Puffins, whales, and icebergs are what immediately come to mind when many of us think about Newfoundland and Labrador, and while those are amazing sights to behold, there’s much more to discover, as I recently found out on a discovery tour of the Avalon Peninsula.
Now celebrating its 40th year in business, Gatherall’s Puffin & Whale Watch offers 90-minute boat trips from Bay Bulls to Witless Bay Ecological Reserve, focusing on Gull Island, the largest of the four islands here.
We board and are given a quick safety briefing before being introduced to Captain Al, Master Mariner Jerry, and guides Ashley and Rebecca. About 2.5 million seabirds call this area home during breeding season, and that includes 360,000 Atlantic Puffins, making this the second-largest puffin population in the world after Iceland’s Westman Islands.
Seagulls, Common Murres, and puffins return annually to share these cliffs. The rocks are packed, and it’s hard to imagine that come autumn, they will again be bare, given how busy it is at this time of year.
Looking up from the ocean, above the Common Murres, we spot the soft grassy area of the puffin burrows, where a watchful eye is kept until the chicks hatch. At that point, one of each puffin pair will guard the nest while the other will fly back and forth from the sea to return with fresh seafood for the puffling.
On the boat, we are serenaded by Ashley as she sings songs of Newfoundland. A small group of visitors are also “screeched” into becoming honourary Newfoundlanders via a fun little ceremony. This tradition normally involves kissing a codfish but in this case, a soggy stuffed puffin serves as a stand-in!
The newcomers then recite an oath that involves learning some lengthy Newfoundland local slang. As a last step, a shot of Newfoundland screech (a type of Jamaican rum) is drunk.
Make sure to dress warmly and bring a camera with a long lens if you’ve got one. As the boat remains on the water, the puffins are small to the naked eye and move fast on the water and in the air! Gatherall’s also offers pick-up shuttle service from downtown St. John’s.
For close to 20 years, Food Culture Place founder Lori McCarthy has served as a cultural ambassador to help keep Newfoundland’s local food and sense of place cultures alive. Through hosted multi-day cultural residency programs, seasonal workshops, and talks given around North America (including a TED Talk in New York City), McCarthy bridges cultural gaps and infuses a sense of belonging to her guests.
She is based in Mobile, Newfoundland, a coastal community shaped by generations of gathering, preserving, and sharing. Her programs target questions such as why we eat and live the way that we do.
I meet Lori at her home, surrounded by three acres of beautiful trails and lush foliage, and we then walk down a short trail to an outdoor fire pit and nearby yurt. Moments later, she begins to prepare freshly-caught snow crab for lunch.
We pack herbs together into biodegradable tea bags for a warm cuppa following my morning of seabirds and Minke whale-spotting. Following a delicious heap of snow crab on home-baked sourdough bread, it’s on to a slice of molasses cake using Lori’s great-grandmother’s recipe dating back 100 years.
In addition to curing meats and seafood, Lori hand-weaves baskets, considered a critically-endangered skill. The Newfoundland Craft Council, together with Heritage Newfoundland and Labrador, created a document in 2019 entitled Craft at Risk, and Newfoundlanders across the province began to offer workshops to keep these endangered crafts alive. The provincial government also helps by providing grant money.
[Irish potato Skib basket, used to strain potatoes]
Lori leads a six-month residency program every April that includes salting-cod fish, smoking fish, butchering wild game, and preservation methods. While the younger generation grew up with locally-sourced foodstuffs, much of the population no longer knows how to prepare them once procured. This is where Lori plays a vital role.
Her own education continues to evolve. She visited the Faroe Islands a couple of years back, curious to learn how lamb was traditionally preserved using drying huts and sea air, and found a local to teach her.
Lori’s 2022 book, Food Culture Place, received an unexpected Gourmand World Cookbook Award (for food heritage). Much like her teachings, the book focuses on stories, a collection of recipes, and tradition. Find Lori online here.
Just down the road from Lori’s place is Tinkers Point Path, an easy, picturesque segment of the East Coast Trail — a 336-kilometre system of historic walking trails that link coastal communities.
East Coast Trail paths lead hikers of all fitness levels past towering cliffs and headlands, sea stacks, deep fjords, and The Spout, a natural wave-driven geyser. Along the way are abandoned settlements, lighthouses, ecological reserves, seabird colonies, whales, icebergs, the world’s southernmost caribou herd, historic sites, a 50-metre suspension bridge, two active archaeological dig sites, and more, making this part of the province a hiker’s paradise.
On this same road is culinary gem Fork Restaurant, owned by a husband and wife team: Award-winning Chef Kyle Puddester and Red Seal Chef Kayla O’Brien.
[Merasheen Bay oysters on the half shell]
The couple have created a beautiful space on five acres on the southern shores of Newfoundland and serve up an ever-changing selection of delectable bites and entrées, ranging from Newfoundland oysters to cod fritters. Don’t miss the carrot dish, seasoned with zaatar, maple and tahini labneh, mint, and crushed pistachio nuts. The sharable portion of the menu outweighs the mains, ideal for a sampling of the chefs’ elevated comfort food creations.
[Nan’s bread served with molasses butter and Newfoundland sea salt flakes]
Fork also hosts events, including the upcoming inaugural Field to Fork Dinner Series, led by professional forager/author Shawn Dawson. Explore foraging in the wild firsthand around the property, Tinkers Point Trail, and Mobile Beach. Following the tour, a multi-course family style dinner will be prepared by the chefs, using the day’s finds. Visit the website for event date and to purchase tickets.
[Brigus Tunnel]
About an hour’s drive east from St. John’s are two interesting towns worth a visit: characterful and compact Brigus and Cupids Cove Planation.
Brigus contains a sheltered and deep-water harbour, ideal for docking a ship, however back in the day, the surrounding cliffs made locating a place to dock for the infamous Captain Abram Bartlett – a frequent visitor to Labrador during the summer fishery season – a challenge. The solution? Build a tunnel!
With the aid of Cornish miner John Hoskins, construction of an 80-foot-long tunnel began around 1860. The project involved hand-drilling holes into the rock in which black gunpowder was placed. Four months later, the tunnel was complete, measuring eight-and-a-half feet high and about eight feet wide, and remained in use until around 1910.
Cupids Cove contains a live excavation site that has unearthed over 170,000 artifacts since its 1995 discovery. This is the site of Canada’s first group of English settlers, who arrived in 1610 led by Bristol Merchant John Guy with the intent of building a permanent community.
Although both dwelling house and storehouse were destroyed by fire around 1670, some fascinating artifacts, from German crockery (dating to between 1690 and 1720) to clay tobacco pipes, have been recovered.
Every summer, archeologists work the dig to reveal even more finds; tours are offered in combination with a visit to nearby Cupids Legacy Centre Museum (open seasonally).
I was hosted by Newfoundland and Labrador Tourism for the purpose of this feature. Opinions, as always, remain my own.
