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Travelers seeking unspoiled places and culturally authentic experiences now have a valuable new resource in a comprehensive “Geotourism MapGuide” and website for Canada’s Eastern Newfoundland region. The landmark project has taken two years to plan and execute and is a historically significant asset for everyone who visits or lives in the region.

Marble Mountain rises 1,700 feet from the Humber River, prized for its salmon (70,000 swim upriver annually) to just below what locals call the Governor’s Balls, two gigunda rocks overlooked by a Doppler radar tower. Views extend down river to Humber Arm and out to the Bay of Islands, framed by the alluring Rubenesque Blomidon Mountains, a line of rounded, downy peaks, all curves and cleavage, descending to the sea.

The Labrador Winter Games began in 1983 and has grown to become a sporting event, and a family event that every Labradorian wants a ticket to. Communities come together as one and select their finest athletes to represent them in what is also known as the ‘friendship games.’

When I ask the owner of a very local diner in tiny Port au Choix where the moose came from for the delicious moose burger I’ve just wolfed down, she tells me she hunted it herself. I clearly realize that dining in Newfoundland is not like anyplace else I’ve travelled before.

The perception most of us have of Newfoundland is of a scenic wonder filled with rocky cliffs, green terrain and quaint seaside villages. It is not known as a haven for winter activity, but a visit to Western Newfoundland will obliterate any notion that Newfoundlanders are not just as much fun in the cold as in the sun. Even the province’s jewel, Gros Morne National Park, offers visitors spectacular beauty when the temperature falls below freezing.

CONCHE, Newfoundland - I'm preparing to be drawn and quartered by my friends as we drive a long gravel road on the northeast tip of Newfoundland's rugged Great Northern Peninsula with no idea how far it is to the French Shore tapestries in Conche, an outport of 200 that had no road connection with the rest of the island until 1970.

Fast forward to 2012. I find myself in the rugged Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador, at the historic town of Bonavista frantically trying to channel the vague memories of my salad days on the banks of Berkshire.

On more than one occasion, a day-tripper to Trinity has asked Marieke Gow where her home really is. It’s incomprehensible for some that Trinity — with its heritage buildings, utterly charming stores and residents so friendly it’s easy to assume they might be paid to behave that way — could be anything but a manufactured tourist attraction.

Zita Cobb transformed a dwindling community off the coast of Newfoundland into a creative hub where artists and architects come together to take inspiration from the beautiful landscape.

On my recent trip to Newfoundland this September, I was exposed to some of the most remote parts of Canada’s most easterly province. To say they were awe-inspiring might be the biggest understatement of the century.

UPPER AMHERST COVE, NEWFOUNDLAND & LABRADOR — The view alone makes a trip to Katie Hayes’ new establishment in rural Newfoundland worth the drive.

CUPIDS, Newfoundland Labrador – Up on the rooftop garden of the Cupids Legacy Centre, Peter Laracy is delivering some stern advice. About fairies. "If you hear strange music, don't follow it...

If I had a dollar for every time someone asked how I wound up traveling through Central Newfoundland, I’d have a tidy little sum piled up in just a few days.

Moose, mountains and mankind. I recently experienced all that and more as my wife and I explored the wonders of Newfoundland. We began our journey with a six-hour ride on the Marine Atlantic, a modern multi-level people/car ferry. It has bright, modern seating areas, restaurants, and cabins with comfortable small beds and clean, well-equipped bathrooms for overnight travel. We embarked at North Sydney, and arrived at Port aux Basques on Newfoundland's southwest tip.

ST. JOHN’S—These are heady days in this oft-beleaguered town. The oil industry has brought a boom. There are new condo projects downtown and restaurants serving blistered Naples-style pizzas and Japanese fusion cuisine. New shops on Water St. sell the sort of trendy goods you’d find on Queen West or Ossington.

Our eldest son was still seven the first time he hiked to The Spout. It was early August and the whales were thick as black flies. The humpbacks were so close to the coast near Bread and Cheese in Bay Bulls, you could smell their breath. Which wasn’t too fresh, I may add. A pure caplin diet and no mouthwash does not a pleasant odour make.

Newfoundland and Labrador’s Viking Trail celebrates the place where the first Europeans to make landfall in the Western Hemisphere, Leif Erikson and the Vikings, came in contact with North America’s native people. Around A.D. 1000, Erikson led an expedition that sailed from a Norse village in Greenland to the coast of Labrador then south to Newfoundland.

The Newfoundland and Labrador tourism agency has reloaded the special offers page on its website. Among the offers is a two-night stay for two at the Hillside Bed & Breakfast in Twillingate, a small island in Central Newfoundland on the edge of what is known as Iceberg Alley, for $299. The package, called A Path Through Time, includes accommodations in the three-bedroom, restored 140-year-old home...

ST. JOHN’S, N.L. — Six weeks after the 100th anniversary of the Titanic disaster showcased Iceberg Alley off Newfoundland, an early and plentiful show of the glacial sculptures is drawing visitors from around the world.

What do fish and brewis, cod tongues, toutons, Jiggs’ dinner and moose meatballs have in common? They are just a few of the delicious dishes served in Labrador and Newfoundland. My only complaint after spending two weeks driving across Labrador and down the west coast of Newfoundland with my husband, Barrie, is that I put on more pounds than I care to divulge.