The Tourist's Maritime Provinces/Chapter 14
NEWFOUNDLAND AND LABRADOR
CHAPTER XIV
TRANSPORTATION—ROUTES—HOTELS
GENERAL INFORMATION — FISHING
AND HUNTING.
∵
Transportation—Routes.
The only direct route from the United States to Newfoundland is via the Red Cross Line[1] whose steamers, Stephano (5000 tons displacement) and Florizel (4500 tons) leave every Saturday morning from June to October, and at less frequent intervals during other months, from Pier 32, adjoining Hamilton Ferry, Brooklyn, N. Y. In clear weather the outbound trip is usually made through Long Island Sound. The port of Halifax, Nova Scotia, is reached in about 46 hours. After a call of 24 hours' duration, the voyage to St. John's, Newfoundland, is resumed. The arrival is scheduled for Thursday morning. Summer excursionists are entitled to remain on board the steamer at Halifax and at St. John's. The return voyage is begun on Saturday; another 24-hour stay is made at Halifax and New York is reached the following Thursday, twelve days after departure. The minimum rate for this vacation tour is $5 a day.
Passengers arriving at St. John's, on the south-east coast, may leave the steamer there and, after making various trips by rail and steamer, continue to Port-aux-Basques at the southwestern extremity of the island. The all-rail route thither is by the Reid-Newfoundland road (546 miles in 28 hours). The all-sea route is maintained by the Bowring mail steamer which sails every other Wednesday from St. John's, calls at east and south coast ports before reaching Port-aux-Basques (446 m.), and continues 100 miles up the west coast to Bonne Bay. A rail journey of 82 miles from St. John's to Placentia provides a way of reaching the south coast without the necessity of rounding dire Cape Race in a craft of under a thousand tons. A Reid boat is scheduled to leave Placentia weekly and touches at south coast harbours as far as Port-aux-Basques. Time about four days. Distance, 385 miles.
At Port-aux-Basques a Reid Line steamer is scheduled to leave every night except Saturday for North Sydney, Cape Breton, and to arrive every morning except Monday from North Sydney. The departure from North Sydney is at 10:30 every night except Sunday. No trains run on the Intercolonial Railway's Cape Breton road on Sunday; this affects the sailings of the Newfoundland boats. In good weather the journey of 100 miles across Cabot Straits consumes seven to eight hours. In the winter of 1914 the new and splendidly equipped Lintrose of this service was sold to the Russian Government as an ice-breaker, but the sister ship Bruce was kept on the route with the Labrador steamer Kyle.[2]
Travellers who enter Newfoundland at Port-aux-Basques may leave for St. John's and intervening stations by any of the three lines before-named and return to Halifax or New York by the Red Cross steamer. Or at Port-aux-Basques they can make connection every other week with the Bowring steamer which leaves St. John's alternate Wednesdays for Bonne Bay. At the latter place they can meet the Reid steamer, Humbermouth—Bonne Bay—Battle Harbour, Labrador (379 m.). Another side of the triangular island may be compassed by returning in a Reid or a Bowring boat from Battle Harbour down the east coast to St. John's. The S.S. Kyle of modern and exceedingly sturdy construction leaves the Reid Line's dock, St. John's, every other week in summer for Battle Harbour (495 miles) and calls at as many ports between this point and Nain (1065 miles from St. John's) as the movement of the ice will permit. Nain is usually reached two or three times in a season. Time about 18 days, round-trip. Fare, including meals, $38.
At intervals throughout the railway journey from one side to the other of the island there are stations at which small steamers of the Reid System may be taken for excursions on Conception, Trinity, Bonavista, Notre Dame and Green Bays, all of which deeply indent the easterly coast of rugged Terra Nova. The Reid-Newfoundland Company controls all the railways on the island, the total number of miles being 726, including main line and branches. Exclusive of the service to North Sydney, Cape Breton, and to Nain, Labrador, the total number of miles covered on the bay routes is 2350. The steamers are very small, but are clean, modern as to sanitation and lighted with electricity. The food is of good quality and the attendance exceptionally courteous and obliging. Those affected by sea-sickness may suffer some unhappy moments even during comparatively sheltered passages, because in making successive ports the little crafts frequently round promontories which are exposed to the open Atlantic. However, in the middle of summer the ocean itself is often as calm as a bay. Rough water may be avoided in such long indraughts as Placentia and Trinity Bays by leaving the steamer at some picturesque port and staying ashore until after the steamer has completed the more exposed portion of the trip, at most a matter of three or four days. Steamer fares including meals average $2.50 a day.
Newfoundland's first railway was laid about twenty-five years ago, its promoter, builder and operator being Sir Robert Reid whose three sons now control the Newfoundland Rail, Steamer, Express and Telegraph Lines. The track is narrow gauge throughout the total mileage but the trains are well equipped with comfortable cars including diners. The rate for second-class is half the price of first-class accommodation. Only one train crosses the island daily in each direction. The sleeping-car berth rate is $3 for the distance of 546 miles. First-class fares, three cents a mile.[3] All tourists and sporting tourists who travel over the Reid Line remark the invariably pleasant conduct of its officials and its train and station staffs. The magnanimous attitude of "the Reids" toward their many hundreds of employés induces a sense of devotion, if not affection, which is reflected to the traveller in innumerable comments and brief incidents, readily related to those who will listen. The stewardess on the little coasting steamer—she was the wife of the agent at an obscure station. Her husband took sick and died. That was some time ago, but her voice trembles yet telling you how the company paid the bills, gave her the use of a freight car to move her household things, and then found a berth for her where she can make a living wage for herself and her children. An old track-walker seeks the stranger's ear at a wayside platform to eulogise the company's president who was not too busy to heed when the humblest of his employés found himself one time in distress. Newfoundland is a very human place and therefore democratic. The people are by nature appreciative, chivalrous and unaffected. Those who serve the travelling public are so attentive and well-intentioned that even if road-beds are rough and cars sometimes acrobatic, the visitor will be inclined to overlook annoyances which under other conditions he would think cause for grumbling.
Hotels.
The Newfoundland of the present is primarily for the angler, the hunter and the woodsman. Scenically it is as magnificent as its pools and barrens are sportive. But it is not a luxurious country and tourists unwilling to content themselves with moderate comforts of travel coupled with, for the most part, the most unassuming hotel accommodation will be happier not to come. The only tourist hotels which offer anything like first-grade service are the inns, some of them conducted by sportsmen, which have been erected near stations at the western end of the railway—St. George's Bay (Stephenville Crossing), Spruce Brook, Humbermouth (Bay of Islands) and Grand Lake. Grand Falls, a new town brought into being by the Anglo-Newfoundland Development Company, has adequate hotels. At Torbay, Topsail and other coast towns near St. John's there are modest summer hotels, and at most railway and steamer 
THE BULL-DOG OF THE NORTH. S.S. KYLE OF THE REID-NEWFOUNDLAND LABRADOR SERVICE
junctions and terminals there are fairly comfortable public or private houses. The rooms are usually very clean. The bill of fare, except in late summer, is apt to be restricted to coarse vegetables with meat, salt and fresh-water fish, and plain desserts. Green vegetables are not often sown until June. In August and September the wild berries mature in great abundance, raspberries, strawberries, bake-apples, partridge and whortle berries, all of them delicious in flavour. Terms for board and room vary from $8.50 to $18 a week, or $1.25 to $3 a day. Waterford Hall, in the suburbs, is the most comfortable hotel of the capital. In comparison with houses of similar grade elsewhere than in expensive Newfoundland its charges seem excessive. Nearly all imported commodities, including food-stuffs and fruits, are heavily taxed by the insular Customs, the maintenance of the Government being almost solely dependent upon the Customs revenue. Travellers who arrive at St. John's by the Red Cross Line will find it in every way greatly to their advantage to remain on board ship as long as possible while they are touring the city and its environs. It is not a question, as a visiting journalist put it, as to which is the "best" of the hotels within the city limits, but which is the "least worst."
General Information.
Newfoundland Customs Circular Number 15 says:
When Tourists, Anglers and Sportsmen arriving in this Colony bring with them Cameras, Bicycles, Anglers' Outfits, Trouting Gear, Fire-arms and Ammunition, Tents, Canoes and Implements, they shall be admitted under the following conditions:—
A deposit equal to the duty shall be taken on such articles as Cameras, Bicycles, Trouting Poles, Fire-arms, Tents, Canoes and Tent Equipage. A receipt (No. 1), according to the form attached, shall be given for the deposit, and the particulars of the articles shall be noted in the receipt, as well as in the marginal cheques. . . .
Upon the departure from the Colony of the Tourist, Angler or Sportsman, he may obtain a refund of the deposit by presenting the articles at the Port of Exit and having them compared with the receipt. The examining officer shall initial on the receipt the result of his examination and upon its correctness being ascertained the refund may be made.
No groceries, canned goods, wines, spirits or provisions of any kind will be admitted free, and no deposit for a refund may be taken upon such articles.
The money of the colony is similar in denomination to that of Canada. Canadian and United States currency, paper, gold or silver, passes at full value.
Letter postage is one cent in St. John's for city delivery. Elsewhere on the island, 2 cents per ounce. To Canada, the United States and Great Britain, 2 cents per ounce. To other foreign countries, 5 cents per half-ounce. Letters posted after the advertised closing hour can go forward by that mail if an additional "late fee" of 2 cents is paid. There are licensed stamp vendors at book-sellers', druggists' and other shops.
The local telegraph rate is 25 to 50 cents for 10 words, name and address free. Messages to New York and Boston cost $1.10 for 10 words, and 9 cents each additional word; to Nova Scotia and New Brunswick 85 cents for 10 words. Fifty-word "night letters" are despatched to Canada and the United States at the 10-word day rate.
The minimum cab-fare by the course is 30 cents, the hour-rate 80 cents within the city of St. John's. Except for the trolley line on Bell Island, Conception Bay, owned by the Iron Mines, the street car system of St. John's is the only tram service in the colony.
There are naturally good roads well maintained out of St. John's toward Conception Bay and down toward Cape Race and Trepassey. Along the south coast there are no roads at all; in the interior there are a few used by lumbermen. Thirty years ago there was not a dwelling 5 miles back from the coast. The railway has advanced the timber, pulp and mining industries and increased tourist facilities, but except for the towns and infrequent farms directly on the main road and its branches no inland settlements have followed its inauguration.
Newfoundland is not at its best until mid-July. The month of June is often so cold that winter clothing is worn. From July to November the skies are usually blue and the air bracing and not subject to extremes of either heat or cold. Fogs are rare in late summer and early fall after the Arctic ice has passed down. Western Newfoundland has very little fog and the cold raw spring departs sooner there than on the coasts which face the Atlantic. Crossing by the railway, snow may be seen on the Topsails at the crest of the interior upland as late as August in some years. During the winter 1914—1915 there were only ten days of hard "frost" and not enough snow to make good sleighing on the roads. After severe winters the frost is not out of the ground before the middle of June. The expansion of the warming earth has its effect on the road-bed of the railway which, unfortunately for those who must travel in that month, is not rock-ballasted. This is quite as potent a reason as any for the Newfoundland tour being delayed until mid-summer. When the frost is "working out," train tables are perforce disregarded, the daily express is often hours behind schedule time, and "tip-overs," especially of the rear or Pullman car, are so frequent as to cause but passing comment in the public prints.
Fishing and Hunting.
As a fishing country, Newfoundland has no equal on this side of the Atlantic. The salmon of Scottish streams are larger, but their pursuit is attended by almost prohibitive expense. In Newfoundland, salmon rivers and trout ponds and streams are free. The foreigner may fish anywhere within the law on payment of the angling fee of $10. The most famous salmon brooks and rivers are in the west and all of them, Little River, Grand Codroy, Crabbe's Brook, Robinson's Brook, Fishel's Brook, Harry's Brook, the Lower and Upper Humber River, and Kitty's Brook are directly accessible from the railway. Salmon are also taken in the Gander and Exploits Rivers, further east. The fishing from Doyle's (25 miles north of Port-aux-Basques) on the Grand Codroy is best in June. Pools further from their river's mouth are best fished in July. The legal season for salmon and trout is January 15th to September 15th. The largest salmon ever taken on a fly in the Grand Codroy weighed 35 pounds, the largest taken in the season of 1914, 32 pounds. The largest salmon known to be killed with a rod and line in the whole island of Newfoundland was taken at Little Codroy a few years ago and weighed 41½ pounds. The Little Codroy runs within two miles of the Grand River Codroy. The Humber River and Harry's Brook will furnish fish of 30 pounds. The average is 9 to 15 pounds. The camps, hotels and boarding-houses which cater to "sports," as angling and hunting guests are termed by the natives, are prepared to furnish guides, boats, canoes and outfits. Guides may be hired for $2.25 a day, their board being additional. The black fly is less annoying late in the summer than earlier in the fishing season.
Sea, lake, brook (brown or "mud") trout are found in such abundance in every part of the island as to exceed imagination. There are ponds (Newfoundlanders so designate even expansive lakes) lying within a mile or two of railway stations which are practically unfished. A telegrapher at Brigus Junction, east of St. John's, sallied forth on a June morning to one such lake and returned shortly after noon with fifteen dozen trout weighing half a pound to over a pound each. A Newfoundland trouter always refers to his catch in dozen lots. "Any luck?" "Not much—only five or six." "Five or six?" "Dozen of course."
The interior plateau is a rambling net-work of flashing lakes and water courses that swarm with trout. Almost every inlet and bay in the southern half of the island has its tributary stream which sea trout, usually several pounds in weight, enter in the summer-time and pass through for miles to favoured pools.
Grand Lake, 182 miles northeast of Port-aux-Basques, is at the heart of a renowned sporting district. Here there is a modern bungalow hotel where tourists may turn anglers without the necessity of roughing it. Adjacent to St. John's are many notable lakes and streams which on the Wednesday half-holiday are frequented by hundreds of excursionists.
The country drained by the Gander River, Triton Brook and Terra Nova River, east of Bonavista Bay, is perhaps the most versatile of all Newfoundland's gamey acres. Trout and salmon are taken in its rivers, and south of the railway big-antlered caribou inhabit vast barrens. Another great caribou district is situated along the base of the peaks called by the sea-faring natives, the Gaff, Mizzen, Main and Fore Topsails, a little west of the central plateau, near Grand Lake. In the fall the deer move across the railway to the south past Red Indian Lake, and in March return to the north again. Caribou is the French transliteration of the Micmac xalibu, "pawer" or "scratcher," so called because the lichen food is uncovered in this way from under the snow. The caribou or American reindeer reach their highest development in Newfoundland and British Columbia. The woodland is larger than the barren-ground caribou, but in proportion to the size of their bodies the latter have the mightier antlers. This species is distinguished from others of the deer family by having brow antlers. The cow caribou also has horns. The stag's horns are at their prime in September and are shed or "dropped" two months later. Antlers that have 30 to 40 separate prongs or "points" are good in the sportsman's estimation. To bring down a stag carrying 50 points is so exceptional as to enroll the name of the hunter on the Nimrod's scroll of honour.
The open season for caribou is from August 1st to September 30th, and from October 21st to January 31st. The limit in a season for each licensee is two stags and one doe; the non-resident fee is $50. Moose and elk are protected.
Willow grouse, also called partridge and ptarmigan, plover, snipe, curlew, duck, wild hares, rabbits, beavers, otters, foxes, black bear are found in various sections of the island preserve. The game laws affecting the shooting of them are given in the booklet of the Reid-Newfoundland Company mentioned in Note Two.
"Any person except a traveller on a journey found on a Sunday carrying firearms shall be subject to a fine not exceeding $40, and, in default of payment, to imprisonment for a period not exceeding one month."
- ↑ See under "Steamers from the United States," Chapter I.
- ↑ See under "Steamers from Canadian Ports," Chapter I, for Black Diamond Line, Montreal-St. John's.
- ↑ The Guide issued by the company for free distribution contains a list of 32 rail and steamer tours, with cost. Address the Reid-Newfoundland Company, St. John's.