The Viking Trail

[ghYHZ]

I was working in our Corner Brook office and before heading back to the mainland.....I did a road trip up the west coast of Newfoundland to the 1000 year old Viking settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows National Historic Site.

The Viking Trail......NL430 begins at the Trans Canada Highway in Deer Lake and runs 416 km north to St. Anthony. Just before reaching St. Anthony....you continue on NL436 to the park almost at the very tip of the Great Northern Peninsula...434 km from Deer Lake. (the park at 51.6 N is the same latitude as London UK)

https://goo.gl/maps/HALkLQZY1K7kXQPr5

   




Heading west from Deer Lake you first pass through Gros Morne National Park with Fiords and the distinct cropper/brown coloured rock of the "˜Tablelands'










Continuing up the coast.....there's long straight stretches of highway with little traffic and a pleasure to drive.







Before turning inland towards St. Anthony.....you can look across the Strait of Belle Isle (20 km) .....and barely make out the coast of Labrador.







L'Anse aux Meadows is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the only authenticated Norse Settlement in North America.......established 500 years before Columbus.












The remains (footprint) of the sod buildings is quite evident around the site and Parks Canada has replicated how one of those buildings might have looked.











It had been sunny and 18C (65F) and quite a contrast to my drive back down the coast to Dear Lake the next day!

[english si]

London is 51.5, so the park is north of London (or at least the same latitude as its northern suburbs).

It doesn't sound that far north (especially as I'm at 51.6 myself with London always being a southbound train ride - so London and north don't go together in my head much), but in a North American context, especially on the east coast, it is a long way north. St John's is 4 degrees further south. Quebec City is at 46.8 - the northernmost major city in the Eastern time zone. Saskatoon is at 52.1 and the first place heading west that's both north of that tip of Newfoundland and of any significant size.

[Rothman]

I was just up there in August.  We only made it as far north as the Arches, but hit all the areas in Gros Morne before heading over to St. John's and Saint-Pierre and Miquelon.