Newfoundland & Labrador - Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island - page 393

is the sobering Silent Witness Monument , a tribute to 248 US soldiers whose plane
crashed here in December 1985.
Sinbad's Hotel & Suites ( 709-651-2678; www.steelehotels.com ; Bennett Dr; r $95-130)
has clean, basic hotel rooms within the center of Gander. Big box retailers are every-
where, as this is the region's main town. If you need to stock up on anything, do it here.
The Gander Airport (YQX; www.ganderairport.com ) gets a fair bit of traffic. DRL (
709-263-2171; www.drl-lr.com ) buses stop at the airport en route to St John's (four hours) and
Port aux Basques (nine hours).
DRIFTING DOWN ICEBERG ALLEY
Each year 10,000 to 40,000 glistening icebergs break off Greenland's glaciers and
enter the Baffin and Labrador currents for the three-year trip south to Newfound-
land's famed 'Iceberg Alley.' This 480km-long, 98km-wide stretch of sea runs along
the province's north and east coasts and is strewn with 'bergs in late spring and
early summer. Fogo and Twillingate Islands in Notre Dame Bay and St Anthony on
the Northern Peninsula are some of the best places for sightings. Even St John's is
graced with a few hundred of the blue-and-white marvels most years (though
sometimes the waters remain barren due to climate and current shifts).
To see where the behemoths lurk, check www.icebergfinder.com , the provincial
tourism association's website showing where icebergs are floating; you can get
weekly email updates on their locations and plan your trip accordingly.
TOP OF CHAPTER
Twillingate Island & New World Island
POP 2600
This area of Notre Dame Bay gets the most attention, and deservedly so. Twillingate
(which actually consists of two barely separated islands, North and South Twillingate)
sits just north of New World Island. The islands are reached from the mainland via an
amalgamation of short causeways. It's stunningly beautiful, with every turn of the road
revealing new ocean vistas, colorful fishing wharves or tidy groups of pastel houses hov-
ering on cliffs and outcrops. An influx of whales and icebergs every summer only adds to
the appealing mix.
Sights