Peter Bull

This past Saturday, Ronan, Cormac my Dad and I went to Sandy Cove on the Eastport Peninsula to see if the capelin were rolling. We were in luck!

There is no shortage of hikes to take in St. John's. One of my favorites is around Signal Hill - the North Head Trail. Before starting our hike we went to the Park's interpretive center. There we learned about the many battles between the French and English that have taken place on its rocky slopes.

In late August, my sons Ronan, Cormac and I took a visit to the Port au Choix, Hawke's Bay area of the Great Northern Peninsula. We started our day with a visit to Parks Canada's National Historic Site at Point Riche. The visitor center there contains many artefacts dating back over the past 5000 years. After learning about the cultural history we set out for the point's light house to take in some of the area's natural history. The shoreline at Point Riche is littered with fossils and the lads had a great time playing palaeontologist "discovering" many different kinds of petrified life forms.

Steady Brook Falls is worth the hike anytime of the year, but early spring is definitely the best. Located about six kilometres east of Corner Brook and just off the Trans Canada Highway, the falls are very accessible and a great place to stretch you legs. We took the short hike to the falls on April 17th. Warm sunny days melting high country snow followed by rain brought the falls up to an impressive level the day of our hike. The falls can be seen from the Trans Canada Highway but one should really pull off at Steady Brook (Exit 8) and experience it fully. The trailhead is behind the Tim Horton's at the base of Marble Mountain and there are two viewing platforms providing excellent photo opportunities.

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.