Back in the US, but I owe you a recap of the 2nd half of Newfoundland and my return trip across the Canadian Maritimes. Right now I’m in Kentucky, because I got ahead of the fall weather and I’m waiting for the leaves to change again. When the world allows me to, I wait up north for fall to hit, then ride south just 100-200 miles and catch the leaves changing again.
Done right, you can have a solid month of that glorious time as the seasons change. The leaves are vibrant and ever-changing, but they are just beginning to fall from the trees. As a motorcyclist, you want to be able to leaf peep as you ride, not scour the roads for patches of wet leaves stuck to the asphalt in shadowy corners. It’s a dance, but a rewarding one when you get the moves down. But, dear reader, I left us off at the western corner of Newfoundland (NL), and I have plenty to catch you up on, so let’s start there.
Get a gander of Gander
TransCanada Highway (TCH) is not a particularly exciting road. Running the length of Canada, it varies from narrow 2-lane to open 4-lane highway most of the way. In NL, it is both, and usually carries a 110km/h speed limit. Slow trucks on hills, passing zones selected by cowards, and plenty of overloaded #vanlife tourists make it a rather frustrating way to get anywhere, but there aren’t a lot of alternatives in a place as sparsely populated as this.
I did make my way to Gander, which is mainly famous for its airport. You see, before the Jet Age made transcontinental flight into a routine affair, airliners landed at the first available place they could after a crossing, and they got fuel at the least possible place before beginning the ordeal. For North America, that was Gander. And that means Gander airport was an international symbol of the British Commonwealth.
Everyone from Marilyn Monroe to Fidel Castro came through there. Sinatra got yelled at by the locals for trying to cut in line at the airport bar. Queen Elizabeth paid to have the lounge renovated so it would show a little more class to the many foreign travelers. Intercontinental mail used Gander as a hub, and WW2 bombers and fighter planes often stayed over for final checks, before their ferry flight to the European theater.
In modern times, Gander became an impromptu host to over 30 airliners and 7,000 people when the 9/11 attacks closed US airspace. For five days crews kept the planes flight ready, local pharmacies filled prescriptions for free, the telephone company set up banks of free phones so stranded people could keep in touch with family. Locals even came to drop off clothes and toiletries, and even put on some shows of local music and dance just to help pass the time. Newfoundland reminded the world what it meant to be human, in the midst of a very unhuman time.
It spawned a musical called “Come From Away” that still runs annually. And, in 2016 it inspired a group to escort a piece of the Twin Towers from Ground Zero up to Gander, donating it as a sign of thanks to the people who opened their doors when the skies over America were closed.
I spent about 40 minutes viewing displays in the airport terminal. The upstairs is a sort of museum, with everything from vintage pilot uniforms to photos of the famous people who had layovers there, to restored furniture that was once used on the main floor in the lounge. Sadly the lounge bar was closed and I had lunch at the restaurant out by the entrance. It was amazingly slow service and so-so food. I watched one woman doing 90% of the work while also training a near-useless employee — all while another three servers stood around talking to each other. You can’t win ’em all.
St. John’s
I’m the type to avoid cities when I travel. I don’t particularly like people, and city-dwelling people are generally indifferent due to the constant crush of people around them. However, St. John’s was one I wasn’t going to miss. Easily NL’s largest city, it’s on the east side of the island and also acts as the eastern terminus of the TCH. For that fact alone I had to at least stop in and get a picture, as I have a photo at the western terminus on Vancouver Island. It’s also home to a Terry Fox monument.
Most American’s don’t know the name but he’s a pretty big deal. A promising athlete, cancer took that away from Terry, along with half of one leg. Instead of moping, Terry decided he’d run the length of Canada to promote awareness of cancer research (this was the early 80’s and not a lot of money was going into cancer research back then). He set off in 1980 to run the length of the TCH on a prosthetic leg, making it to Thunder Bay (above Wisconsin) before his cancer returned and he was forced to stop.
A sign is erected where he stopped, and a little to the west is a turnout with another monument to him. There is even a Terry fox monument at the western terminus: the guy inspired the nation then, and still does now. A run happens every year to commemorate his effort, and the Terry Fox Foundation continues to raise money for cancer research today.
St. John’s itself has a much longer history of course. Settled by Europeans in the early 1600’s, its naming goes back to 1497, when explorer John Cabot anchored there on the day of John The Baptist, hence the name. The Catholic basilica there bearing the same name is a friggin’ stunner. On a hill — statues and arches out in the courtyard — the spires seem to reach up forever due to the sloping angle of the approach. But just to remind you it’s a city, the adjacent homeless outreach gathers plenty of litter and mentally ill people to scream at each other and panhandle. It’s an interesting juxtaposition.
In and around
I spent five days poking around the city. Several of those nights were with a Bunk-a-biker named Robert. He’d been to every continental US state and every Canadian province, and I had several great conversations talking about everything from packing a motorcycle to gun laws to the nature of human suffering. You just can’t get that at a motel, and it’s not all that common at communal places like hostels either. It’s a great opportunity to meet a local where they live, get local knowledge, but also trade experiences with someone who also likes to explore by motorcycle. It creates an immediate connection.
Other than that I admired the many bright painted houses of Jelly Bean Row (really the whole town is painted in bright and varied colors, Jelly Bean Row just happens to have a lot of row houses) and of course went to George Street. St. Johns has more bars per capita than anywhere in Canada, and most of them are on George Street. There’s a strong Irish influence on the entire island, so you’ll hear Irish folk coming from inside the cozy pubs and restaurants, but traditional Newfie music sounds extremely similar anyway, so you won’t likely recognize the difference unless you listen closely.
Either way it’s still a tourist area, so prices are a bit high despite there being dozens of bars to choose from. I also passed on getting “Screeched in.” A sort-of tradition, Screech is slang for a very dark rum the locals used to trade for with Caribbean colonies. Nowadays it’s an actual brand name.
The idea of a screech-in is you take a shot of Screech, kiss a frozen fish, then recite some kind of pledge which makes you an honorary Newfie. It’s meant as fun for everyone so it’s not a ploy in and of its own, but generally a modern Screech-in is on the menu, costs $20, and they use a rubber fish. That’s just not my thing. I hunt for the hyper-local and off-beat, but this felt too much like shtick.
I didn’t need the hype, and Screech isn’t particularly good unless you like really dark rum. Instead I roamed other parts of town. Being vital during both world wars, there are of course plenty of old shore batteries and fortifications around St. John’s, and most have turned into hiking trails and interpretive centers. Now that’s my kind of party.
Signal Hill had an old observation tower, a Marconi building, and an old cannon that was fired at noon every day by the British, going back hundreds of years. Starting as a military necessity, it carried on after the British left, continuing well into the 19th century simply out of habit. The Marconi building was also a necessity, since morse code originally had to be transmitted by cable. Yes, over 100 years ago, they built and ran a cable across the entire Atlantic, landing it on shore the first place they could: Newfoundland.
The wired system went into operation in the 1860’s, and Marconi’s first cross-Atlantic wireless transmission happened from the St. John’s shore in 1901, picking the spot for the same reason the cable-layers did: distance.
Making the ferry
I did more around St. John’s but photos can show that better than words, including my run north to Dildo. Yes, it’s a real town and yes, you can get a I-heart-Dildo sticker or T-shirt. It’s actually a Portuguese word for a narrowing in a waterway, and Dildo Cove does just that before opening into a natural bay. The locals like the name, so it stays, despite being located only 30 minutes from Spread Eagle, and about two hours from Come by Chance.
I swear, the explorers were just messing with the cartographers back in Europe, seeing if they’d really print these names on a map.
Mainland again
The weather had been good to me, but I could tell the season was shifting, so I caught one of the last ferry’s from the east side of the island and made it back to Nova Scotia so I could finally ride the Cabot Trail. Everyone will tell you it’s a must see — even people who don’t ride motorcycles. It’s a great loop you can either ride in a day or explore over 2-5 days.
I rode it clockwise and stopped a few times to look for whales along the shore. With the winds causing whitecaps as far as I could see, it was a needle/haystack situation, so I settled for taking a picture of a giant fiberglass whale’s butt, then spent a night at a unique hostel at the north end of the loop.
Highlands Hostel is literally a converted church. More than just a home and hostel, it is a de facto community center. Musical instruments lay everywhere. A Friday night jam brings in locals, and guests are invited to join in on an instrument, sing along, or just bang a drum or clap to the beat. One of the owners is an avid downhill skateboarder and the upstairs of the church doubles as a jam room and recording space, but also a sort of museum to downhill skating. Boards, leathers, helmets, photos, speed record certificates, you name it.
After leaving there to finish the loop I didn’t think things could get much better, but the best part of Cabot Trail is definitely the eastern stretch. Running it southbound, you come from the highlands, looking down the coast as ribbon after ribbon of the road ahead exposes itself below you along a rocky shore. The scenes are breath taking, but you damn well better manage your downhill speed whilst gawking at the views, or you may be breathing your last.
Back to the US
I burned through New Brunswick as quick as I could, with the days generally cool and overcast but with no steady rain. I ticked off a few more covered bridges from my list, took a backroad to Utopia (literally the name, even though it’s only a crossroad with a cluster of small houses), and rode through the blackberry fields, which had become a bright-yet-deep red by this time of year. I was riding through a postcard again.
I was hitting my stride when I crossed into the US. Maine was still slightly frigid but I could still wear my summer gloves if I had the heated grips set to 50%. The leaves were just beginning to fall so the road was clear, but I could watch the swirls of leaves lift up in the wake of cars I followed, and I could see the wind rush through the trees, creating showers of reds and golds that I could blast through.
My luck continued until Connecticut, when hostile hotel prices and hostile weather conspired to have me riding in the rain, at night. It’s the worst, since my budget helmet fogs up on the inside of the visor. You then must crack the visor open, then water runs down the inside, giving you a kaleidoscope of fog and vertical water lines. On the plus side, I no longer had Kenda tires on the bike, so I didn’t have to white knuckle ride because of traction — only because of visibility.
Next up…
I’ll leave it here for now. There’s little to report of the rest of the ride from there to Kentucky, so I’ll throw some photos below to cover the highlights [EDIT: nah, those are still on my GoPro, but I’ve got some others to share]. As always, sign up for the digest to keep following. It only goes out once a week, and only if there’s new posts, so it’s an easy and free way to make sure you get the next installment.
Besides ride reports, I also want to add more to my “Biker B-movie” series, as I’ve seen a couple new (to me) movies and actually came across a gem. Most of them of course aren’t about good acting or story telling, but cool vibes: the bikes, the costumes, the slang, and seeing real locations, as they were, back in the 70’s. Until then, ride fast, ride far…
