Canada, Newfoundland: Viking Trail Hike

DAY 1:

Arrive at Deer Lake.

Your room will be waiting for you at the Deer Lake Motel, 4km from the airport. This is simple, clean lodging with a restaurant, well situated at the very beginning of the Viking Trail. Your guides/driver will meet you here tomorrow morning.

DAY 2:

Introductions and Hike Lookout Hill: ~5km and/or Tablelands Hike: up to ~14km.

You will be collected this morning from Deer Lake for a 60-minute drive to Gros Morne National Park and Woody Point. Leave luggage at your inn, then become acquainted with the park and warm up your legs for the walks to come with two introductory hikes. The Lookout Trail will take you to the top of Partridgeberry Hill, and will give you an expansive overview of the region. You can see the Tablelands, the coastal lowland, the Long-Range Mountains, and Bonne Bay’s picturesque villages of Norris Point and Woody Point. After lunch and a visit to the Discovery Center, hike the Tablelands, an eerie, alien landscape remnant of rock that once lay beneath the ancient Iapetus Ocean, and is now a visible part of the earth’s mantle. This hike along the shores of Trout River Pond Fjord explores this rocky terrain so geologically and naturally unique that it is a key component to Gros Morne National Park’s UNESCO World Heritage Site designation. Mostly treeless because of the toxicity of the soil and the exposed landscape, trees that do survive are stunted and very old.

Meal Inclusions: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner.

DAY 3:

Green Gardens Hike: Up to ~10km; one hour transfer.

Today’s hike takes in the volcanic coastline of Green Gardens, a spectacular walk, partly along the ocean’s edge, where temperate, boreal, and arctic species co-exist. Brook trout and Arctic char find a home together, as do rhododendrons and Lapland Rosebay. The hike traverses an ancient sea floor and descends into a lush boreal forest to a coastline of sea-stacks, cliffs and grassy meadows. At day’s end, transfer around Bonne Bay to Rocky Harbour for the night.

Meal Inclusions: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner.

DAY 4:

Gros Morne Mountain: ~15km/8-hour hike; ~806m/2600 ft elevation gain.

A full-day, challenging hike to the top of Gros Morne Mountain, where caribou are sometimes seen in the arctic alpine landscape atop the Long Range Mountains. Rock ptarmigan and arctic hares are also frequently seen. This is a difficult eight-hour hike, rewarded (weather permitting) by phenomenal views over Ten-Mile Pond, the Long Range Mountains and the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Return to your inn to freshen up before exploring independent dinner options in Rocky Harbour – a pretty community with gorgeous sunsets! If you would like a less strenuous hiking challenge, there is an option to turn around at the base of the mountain, above the tree line.

Meal Inclusions: Breakfast, Lunch.

DAY 5:

Western Brook Pond: ~6km hike and ~2hr boat tour; Lighthouse Trail at Cow Head ~5km.

A transfer north to a coastal lowland walk, across bogs and limestone ridges, takes you to Western Brook Pond fjord, a spectacular freshwater lake hemmed in by 650m high rock walls, where a boat awaits. This fascinating boat tour explores the fjord’s 16km length from which you will see spectacular waterfalls that tumble from the alpine plateau. Afterwards, the Lighthouse Trail in Cow Head is a geologist’s paradise. The 500-million-year-old rocks are world renowned as the only rocks showing the boundary between the Cambrian and the Ordovician Eras. The strange landscape looks out of place, even in Newfoundland and is a great place to explore. You may also come upon evidence of archaeological digs. Over 200 artifacts have been discovered from three sites on the head, representing three groups: the Maritime Archaic, Groswater, and Dorset Eskimo peoples, dating back over 4500 years. This is a beautiful, highly under-rated hike.

Meal Inclusions: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner.

DAY 6:

Transfer north up to ~4hrs; Port au Choix hike: ~7km.

On your drive north, your first stop is at Port au Choix – the crossroads of 6000 years of human history. The sea’s bounty drew Maritime Archaic Indian, Dorset and Groswater Palaeoeskimo here long before Europeans arrived. Seals on passing ice floes were hunted by the Dorset and used for food, shelter and clothing. This is a fascinating archaeological find amid a rugged coastline of unique limestone barrens, forests, and bays. You can tour ancient burial sites and settlements, and view original artifacts from slate spears to harpoons. After lunch in Port au Choix, you will transfer all the way up the Northern Peninsula to your inn at Gunner’s Cove.

Meal Inclusions: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner.

DAY 7:

L'Anse aux Meadows & Quirpon Island.

Start early today with the profoundly stirring site of L’Anse aux Meadows where Vikings landed more than five centuries before Columbus. Believed to be Leif Eriksson’s Vinland of the Norse sagas, this is the site of the birth of the first European descendant in the New World: “Snorri”. The archaeological and historical significance of L’Anse aux Meadows has earned it recognition by the United Nations as a World Heritage Site; it does not disappoint. You will hear sagas of ancient times and hardy people who sailed forbidding seas to inhabit this wild and beautiful place. Following a picnic lunch, you will transfer to Quirpon for a Zodiac boat trip through iceberg alley. The Zodiac will dock on a private island with fantastic coastal trails, and wide views at your exceptional lighthouse lodging. You may even find ruins of unexcavated Viking sod houses!

Meal Inclusions: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner.

DAY 8:

Transfer to Deer Lake, ~5 hrs.

Following breakfast, board your boat to return to mainland for a transfer back to Deer Lake, arriving by about 17:00. Finish the day with a return to Deer Lake in time for an independent dinner. Your guides/driver will normally say farewell before dinner this evening.

Meal Inclusions: Breakfast, Lunch.

DAY 9:

Independent Departure.

Deer Lake airport is ~4km from your hotel. Transfers are available through the front desk.

Meal Inclusions: Breakfast.