped me look up ancestors that lived on Fogo Island so that I have some idea where to start looking for my family roots. As the case may be there is lots of Bennett history right here in St. John’s.  It was the exhibit dedicated to the provinces’ early landscape and its human and animal inhabitants that I found the most interesting. It was a small version of the Museum of Man.

The explanation why this attraction is called the Rooms is based on the fact that not so long ago in every fishing community, land met sea in the rooms. They were groups of steep roofed buildings were families and the fishermen came together to process their catch. There would be various rooms, eg salting, laying out the fish to dry etc.

There is a lot to see and do in St. John’s still and I will continue writing about it next week. I have 5 different walking routes that I will be doing in the next couple of days that will take me to all the old historical sites in St. John’s

Quidi Vidi Harbour