Our second day in Newfoundland and Labrador, Tom and I hiked to Signal Hill in St. John’s. Signal Hill is a Canadian National Historic Site with lots of park land and hiking trails. Our ship docked in the center of town, which meant that the walk to Signal Hill was just 1.5 miles. Of course, that was 1.5 miles uphill. In fact, on the sign for Signal Hill Road, it gives distances and then adds a disclaimer saying the road is steep. They are not kidding. There were several points where I was huffing and puffing.
Fortunately, the Visitors Center is about 2/3 of the way up the hill. Perfect time for a break from hiking up. We went inside and paid the admission to the museum. Signal Hill itself is free, but going in the museum is a small fee. We were glad to pay it and support the Canadian parks. The movie was very good and explained the history of St. John’s as well as the history of Signal Hill.
What is amazing to me is the number of times the hill (and town) was traded back and forth between the French and the British. The hill guarded the strategic harbor of St. John’s and kept anyone from entering without passing under the fort’s guns. The signal part comes in with communication to the town via flags that were flown. Signalmen occupied the hill and the tower until 1952.
Beyond defense, Signal Hill is important for another reason. On 12 December 1901, the first transatlantic wireless transmission was received there by Guglielmo Marconi. After spending time in the museum, and enjoying an oatcake at the café, Tom and I continued our hike up the hill. We were on the trail in time to see the noon cannon shoot off. The canon was sounded every day to help the ships in the harbor set their clocks. Now that it is a National Historic Site, it is still fired every day at noon.
We walked by the battery overlooking the harbor and had a great view of our ship and downtown St. John’s. Then we climbed up the tower on Signal Hill and looked at the various exhibits. The first floor was the gift shop. The second floor was about military history. And the third floor was signalmen and Marconi. We climbed all the way up to the overlook on the roof.
After thoroughly exploring the top of Signal Hill, Tom and I took a walk along some of the paths. Because of my vertigo, I didn’t want to do the steep and narrow steps down to the trail right along the coast. Instead, we walked a more protected path, although it still had some steep sections and stairs. At least I wasn’t looking over the edge of a cliff. We ended up walking about four miles on the trails and back into town.
Walking through town was a very nice experience. We saw a very large war memorial. I made Tom walk down another steep hill to see the Terry Fox memorial. Terry Fox was a young man from Canada who was diagnosed with cancer and decided to jog across Canada. He started at the site of the memorial in St. John’s. He made it about 2/3 of the way across before dying of cancer. We had seen his museum exhibit in Victoria, British Columbia along with a movie about his life.
Another thing we found was Craig’s Cookies. Of course we had to go in there, although Tom said I wasn’t allowed to just have cookies for lunch. Why not? Craig’s Cookies is a small chain of stores that sells almost 100 different kinds of cookies. All of the shops are in Ontario, Canada, except for the one in St. John’s. Craig grew up in St. John’s. We went in and ended up getting six different cookies. I got apple, smore, and basic chocolate chip. Tom got fudgee, dark chocolate and basic chocolate chip. We waited until we got back on the ship to eat any of them, but they were all delicious (over the next two days). Showing that I do have some restraint where cookies are concerned.
All the shops that we visited were very glad to have business from the cruise ships. There were even “Welcome Zuiderdam” signs on many of the doors and windows.
Tom and I found a lovely little gift shop where I was able to buy a demitasse spoon and the last souvenir of the journey. It was a magnet for my friend Wendy. Wendy loves dogs (better than people most days) and of course, Newfoundland and Labrador have two breeds of dogs named after them. We found a magnet that has both breeds of dogs with the name of the province. When Tom and I disembarked that morning, one of the local greeters was a woman with a Newfoundland dog. They are so beautiful and sweet!
Our souvenir shopping done, we found a place for lunch. I was definitely low on fuel and we still had stuff to do in St. John’s, so we found a place that had pulled pork grilled cheese sandwiches on the menu. The Grapevine had nice seating outside and the food was very good. We could have ordered poutine – on most Canadian menus – but Tom and I don’t need the salt in poutine. The sandwiches with their plain fries were very good and just what we needed to continue our afternoon.
After lunch we hiked to a drug store. Usually there are drug stores close to the ship. But we were in St. John’s on a Sunday and the several drug stores in downtown were closed. We needed to go to Shoppers Drug Mart and it was 1.5 miles uphill from downtown. Tom said we could get a taxi there, but I was rejuvenated after lunch and ready to walk some more.
It really was a very nice walk. The day was a perfect temperature and sunny. The houses in St. John’s are painted lots of bright colors and were fun to admire as we walked. There was a memorial that marked the site of a Methodist College called the Holloway School. It closed in 1979, but it was fun to make that kind of connection. We were a little tired of going up by the time we got there, but we were able to find the things we needed, so the trip was a success. None of the European countries had the allergy medicine that Tom needed, so it was good to be back in North America where it was available.
We headed back downhill, a straight shot back to the ship. Tom mentioned that it would have been really easy to get back if we were balls. We could just roll down the hill onto the ship. Instead, we did it the hard (and safer) way and stayed on our feet. I was glad to get back to the room and sit for a while, but we really enjoyed our day in St. John’s and visiting Signal Hill.