Viking Trail to L'Anse aux Meadows

A world-class Atlantic route combining fjords, tundra and Norse heritage.

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Why this ride

A world-class Atlantic route combining fjords, tundra and Norse heritage. The road: NL-430. Distance and riding time are estimates from the checkpoints until the road is measured on this page.

Roadbook

1. Deer Lake start

   Deer Lake is where western Newfoundland begins for most visitors, because it has the airport, a handful of motels, and the junction where the Viking Trail leaves the Trans-Canada Highway and heads north. About 4,600 people live here, there is fuel in town, and it is the last place with real choice before the long empty miles on Route 430. Treat it as the point to fill the tank, eat something warm, and check the sky.

   The lake that gives the town its name is the broad lower end of the Humber River system, and the Humber itself is one of the great salmon rivers of the island. The valley is gentle and forested, with spruce and fir on the hills and patches of bog, and the road along it is quick and friendly, a good place to settle into the bike before the coast takes over. The surface on the main routes is serviceable rather than glossy, with frost heave and patched sections that come with a place where winter tries hard.

   Newfoundland has its own rules for riders, and the first is moose. There are a great many on the island, they are enormous, and they step onto the road at dawn and dusk with no sense of drama. Plan your day so that you are not riding the long forested stretches in the half-light, and keep your speed within what you can stop in. The second rule is to carry a layer: even in high summer a wind off the Gulf of St. Lawrence can drop the temperature sharply, and fog can sit on the coast for days.

   The ride from here is a story about the far end of the Great Northern Peninsula, where Norse seafarers built a small settlement about a thousand years ago at L'Anse aux Meadows, the only confirmed Viking site in North America and a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1978. Between here and there lie Gros Morne, fishing coves painted in strong colours, and a lot of sky. Ask at a local counter about the day's weather and you will get an honest answer, usually delivered with a joke attached.

2. Gros Morne stop

   Gros Morne is a national park and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and the reason is under your wheels as much as in front of you. Here, on the west coast of Newfoundland, ancient ocean floor and a slice of the Earth's mantle were pushed up onto the continent when old continents collided. The result is the Tablelands, an orange-brown plateau of peridotite that looks like a piece of Mars dropped between green hills and a cold sea. Few plants tolerate the mineral chemistry, so the ground stays eerily bare.

   The mountain that gives the park its name is a rounded 806-metre dome, and the rest of the scenery is on a grand scale too: Bonne Bay, a deep fjord-like inlet, cuts into the land, and inland lies Western Brook Pond, a freshwater fjord whose cliffs rise straight from the water. The villages around Bonne Bay, such as Rocky Harbour and Norris Point, are working fishing communities, and they are where you will find coffee, a bed, and most likely fuel; ask before you count on it late in the evening.

   For a rider, the Viking Trail through here is relaxed and scenic more than technical. The bends are easy and the road follows the coast with the Gulf of St. Lawrence on one side and the Long Range Mountains on the other, so views turn up in long, generous sweeps. Wind can be serious on the exposed sections, and on cold days the sea fog drifts across the road and changes the ride completely. Moose are the main hazard, especially at dawn, dusk and in drizzle, so keep your speed honest and your eyes on the verges.

   The people who settled this coast fished cod for centuries, and traces of that life show in the wooden stages, the stacked traps and the small churches. Before them, Indigenous peoples and Norse sailors passed through. Plan for the weather to be the dominant character: you may get one blue day, one grey day and one wet day, and the sensible response is to ride whatever you are given and stop at a bakery when the rain really sets in.

3. Port au Choix stop

   Port au Choix sits at the tip of a low, flat peninsula on Newfoundland's Great Northern Peninsula, where the Viking Trail, Route 430, runs along the coast of the Gulf of St Lawrence. It is a working fishing town with colourful houses, stacks of lobster pots and boats drawn up on the shore, and it has a surprising depth of history. The Port au Choix National Historic Site preserves the remains of some of the oldest settlements in the region, with burial grounds used by the Maritime Archaic people about four thousand years ago, and later by Dorset Palaeo-Eskimo groups. The graves contained tools, ornaments and spiritual objects, giving a rare glimpse into a prehistoric culture.

   The landscape is stark and beautiful. The peninsula is covered in limestone barrens, where harsh conditions have produced a rare collection of arctic and alpine plants, which bloom in a short burst of colour in early summer. The Point Riche lighthouse stands at the end of the road, with views over the sea, and on a clear day the Labrador coast can be seen across the strait. Seabirds and whales pass offshore, and in spring icebergs sometimes drift past.

   For riders, this is a long, rewarding road. Route 430 follows the coast for hundreds of kilometres, with long straights and gentle curves, wide skies and few other vehicles. The surface is generally good, though frost heaves can make the road rough, especially after winter. The great danger is moose. Newfoundland has a huge moose population, and collisions are common, especially at dawn and dusk, so ride cautiously and avoid night riding.

   Port au Choix has fuel, a small supermarket and a few places to eat, but services are limited in the evening, and the distances between settlements are long, so fill the tank when you can. Fog and wind are frequent, and the temperature can be cold even in summer. Gros Morne National Park lies to the south, and the Viking settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows lies far to the north. Bring warm clothing and patience, and you will be rewarded.

4. St Anthony stop

   At St Anthony the road runs out of Newfoundland, or nearly. This is the northern capital of the Great Northern Peninsula, a fishing port of about two thousand people facing the cold Atlantic and the Labrador current, and it has been a lifeline for the whole coast since the English doctor Wilfred Grenfell set up a hospital here in the early twentieth century. The Grenfell historic properties still stand, and the story of the doctor who sailed from cove to cove to treat fishing families is one of the best told in the province.

   The ride up the Viking Trail on Route 430 is long, honest and surprisingly dramatic. The road leaves the Gulf of St. Lawrence at Port au Choix, runs beside the Long Range Mountains, and then crosses open bogs and stunted spruce, the so-called tuckamore, bent flat by the wind. It is mostly straight, with long gentle swells, so the thrill is in the weather and the space. Moose are the real hazard, and every local has a story of one. Do not ride at night, and on any evening run keep the speed well below what the straight road invites, because a moose is as tall as a bar stool and about as easy to see in the dusk.

   St Anthony is the sensible place to fuel, eat and sleep before the last run on Route 436 to L'Anse aux Meadows, where Norse settlers built their turf huts around the year 1000. In late spring and early summer, icebergs drift down from Greenland and sit grounded in the bay off the headlands, white and blue, and the whales come in close in July. The headlands around the harbour are an easy place to watch for both, and locals will tell you where the bergs have grounded this week. The best seafood is simple: cod, shrimp, crab in season, and a mug of tea.

   The wind off the bay is cold even in July, and fog is common, so carry a warm layer. The summer riding season is short, running roughly from June to September, and the north is quiet outside those months.

5. L'Anse aux Meadows finish

   At the very top of Newfoundland's Northern Peninsula, where the land ends in low, windy moorland and the cold water of the Strait of Belle Isle, a handful of grassy mounds mark the only confirmed Norse settlement in North America. L'Anse aux Meadows was found in 1960 by the Norwegian explorer Helge Ingstad and his wife, the archaeologist Anne Stine Ingstad, following local directions to some strange humps beside the bay, and excavation showed eight buildings of turf and timber from about the year 1000. It was one of the first places in the world to be placed on the UNESCO World Heritage list, in 1978.

   The site is looked after by Parks Canada, and reconstructed sod houses stand near the original foundations, with costumed staff who show how the Norse smelted iron and lived through the winter. The buildings are small and smoky and very quiet, and the wind here has a way of making the whole story seem very close. Nobody knows whether this was the Vinland of the sagas or a base for exploring, but it was clearly a place where people lived and worked, and it proves that Europeans crossed the Atlantic five hundred years before Columbus.

   The Viking Trail, as Route 430 and 436 are known, runs for hundreds of kilometres north from Deer Lake past Gros Morne National Park and along the Gulf of St Lawrence. The road is generally good, with long straight stretches and wide views of the sea on one side and low spruce and bog on the other. Moose are a constant danger, especially at dusk and dawn, and every rider should slow down and watch the verges. Fog can roll in from the cold water without warning.

   For fuel, the last real town before the end is St. Anthony, about twenty-five kilometres away, and it is the sensible place to fill up and eat. The site and surrounding villages have a few small restaurants and guesthouses, but services thin out the further north you go, and the season is short, with the site open only from roughly early June to early October.

   In early summer, icebergs drift down from Greenland along this coast, and they can be seen from the headlands, glowing white against the grey sea. Dress warmly even in July.

Where this sits

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