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From fabulous food to trendy hotels and jaw-dropping scenery, Travel Editor Jim Byers' offers up great things to do in St. John's, Newfoundland.

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.

Forget the Rockies. Winter blahs melt away as you hit the gas on a snowmobile and blast along ancient mountain ridges or wander through pristine woodlands in Newfoundland and Labrador.

A vast network of trails sprawls across more than 5,000 kilometres of natural beauty. It spans the former Canadian National Railway route, follows the foothills of the Long Range Mountains to a glacier-cut fjord in Gros Morne National Park, and crisscrosses Labrador's rolling tundra.

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.

For an east coast edition of Anna & Kristina's Grocery Bag, we visited Newfoundland and tried moose for the first time. Our guest chef on the episode was Jeremy Charles and he shared his restaurant's signature moose ravioli dish with us. Such friendly folks, those Newfoundlanders!

New Year's Eve at Raymonds restaurant in St. John's, N.L., will feature a luxurious 12-course tasting menu of seafood and wild game crafted by celebrated chef Jeremy Charles.

St. John's, the capital of the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador, is the perfect combination of big-city luxury and small-town charm.

We head to Upper Amherst Cove, Newfoundland to discover the secrets of the lively bread.

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

Newfoundland: North America's most easterly point with a budding foodie scene. Fine dining choices, a gastro-pub, and a seaside escape make for an epicurean adventure in Canada.

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...

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.

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.

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.

The province of Newfoundland and Labrador teems with culinary traditions from the sea and the land...

In the true Newfoundland and Labrador style of coming together to face a challenge, a team of local chefs will take over the kitchen at Bacalao to offer special five-course dinners while Chef Mike Barsky and the team represent the province at the Gold Medal Plates Canadian Culinary Championships in BC February 8-12.

There are few views in Canada more evocative than the one from the dining room at Raymonds. Tall windows survey Newfoundland’s prosperity, past and present: from St. John’s Harbour, picturesquely gritty with its tugboats and toothless smiles, to colourful houses huddling together against the wind, to the Atlantic beyond, where offshore drilling is fuelling Canada’s other oil boom.

The award-winning dish featured a spoon of parsnip purée, a cod chicharron, a sautéed chiffonade of Brussels sprouts, a tiny ravioli stuffed with peas pudding, and a fried piece of fresh cod napped with a Pernod and sea urchin beurre blanc. This is what’s coming out of Newfoundland these days?

One Globe and Mail writer samples the culinary delights of a visit to Newfoundland and Labrador...