Did you know you can see icebergs from the east coast of Canada?!
From Newfoundland and Labrador.
They travel down the Iceberg Alley, a section of the Atlantic Ocean.
The best time to see them? May-June.
We booked our flights!
And a friend from San Francisco booked to join us!!
To make Newfoundland an even more exciting destination for me, I learnt that the last Irish convict ship sent to the east coast of America, the Duke of Leinster, had disembarked (a nice word for it) the convicts in Bay Bulls & Petty Harbour, Newfoundland in 1789. It’s a very sad tale. The locals rounded them up with the plan to send them back, but before they could, a contagious disease they brought with them, likely Typhus/jail fever, killed more than 200 locals. Eventually, they were shipped back to London. The message was received. No more convict ships were sent to America from Ireland; they were sent to Australia instead.
You’ll remember that our ancestor, Margaret Maloney, was on one of these ships bound for Botany Bay—the Boddingtons. It left Ireland in 1793. If you’d like to read more about Margaret, here’s a link to the post.
In the 1700s & 1800s, Irish fishermen would travel to Newfoundland for the cod-fishing season; some eventually settled permanently. You can hear the old Irish accent in the Newfoundlander’s speech patterns today.
There was something incredibly peaceful about Newfoundland, a little bit like stepping back in time.
I loved learning about and tasting toutons, seeing the colourful houses, the rugged coastline, and hearing them speak. Not to mention seeing and communing with the icebergs!
But there was one thing that surprised me! The island was literally covered with huge dandelion flowers! The flowers were bigger than egg yolks! They were everywhere, on roadsides, in people’s yards, in fields, on coastal outcrops, on rocky beaches, seriously everywhere!
So so beautiful!
Dandelion Flowers (Newfoundland, Canada)
Acrylic on canvas 30.5 x 30.5 cms (12×12 inches) by Arwen Munro, June 2025. Painted at Crush of Colour, St Stephens Anglican Church, Ambleside, West Vancouver, Canada.
Have a wonderful day! 🌱
I love the ‘Rock’ too Arwen…my parents met in wartime Gander (WW2)…and the rest is history (7 of us born in the next 12 yrs)…we went for our 1st X about 20 yrs ago…did you try cloudberry jam? We biked the west coast up to Lance Aux Meadows. I guess the reason the dandelions are so stellar is the bogs feed ’em!! xox J
I love that, Joan! ❤️
Ha ha, yes, The Rock!
We were there for only three days, so only got as far as Twillingate.
We did encounter a moose on the road, though! Pretty scary! It was dark and we were about 30mins from our accommodation. My American friend had been telling us horror stories about moose encounters! Adrenaline was high that night!
No, I didn’t hear about cloudberry jam 😢. Next visit, or maybe I can find it here?
I just did a google search for Newfoundland and bogs! Holy, 1.3million hectares of peatlands in Newfoundland!
When the moose are in the bogs they look just like cows but when they step out onto the road you see how long their legs are. I wouldn’t want to hit one.
I wonder if dandelion wine is popular there?
The icebergs are so majestic and it’s hard to imagine how deep they go under the water.
xx
We had massive amounts of adrenaline pumping when we saw the moose on the road! He he, a moose in a bog, sounds like the beginning of a joke… 😅
I’m going to look up dandelion wine!
Aren’t the icebergs incredible! I love the thought that they are carried by a huge strong supportive foundation xoxxx