Viking Trail (739 km)
Deer Lake Newfoundland to L Anse aux Meadows · one way, about 739 km back to the start
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Why this ride
739 km from Deer Lake to the finish, about 10 h 04 of riding. The stops in between: Gros Morne, Port au Choix and St Anthony. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
Roadbook
- Deer Lake Newfoundland
start
Deer Lake is where most people's Newfoundland begins or ends, since its small airport takes the jets from Toronto and Halifax, and it is also where the Viking Trail leaves the Trans-Canada Highway and turns north. The town sits at the foot of the lake from which it takes its name, at the mouth of the Humber River, with the dark hills of the Long Range rising behind and spruce forest everywhere you look. It is a plain, practical place, and that is how you want it to be at the start of a long run north.
Route 430, the Viking Trail, is the road that matters. It runs about four hundred kilometres up the west coast of the island's Great Northern Peninsula to the tip, passing Gros Morne National Park, with its fjords, the stark orange plateau of the Tablelands and a mountain that looks like a tilted table, and ending near L'Anse aux Meadows, where Norse settlers camped about a thousand years ago, the only confirmed Viking site in North America. Both parks are World Heritage sites. The road itself is a calm, smooth ribbon, mostly straight with gentle bends and occasional climbs, between the sea on one side and bog and forest on the other.
Be honest about the hazard: moose. Newfoundland has a very large moose population, introduced in 1904, and collisions are frequent, particularly at dawn and dusk, so ride at modest speeds and scan the verges constantly. Weather is the other variable, with fog, wind and cold rain common even in summer, and a few days of clear light a real prize. Pack a waterproof layer and warm gloves in July.
Deer Lake has more than four thousand people and decent services, including fuel, supermarkets, motels and a couple of diners, so stock up before heading north. Beyond Corner Brook and Deer Lake, the towns shrink quickly and stations are widely spaced, and in the north some close early. Never let the tank get low.
Food on the road is simple and good: cod, fish and chips, toutons, which are fried bread dough eaten with molasses, and partridgeberry jam. Ask what the local specialty is, and you will usually get an honest answer.
- Gros Morne
scenic
Gros Morne is the second-highest mountain in Newfoundland, a bald dome of about eight hundred metres, but the name is also used for the whole national park that surrounds it on the island's west coast, and the park is the point. UNESCO made it a World Heritage Site in 1987, largely because of its geology: here the deep rocks of the Earth's mantle have been pushed up and exposed, and you can see the process that is usually hidden miles below the surface. The Tablelands, a flat-topped massif of orange-brown rock that looks more like Mars than Canada, are the best example, and almost nothing grows on them because the rock is toxic to most plants.
The Viking Trail, Route 430, which runs north along the coast to L'Anse aux Meadows, passes through the park and is the main road for riders. It is smooth and wide, with long views of the sea on one side and the mountains on the other, and it dips in and out of fishing villages with brightly painted houses. Bonne Bay, a fjord-like arm of the sea cut into the park, is crossed by the road, and Rocky Harbour and Norris Point on its shores have fuel, cafes and places to sleep. The fuel is the part worth planning, since distances on the island are large and stations in the park are few. Deer Lake, to the south, has the airport and a wider choice of services.
Weather is a character of its own. Fog rolls in from the Atlantic with no warning, wind can be fierce on the headlands, and rain showers sweep through even in summer, so the layers go on and off through the day. Moose were introduced to Newfoundland in the nineteenth century and now number in the hundreds of thousands. They stand in the road and walk out from the trees, particularly at dawn and dusk, and a collision is serious, so riding at night is unwise.
A boat trip on Western Brook Pond, a freshwater fjord cut off from the sea and enclosed by cliffs that rise six hundred metres, is among the best excursions, reached by a walk of about three kilometres over a boggy path. The fishing villages serve cod, mussels and lobster, and local bakeries sell partridgeberry jam and bread. The riding season is short, from about June to September, and the best months are July and August.
- Port au Choix
scenic
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.
- St Anthony
scenic
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.
- 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.