Visit the Great Northern Peninsula, Canada

Approximately 300 kilometres long and rich in history, the Great Northern Peninsula is a highlight of any visit to Newfoundland.

It is overflowing with stunning natural features, prehistoric sites and fishing villages dating back to the early days of colonisation. Every year the coastal waters welcome countless whales and from spring into early summer the sea is transformed by the annual parade of icebergs, fragments of millennia-old glaciers.

Wildlife of the Great Northern Peninsula

The land is filled with healthy populations of moose, caribou and black bears, while the rivers and lakes teem with salmon. In the south, Deer Lake is a good starting point to load up with fuel and provisions before heading to the fjords of Gros Morne National Park, widely acclaimed as one of the most beautiful parks in all Canada.

Indigenous peoples and Viking settlers

Heading north, Hawke's Bay is an early 20th century whaling station and Port au Choix is an historic site dedicated to exhibitions of Maritime Archaic Indians and the Dorset Eskimos who lived here in 2,000 BC and 500 AD respectively.

At the northern tip of the peninsula lies L’Anse aux Meadows, thought to be the original landing site of Viking settlers over 1,000 years ago, while nearby Ship Cove is the isolated Canadian community where Annie Proulx wrote and set her award-winning book, ‘The Shipping News’.