Atlantic Canada makes the dream real.
You think it's all ice hockey and cremated bacon.
You must be away with the prairies. Think again. Atlantic Canada is more Mounties, and loads more lighthouses. Fabulous ferries, frozen blueberries. Not lightweight on the Northern Lights. Heavy on Halifax.
This is the Atlantic Canada you have yet to experience. You really should be doing something about that. Stand on the westward shores of Foggy Albion. Cast your gaze upon the ocean. Atlantic Canada is closer than you think.
Newfoundland in a time of its own
What, you may ask, could you do for a week in Newfoundland & Labrador?
If you are asking that question, then perhaps you haven’t grasped the scale of Atlantic Canada. This is just one part. One of four provinces that make up this easternmost part of the biggest country in the free world. Take Newfoundland, an island the size of England, with the population of Croydon. Claustrophobia is not an issue. Space is just one of the abundant gifts, given freely by Newfoundland and Labrador alike.
Imagine all that coastline and cosy little bays. Pretty little villages that give Portmeirion a run for its money. Places where fishing boats, not floating fish factories, cast off from the harbour, and land a catch that goes from trawler to table in a heartbeat. A feast so fresh it's still swimming in the family-run restaurants where every table has a sea view. Food plays a big part in the Newfoundland offering. That, and the quirk of its very own clock face. It’s one of those few places in the world that steps outside the regimented hourly divisions. NTZ - Newfoundland Time Zone - is three and a half hours behind the UK. Reset both hands on your watch.
The Gander Airlift
What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, and there are plenty of geese in Gander. If there’s a one and only experience of Atlantic Canada, it’s an unexpected touchdown in Gander. No, not that sort of touchdown - they don’t have a CFL team. It’s the sort of touchdown flights used to make, flying transatlantic, when the headwinds mandated a refuelling stop. Seasoned travellers will remember the drill. Waiting in the quaint reception hall, wondering if there was anything more to Newfoundland than North America’s closest airfield to the British Isles. In answer to that long-standing aviation question: Yes, definitely, there is.
Newfoundlanders rose to the occasion, when the occasion was the darkest day of all - September 11, 2001.
Gander took almost forty diverted airliners, and their passengers. If anyone doubted the Canadian reputation for hospitality, it was written in stone that day. The tiny little town took in the huddled masses - about 15,000 of them - nearly twice its population - and cared for the stranded travellers for a week. The thanks of the world really is written in stone. It’s carved into the memorial in the North Atlantic Aviation Museum. Gander’s reputation lives on as the beacon of humanity when all else in humanity failed.
Labrador and a geography lesson
Now, if we overlook Labrador, we’d be failing our geography exam - big time. Labrador is bigger than Northern Ireland - and Wales - and Scotland - and England - combined. In case we hadn’t impressed upon you, Atlantic Canada is big. Put it this way, imagine Halifax Nova Scotia switches places with Plymouth in Devon (they’re about the same size). If you flew from Plymouth to Wick in the very north of Scotland, you’d still be over 250 miles short of your destination had you set out from Halifax to fly to Labrador’s Goose Bay (which is about the same size as Wick). Even then, you’d still only be a quarter of the way up Labrador. Big dog.
Sticking out like a hitchhiker’s thumb into the Atlantic has definite advantages for the British visitor.
Combine the food, the time zones and the shortest flights across the Atlantic. You could have an early breakfast in Edinburgh or Gatwick; board a West Jet, and touchdown in Halifax in time for a late lunch.
Flying from Auld Scotia to Nova Scotia is little more than a long day. A good night’s sleep before take-off, and that will let you enjoy the provincial capital right from the start.
All the facts on Halifax
Other Halifaxes are available, but when you need to celebrate, the Nova Scotia one is the one to choose.
Party with the people and give thanks for endless summer days and cosy evenings by the fire. Music, music, music.
The local styles are all the styles that you’ll find familiar. When your fingers are raw from joining in a jam, you can find yourself strolling back through streets so metropolitan, that you’ll forget all about that vast and rural hinterland, just a few
moments away.
When you’re done singing, swirling, and shopping in the malls and markets. When you’ve been fed your fill of lobster and lamb. When you’ve done your excess of surf and turf. Walk it all off on the beaches or the trails, get comfortable by a campfire, or just submerge in a sofa, so big it’s fit for a moose. Get ready for the next day. Relax - it’s Halifax.
Nova Scotia - more nova than Scotia
Think about a place where you can go hiking in the morning, making sure you have your sun hat. Then get a woolly hat for sailing in the afternoon, when you'll need your fleece jacket against the bracing breeze blowing off an iceberg floating serenely by.
This isn't Wales, but you could see whales from here. Maybe you’ll spot a spout from an inter-island bridge, as you drive from one verdant destination to another. Roads, flat and uncrowded, are what NS is all about.
Cruise into villages as picturesque and colourful as Balamory. Sailing yachts are tied up on the jetties, and not a hint of millionaire excess. Bling-spotters need not worry. The super-yachts are just along the bay. The beaches are warm enough to sunbathe, and the sea is a somewhat less bracing than Skegness. The lonely lighthouses aren’t so lonely - they’re just a
few minutes from town. From the top of the tallest you might just see whales, or Wales, after all.
The little island with the big name
Prince Edward Island is little. Little in the Canadian scale of little. Two hundred miles from east to west, and connected to mainland New Brunswick by the colossal Confederation Bridge. At over eight miles long, the midpoint is over the horizon. At that midpoint, Borden-Carleton comes into view. Maybe that fifty-dollar toll is worth it after all (except tolls and ferry fares are only paid on leaving “PEI”).
Homesteads with the sheets drying in the sun and air, make you feel like the son and heir to something in particular. A throne of destiny, fulfilled by ancestors who first visited this land a thousand years ago. It’s so picturesque. You might visit and decide it’s just not worth leaving (save that fifty bucks after all).
Verdant forests and towering hillsides, they make this place seem fairy-tale enchanted. Yet this is all accessible on a day’s trip from your warm and friendly accommodation. A sporting place, where outdoor pursuits are not just tolerated, they are encouraged.
Even if being so energetic is not your thing, no one here will mind. This is a place where you have room to do your thing, and everyone else gives you the room to do it. So, in these times of trouble, if your thing is sitting on the verandah, watching the sunset, waking up to the sound of music, whispering words of wisdom, then in Atlantic Canada just let it be, let it be.
Getting there
The Vikings might have paddled their way to Atlantic Canada.
Modern European groups can rely on WestJet to make the passage altogether more pleasant. From Dublin, Edinburgh and London Gatwick, you can fly direct to Halifax, Nova Scotia,three or four days a week. Gatwick to St John’s, Newfoundland is also available, year-round.
Horned helmets will have to be put in checked baggage. We had hoped for a flight from Leeds/Bradford - if for no other reason than the opportunity to report that it would be possible to fly direct from Halifax to Halifax. Nevertheless, if enough organisers rise to the charms of Atlantic Canada, there’s a landing slot reserved just for you. Those awfully polite people at WestJet also fly Toronto from Edinburgh, and Calgary from Edinburgh and Heathrow - but that’s a whole other rodeo (westjet.com).
Pictures courtesy of Atlantic Canada