Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Cupids
Merchant John Guy sailed here in 1610 and staked out England's first colony in Canada.
It's now the
Cupids Cove Plantation Provincial Historic Site
( 709-528-3500;
www.seethesites.ca
;
Seaforest Dr; adult/child $6/3; 9:30am-5pm May-Oct)
. An active ar-
chaeological dig is ongoing, and you can take a tour of it. A stone's throw down the road
4.25; 9:30am-5pm Jun-Oct)
, stuffed with silver coins, bottle shards and some of the oth-
er 150,000 artifacts unearthed on-site so far.
Afterward, head to the town's northern edge and hike the
Burnt Head Trail
. Climb to
the rocky headlands, past blueberry thickets and stone walls that once fenced settlers'
gardens, and look out over the same sea-buffeted coast that drew Guy.
The trail departs from an old Anglican church that has been converted into the divine
Cupid's Haven B&B and Tea Room
( 709-528-1555;
www.cupidshaven.ca
; 169 Burnt Head
Loop; r $99-149; )
. Each of the four rooms has a private bathroom, vaulted ceilings
and Gothic arched windows that let light stream in.
Harbour Grace & Around
A mixed crowd of historic figures has paraded through Harbour Grace over the past 500
years. Notables include the pirate Peter Easton and aviator Amelia Earhart. Learn about
them at the redbrick customs house that is now the small
Conception Bay Museum
(
709-596-5465;
www.hrgrace.ca/museum.html
; Water St; adult/child $3/2; 10am-6pm Jun-Aug)
. You can visit the airstrip Amelia launched from in 1932 -
Harbour Grace Airfield
(
www.hrgrace.ca/air.html
; Earhart Rd)
- when she became the first woman to cross the At-
lantic solo.
It's hard to miss the large ship beached at the mouth of the harbor. This is the
SS Kyle
(1913), wrecked during a 1967 storm. Locals liked the look of it so much they paid to
have it restored instead of removed.
Clinging to cliffs at the northern end of the peninsula are the remote and striking vil-
lages of
Bay de Verde
and
Grates Cove
. Hundreds of 500-year-old rock walls line the
hills around Grates Cove and have been declared a national historic site. Further off-
shore, in the distance, is the inaccessible
Baccalieu Island Ecological Reserve
, which is
host to three million pairs of Leach's storm petrel, making it the largest such colony in
the world.
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