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For centuries, life in ST JOHN'S
has focused on the harbour. In its heyday it was crammed with
ships from a score of nations, but today - although its population
is about 105,000 - it's a shadow of its former self, with just
the odd oil tanker or trawler creeping through the 200-metre-wide
channel of The Narrows into the jaw-shaped inlet. Once a rumbustious
port, it's become a far more subdued place, the rough houses of
the waterfront mostly replaced by shops and offices, its economy
dominated by white-collar workers who are concentrated in a string
of downtown skyscrapers and in the Confederation Building, the
huge government complex on the western outskirts.
Yet although the city's centre of gravity has begun
to move west, the waterfront remains the social centre, home of
lively bars that feature the pick of Newfoundland folk
music - the best single reason for visiting. Almost all
of the older buildings were destroyed by fire in the nineteenth
century or demolished in the twentieth, so although St John's
looks splendid from the water, with tier upon tier of pastel-painted
houses rising from the harbour, there are not a lot of major sights,
with the notable exception of the grand basilica
, and the Newfoundland Museum , which provides
an excellent introduction to the history of the island and its
people. Elsewhere, Signal Hill National Historic Site
, overlooking The Narrows, has great views back over
the city and out across the Atlantic, while the drive out to the
rugged shoreline of Cape Spear , the continent's
most easterly point, makes for a pleasant excursion, as does the
trip to the Witless Bay Ecological Reserve .
