Newfoundland and Labrador form the most easterly province of Canada. On Newfoundland island, the Norse archaeological site L’Anse aux Meadows is the reputed settlement of Viking explorer Leif Erikson. Gros Morne National Park, on the Gulf of St Lawrence, has cliffs, waterfalls and glacial fjords. Southeastern capital city St. John’s is known for the 17th-century Signal Hill citadel, with a hillside walking trail.
Newfoundland and Labrador’s capital and largest city, St. John’s, is Canada’s 20th-largest census metropolitan area and is home to almost 40 per cent of the province’s population. St. John’s is the seat of government, home to the House of Assembly of Newfoundland and Labrador and to the highest court in the jurisdiction, the Newfoundland and Labrador Court of Appeal.
Capital: St. John’s
Population: 520,553 (2021)
Official Website: https://www.gov.nl.ca/
Tourism website: https://www.newfoundlandlabrador.com/
Tourist Attractions: The island of Newfoundland is the most easterly part of Canada, while the vast region of Labrador is largely inaccessible. Newfoundland and Labrador’s varied landscape was shaped by the ice ages, leaving a ragged coastline of deep fjords and high coastal cliffs that plunge into the sea. Inland are miles and miles of moorland and forest studded by lakes and inhabited by moose and herds of caribou.
Because of its location close to the “Grand Banks,” some of the world’s richest fishing grounds, the island’s main livelihood was cod fishing until foreign factory ships so depleted the cod population and habitat that the Canadian government suspended fishing.
- Gros Morne National Park
- L’Anse aux Meadows National Historic Site
- Signal Hill National Historic Site
- The Rooms
- Bonavista Peninsula
- Cape Spear Lighthouse National Historic Site
- Torngat Mountains National Park
- Puffin & Whale Cruises in Witless Bay
- Cape St. Mary’s Ecological Reserve
- Twillingate & Fogo Island
- Castle Hill National Historic Site
- Terra Nova National Park
- Red Bay National Historic Site