Travel
A heartwarming story along one of the most spectacular urban hikes in the world with Great Canadian Trails
Despite its role as a goal-setting exercise, bucket lists become deeply significant after a brush with a serious illness. My father, a retiree who has travelled with me to nearly every province in the country, had a widow-maker heart attack last summer, having just battled in the ring with colon cancer. Six months ago, his health had deteriorated to such a point that I doubted he’d ever travel again. Yet somehow, he was able to haul himself off the canvas, put his gloves up, and keep fighting. A love for his family and passion for the outdoors is well worth fighting for. A few months later, he was walking in our local B.C. mountains again, gingerly but with a renewed focus and something to look forward to: a bucket list adventure on the East Coast Trail in Newfoundland.
For less physical hikers, it’s important to understand that the East Coast Trail is not the West Coast Trail. Unlike its counterpart in B.C., hikers don’t have to pack everything in for a gruelling, rugged wilderness adventure. For the East Coast Trail, Ottawa-based Great Canadian Trails – a Can Geo Adventures Official Partner – have curated a highlight package that distills the 336-kilometre coastal trail into a week-long itinerary that takes care of all the logistics. Shuttled to the trailheads, hikers can stay in comfortable B&Bs and inns, carry light daypacks with only the essentials, and feast in the evenings with new companions from around the world. While the full East Coast Trail is made up of 26 linked hikes, Great Canadian Trails select four or five of the most iconic sections that deliver the best rewards.
We start in St John’s with the 10-kilometre Quidi Vidi Loop that, while not technically part of the East Coast Trail, serves as a warm-up for both our legs and the views to come. Our accommodation is a homely B&B on Gower Street, one of those postcard Jellybean Row houses that are so iconic to the city. We’ll be following a self-guided itinerary, but Great Canadian Trails have removed all navigational stress with an excellent phone app called Road to Discovery. Capable of operating in airplane mode, the app includes a step-by-step interactive map with optional audible directions, information about key sites, and all the practical information hikers might need along the way. As long as your phone is charged, it’s almost impossible to get lost, even when you’re out of the city and deep in the woods. All the same, we’re provided with a small Garmin GPS unit just in case there are any emergencies.
We start in St John’s with the 10-kilometre Quidi Vidi Loop that, while not technically part of the East Coast Trail, serves as a warm-up for both our legs and the views to come. Our accommodation is a homely B&B on Gower Street, one of those postcard Jellybean Row houses that are so iconic to the city. We’ll be following a self-guided itinerary, but Great Canadian Trails have removed all navigational stress with an excellent phone app called Road to Discovery. Capable of operating in airplane mode, the app includes a step-by-step interactive map with optional audible directions, information about key sites, and all the practical information hikers might need along the way. As long as your phone is charged, it’s almost impossible to get lost, even when you’re out of the city and deep in the woods. All the same, we’re provided with a small Garmin GPS unit just in case there are any emergencies.
I set the app to ping at intersections, and we hit the trail. It guides us to the fishing community of Quidi Vidi and up into the trail to Signal Hill. We’re just a couple kilometres from downtown St John’s, and the cliffside views of the shimmering Atlantic stop us in our tracks. This is undoubtedly, one of the most spectacular urban hikes in the world. The trail loops us back towards our starting point via Water St, and we celebrate our first day at the Duke of Duckworth pub with a pint of Quidi Vidi’s Iceberg Lager (made with real 20,000-year-old iceberg water) and fish and chips like they only make it in Newfoundland.
Meeting us after lunch is our driver Jamie, who is ready to shuttle us an hour and a half to Port Kirwan. I’ve worked with Great Canadian Trails before, and they have a habit of finding friendly and knowledgeable local characters who embody the spirit of the destination. Jamie rattles off the history and quirks of the region as we skirt the lovely Avalon Peninsula. The tiny fishing village of Port Kirwan will serve as our base for a couple of days on the south coast of the trail. Here we meet Sharon and Alvin at Belle Maison Dine and Dream and discover a hiker’s nirvana.
Inspired by modest hiking huts in Europe, Sharon has elevated sweaty cheeses and sleeping bags into a gourmet dining and accommodation experience. A cleverly converted shipping container and colourful ensuite trailers have created a cozy hiker haven right on the popular Spurwink Island Path. Hikers have a fully stocked Snack Shack with everything we could possibly need for breakfast and packed lunches (including plenty of options for those with dietary restrictions). There are water bottles and hiking poles, fridges stocked with fresh food, board games for the evenings, and specialized boot dryers for rain and mud. Post-hike, Sharon’s creative homemade seafood dinners are legendary: pistachio-crusted cod, delicately crumbed mushroom scallops, mango-salsa salmon, Moroccan lentil and mango-carrot soup. Never mind Newfoundland, she serves up some of the best food I’ve had anywhere in the country. Joining us at the table and trail are hikers from Ottawa, Montreal and Toronto, as well as Vancouver Island and San Antonio, Texas.
“We get a lot of women, couples, people travelling solo,” Sharon tells me. “They’re like-minded folks, sharing their stories, laughing at the table. It really creates the right atmosphere. We tell ‘em, ‘You focus on the trails; we’ll take care of everything else!’”
Everything else includes the Snack Shack, dinner, trail transfers, laundry, and daily briefings that take into account the weather and personal preferences. Sharon sits on the board of the East Coast Trail Association and knows these trails inside and out. Every hike in the world needs a Dine and Dream, with Sharon and her partner Alvin at the helm.
My dad turns back halfway along the 16-kilometre out-and-back trail to the famous Berry Head Sea Arch. A year ago, he’d be charging ahead, but health battles have clearly taken a toll. We’d already seen humpback whales breaching off the coast of Grassy Point, hiked along dramatic coastal cliffs, and through forest trails lined with pink rhododendrons. The app will safely guide him home, so I press on ahead. It gets steeper and more challenging until I reach the striking sea arch. I eat my sandwich from the top, watching dolphins dip among an improbability of puffins in the water. Believe it or not, that’s an actual term for a group of these cartoonish seabirds (along with colony and circus, which is only slightly less funny).
Weather in Newfoundland is notoriously fickle, and after a baking hot summer day, heavy rain arrives. We put on our raincoats, adjust our ambitious plan for a full-day hike, and get dropped off at La Manche to walk a shorter route to St Michael. It’s a woodsy hike, fragrant with wildflowers, wet earth and flowering Sweet Gale. We cross the La Manche Suspension Bridge, and the trail delivers its magic even in heavy rain. From above, we see puffins diving into the transparent water to feed on a shoal of herring. Their agility and grace underwater are on full display, and we could watch this spectacle for hours. All the same, we trudge along to our destination and are grateful to be picked up by Sharon. Keep the tents, I’d rather return to the Dine and Dream to dry my boots and warm up in a hot tub any day.
Blue skies welcome our final day of hiking, a 10-kilometre trail from Petty Harbour to Cape Spear. Skirting the rocky coastline, we emerge from the woods onto a long grassy hill, crossing slim boardwalks to the sound of the Atlantic pounding the rocks below. The elevation and terrain are gentle on the knees, and the cool breeze is light on the soul. There’s something about an outdoor wilderness experience that is both meditative and confessional. Every step forward is a moment to appreciate where you are, where you’ve been, and who you’re with.
As we amble along the rocks into Cape Spear National Historic Site, the most easterly point in North America, our highlight journey along the East Coast Trail reaches the end of the road. “That was fantastic,” says my father, exhausted but elated. As I had hoped, he’s revitalized by the wilderness, the new friends we’ve made, and the beauty of the destination that, just a few months ago, he thought he’d never get to see. He thanks me for insisting that he could hike the East Coast Trail, even when it seemed unlikely amidst the dark clouds of his illness. We don’t have nearly as much time as we think we do, and we never know what’s waiting for us around the corner. And so, I must insist that you, the reader, should stop with the excuses and plan for a remarkable and manageable outdoor adventure like the East Coast Trail too.
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