Blogs

"Hmm, this is really going to be something", I thought as I sat in the car on the way to the Quidi Vidi Village Plantation. My co-worker had just filled me in on what to expect and I couldn't wait to hop out of the car the second we pulled into the parking lot. 

Last weekend, hundreds upon hundreds of people in St. John’s paraded through the streets. Men were dressed as women, women were dressed as men. Underwear was worn as outerwear and even small children were merrily sporting bras stuffed with socks over the tops of their various layers. There were lots of ingeniously creative hobbyhorses prancing around and it was almost impossible to count the number of ugly sticks and accordions.

It’s all just another Christmas in Newfoundland and Labrador.

It’s almost Christmas. Have you heard?

I for one tend to get a bit twitchy when November starts to gallop towards December and public places set their sound systems to Jingle Bells 101. So I find it helps my Christmas spirit (or lackthereof) to remind myself of the good things about the season. The things that don’t involve frantically running around malls full of people mowing you down to get better spots in cash register line-ups so long there should a surprise pop-up concert by Adele waiting at the end.

It’s one of my absolute favourite events of the year. The St. John’s International Women’s Film Festival kicked off its five-day run last Tuesday night by slamming it down and packing a few punches.

Karen Moores is a cities-focused travel writer who calls St. John’s, Newfoundland home. She is proud of her city’s commitment to historic preservation while retaining a hip, modern vibe. Check out her insider tips to the Canadian city.

I recently returned from a visit to St. John's, Newfoundland, North America's oldest and most easterly city. St. John's is known to be saturated with Irish traditional and Celtic rock music, but for a smallish city on a fairly remote island, I was surprised by its many other live music offerings.

I spent last week getting culturally back in touch with my English Lit student days. First, I went to see Hamlet on a hill, then Henry IV, Part 1 out in one of North America’s oldest and most historic towns, Cupids...

Last week I went to catch the final performance of Hamlet – one of the 2011 Shakespeare By The Sea productions. I realize writing about this festival when it’s already happened and you can’t now go and see the shows (if you unfortunately missed them) is a bit of a tease, but I’m hoping this post will encourage anyone out there who’s already thinking about a 2012 trip to Newfoundland and Labrador, to plan on seeing a performance or two next year.

Well, it can’t be denied. The Folk Festival this year was a damp one. But it also can’t be denied that the performances were as amazing, and surprising as ever – and the vibe of the audience was gun ho and game for anything.

Windswept and wild, friendly yet forlorn:  the island of Newfoundland is a corner of Canada steeped in beauty and sadness...

"Remember, give'r till ya shiver," says the man responsible for my safety just before I jump off a boat into freezing water. I've come to the most easterly point in North America in the hope of having an up close and personal experience with whales.

St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, is in its annual prime. The city is on creative wheels. There are so many events, festivals and theatrics going on it’s quite a panic trying to figure out what things you can possibly bear to miss in order to see the things you absolutely can’t.

Recently, my Dad and I took a two hour drive south from St. Johns to Mistaken Point Ecological Reserve. Named because it was a navigational hazard mistaken for Cape Race, it is one of the world's most significant fossil sites. Here you can find the oldest complex life forms anywhere on Earth. The main fossil layer preserves the ecology of a 565-million-year-old deep sea community.