Nain

Traveling north, Nain is the final community of more than a few hundred people. The town can be reached by a coastal boat service that carries passengers and freight, but no cars. A large part of Nain’s small population is Inuit and the town is home to many of Labrador’s most prominent Inuit artists. The Torngasuk Cultural Center has a gift shop with CDs and books by local artists for sale.

The staff here can also put visitors in touch with local soapstone sculptors.

Nearby Hopedale was the site of one of the many Moravian Missions built in Labrador. Today the main feature in Hopedale is the Hopedale Mission National Historic Site.

Visitors can tour the Mission, constructed in 1782, which is the oldest woodframe building in Atlantic Canada. Both the Mission and other structures were built in Germany, shipped across the Atlantic, and reassembled here.

Churchill Falls

The Town of Churchill Falls is ideally placed for visitors to stock up on supplies, fill up with gas, and check tyres as there are no service stations between Happy Valley-Goose Bay and Labrador City. Churchill Falls is famous as the site of one of the largest hydroelectric power stations in the world. Built in the early 1970s, the plant is an extraordinary feat of engineering, diverting the Churchill River (it is Labrador’s largest) and its incredible volume of water to power the underground turbines that produce 5,225 megawatts of power – enough to supply the needs of a small country.

Guided tours are available of this impressive complex.

Notre Dame Bay

On The East side of Notre Dame Bay, traditional Newfoundland outports maintain a way of life that echoes their history. The Twillingate Museum, located in an elegant Edwardian rectory in Twillingate, has several rooms furnished with period antiques.

Also on display are aboriginal artifacts collected from nearby sites, and marine memorabilia recounting the region’s fascinating shipping history.

Boat tours take passengers out into the bay for a closeup look at the huge icebergs that float by in spring and summer, and to see the many whales that roam about offshore.

Nearby Wild Cove and Durrell are romantic villages.

The Southwest Coast

In southern Newfoundland a 45-km (28-mile) coastal drive along Route 470 from Channel Port-aux-Basques to Rose Blanche leads through a landscape of ancient, jagged, green mountains and along a rocky, surf-carved shoreline. Near Rose Blanche, a 500-m

(545-yd) boardwalk trail winds through bright wildflower- strewn heath to the impressive Barachois Falls.

There is a charming picnic spot at the foot of the 55 m (180 ft) falls. The area is noted for its many shipwrecks, and so the Rose Blanche Lighthouse, built in 1873, stands in defiant splendor atop the harbor headland.

Gros Morne

Aunited Nations World Heritage Site, Gros Morne is Newfoundland’s scenic masterpiece. Here the Long Range Mountains rise 700 m (2,000 ft) above blue fjords that cut into the coastal range. Some of the world’s oldest mountains, these are pre-Cambrian and several million years older than the Rockies.

The best way to see the park is on a boat tour along Western Brook Pond, a narrow fjord cradled between soaring cliffs where waterfalls vaporize as they tumble from great heights.

Wildlife, including moose, caribou, and eagles, is frequently seen and heard.