Where You Will Go

 

The Cape Shore

Home to Gannets and the French Heritage of Placentia Bay

This route, Just fifty minutes from Heart's Delight, takes you to the Cape St. Mary's Ecological Reserve seabird sanctuary, one of the most incredible wildlife spectacles in the world, and into an area of Placentia Bay that played an exciting part in the history of North America during its early days when England fought France for control of the colony and the continent.

The Cape Shore coast was first settled by Irishmen with names like Nash, McGrath, Careen, Coffey, Doyle and Power who settled here to escape the famine and oppression in their land. Those surnames are familiar here today among the descendants of the original settlers. Not much has changed here since then. It's still a wonderland of rivers, lakes and silent hills and, of course, the barrens. Along the Cape Shore you'll find grazing sheep, brightly coloured houses, old churches and winding lanes, and an Irish air. As the residents say themselves, don't look for glitz here. Life is more personal.  

Get out and roam the countryside. There are hidden secrets that are well worth finding, at the top of a hill or along a sandy shore. Pick partridgeberries in late summer, or photograph a moose as it grazes by the roadside. At the end of a road west of Branch is Point Lance, which has a fine beach.

The Cape St. Mary's Ecological Reserve is one of the most impressive sites in Newfoundland.    The "Bird Rock" is the third largest gannet-nesting site in North America.   It's located on a 300-foot vertical cliff, and is home to 60,000 seabirds. During the breeding season, it is home to 24,000 Northern gannet, 20,000 black-legged kittiwake, 20,000 common murre , and 2,000 thick-billed murre . In addition, more than 100 pairs of razorbill, more than 60 pairs of black guillemot, plus double-crested and great cormorant, and Northern fulmar nest there.   What makes it so spectacular, however, is that all these birds can be seen from land, as close as 10 metres away.

In St. Brides, Irish roots are strong and traditional song, dance and recitation have survived. Exciting traditional performers from the Cape Shore, as this stretch of coast is known, now take their music to folk festivals throughout the province. Nearby Cuslett is located in one of the many picturesque coastal valleys.

At Gooseberry Cove Provincial Park you can watch the waves roll onto a long, sandy beach or take a walk among the unusual purple rock formations that frame the cove. The grassy backshore is an ideal place for a picnic before you go on to explore Little Barasway and Great Barasway , which take their names from the Newfoundland term for barachois -a sandy isthmus providing shelter for exposed harbours. .

From Placentia, it is a short trip by paved highway to Argentia. Argentia's importance lay in its strategic position and ice-free harbour. In 1940, the United States Military began construction of a Naval Operating Base and Air Station, which served the American, and other Allied Forces during the war years. The base closed only a few years ago. A conference between President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill, held at sea off Ship Harbour in 1941, resulted in the Atlantic Charter, which laid out a vision for the post-war world during a very dark period.