IN SEARCH OF THE NEWFOUNDLAND SOUL

Tales of Survival and Celebration

Newfoundland Learning Vacation

DESTINATION
St. John’s and Eastport Peninsula, Bonavista Bay

DATES
August 6 – 16 (10 nights)

READINGS
Galore by Michael Crummey
Random Passage by Bernice Morgan

Description/Itinerary
Newfoundland is like no place you’ve ever been. This remote and craggy piece of landscape gets under your skin. Rugged beauty co-exists with a brooding melancholy as the raw ingredients of rock, sea and sky combine in endless variation. But, in the end, it is the people — a unique maritime sub-culture — that work a special magic on those from away.

St. John’s, the provincial capital, has one of the most spectacular natural harbours on the eastern coast of North America. Carved out of the formidable granite that gives the island its nickname (The Rock), the city is a photographer’s dream. Here, we will spend five days starting to unpack the social history of Newfoundland, meandering St. John’s winding lanes and by-ways with its candy-coloured clapboard houses. We will meet descendents of the English and Irish stalwarts, dreamers, and adventurers who originally settled Newfoundland. We will spend time at The Rooms, Newfoundland and Labrador's largest public cultural space, where history, heritage and artistic expression all come together.

On the overland way to Bonavista Bay, we’ll visit coastal locations that could have been the setting for Random Passage and Galore, our chosen books. We will stay on the wind-swept Eastport Peninsula and attend Winterset in Summer, Newfoundland and Labrador's unique literary festival founded by author and political journalist, Richard Gwyn. The Festival honours Sandra Gwyn, journalist (Maclean’s, Saturday Night) and novelist (The Private Capital and Tapestry of War), born in Newfoundland. It is a fabulous long weekend filled with readings by new and established authors, traditional music, and great homemade Newfoundland food. While there we can also walk heritage pathways over bluffs, marshes, cliffs, and fiords of other tiny communities or visit archaeological digs on near-by beaches that show Aboriginal habitation 5000 years ago.

What is the Newfoundland soul? How is it produced? Is it found in isolation, struggle, weather, history, character or spirit? Come, breathe, look, listen and talk and you decide.

Click here to see our route

Click here to view itinerary

Leader
Elayne Harris is an insider-outsider, a native of Bonavista Bay who designs university outreach initiatives in Canada, and Southeast Asia. Living in Vancouver and spending four months each year in Newfoundland, she is bi-coastal. From the time she was the director of Memorial University’s unconventional but lauded Extension Service, she has been committed to lifelong learning outside of classrooms and away from institutional settings.

ACCOMODATION
The historic Hotel Newfoundland in St. John’s and modest B&B style cottages or cabins, in local parlance.

Fees
CAN$2695 per person + HST
Single supplement: CAN$1195

Fee includes readings, accommodation, two meals a day, discussions, walking tours, talks, excursions, and admissions.