| Journal: TWUK | Section: |
| Title: | Issue Date: 29/05/00 |
| Author: | Page Number: 50 |
| Copyright: Other |
Head northeast for natural sights and nordic cheer
Regional overview
Head northeast for natural sights and nordic cheer
Provinces show off their variety
Canada’s rugged northeastern provinces – Newfoundland and Labrador, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia – are often overlooked in favour of the mountain landscapes of the west, or their cosmopolitan neighbour Quebec.Yet the Maritimes, as the provinces are known, have much to recommend them. From London to Newfoundland is about the shortest long-haul flight possible at 4hrs 30mins and the area is steeped in Celtic heritage.
The provinces have focused their attention on promoting their natural beauty and soft-adventure product. Take your pick:
Getting around
Touring, be it by coach, car or train, has long been a favourite with British visitors to Canada.
The famous Cabot Trail is a popular path through the Maritimes. Titan HiTours offers a 13-day ‘Maritime Canada’ coach itinerary that starts in Halifax, Nova Scotia and takes in Liscomb, Baddeck, Cheticamp, New Glasgow, Montague, Charlottetown, Cavandish, Moncton, Frederickton, St John, Brier Island and Digby. The 2001 lead-in price is £1,515. VIA Rail has a variety of routes through the Maritimes. Brand new for this year is the Bras D’Or, which starts in Halifax, travels through coal-mining country, across the Canso Causeway and into Cape Breton, ending in Sydney 10hrs later. The trip includes on and off train entertainment, such as traditional musical performances.
All-Canada offers the Bras D’Or either on its own at £100 per person, or as an add-on to other tours. Combined with the 10-day Newfoundland Voyage, which mixes rail travel with a self-drive itinerary, the tour departs Halifax and calls on Sydney, St Johns, Clarrenville and others, allowing time in the United Nations Scientific Educational Cultural Organisation designated world-heritage site of Gros Morne national park. All-Canada’s lead-in price for the two tours combined is £673.
For those who want the rail experience without the organised tour, VIA Rail’s scheduled Eastern Canadian routes are a good bet. Booking through Leisurerail, the ocean route between Montreal and Halifax is an overnight journey that leads in at £125 for a single berth. The Chaleur follows the same route but diverts at Moncton, ending at the Gaspe Peninsula and leads in at £110 for a single berth.
Bras D’Or: take in routes through the Maritimes
The Viking experience
Newfoundland and Labrador’s major claim for this year is that it is the 1,000th anniversary of the Vikings’ arrival in North America.
The area was settled in the 10th century by Leif Ericson, son of Eric the Red, thought to be the first European settler in North America, 500 years before Christopher Columbus made his voyage. The site, which was excavated in the 1960s, is now known as L’Anse aux Meadows and is the only certified Norse settlement in North America. Among the eight turf-walled huts that were found were four workshops and an iron forge.
L’Anse aux Meadows is the first in the world to be recognised by the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation as a world-heritage site of cultural significance. The site is open to the public as an interpretive centre and will play host to several events over this year.
In July, a fleet of Viking longboats will undertake a six-day journey along the Wonderstrands, arriving in L’Anse aux Meadows on the 28th, where they will be greeted by a Viking settlement that will feature 100 participants. The same group will be recreating Viking life at the L’Anse aux Meadows site from July 17-September 8.
Nature watching
Canada is a country rich with wildlife in general and the maritime provinces are no exception. Whales are the main draw but puffins and seals also come high on the agenda.
Gatherall’s is a family-run operator based in Bay Bulls, Newfoundland. Co-owner Mike Gatherall said the UK was his number three market for nature watching, after the US and the domestic market.
The 2hr 30min tours depart Gatherall’s Wharf in Bay Bulls six times daily in the May-October season and sail in waters that are home to the largest humpback whale population in North America.
The tours also take in icebergs and showcase the 2m seabirds that flock to the area in the summer, including the comically portly Atlantic Puffin. Tours cost around £18.
For real enthusiasts, Atlantic Marine Wildlife Tours can organise a variety of itineraries from one to 10 days duration.
In spring, 250,000 harp seals come to the Gulf of St Lawrence to bear their young. A one-day harp seal watching heli-tour to the Gulf costs from around £390 and includes lunch and up to 5hrs’ time with the seals on the ice. Atlantic Marine Wildlife Tours president Eugene Lewis noted places on the one-day tour were a popular purchase among UK operators.
“Spending time with the seal pups is one of the few opportunities people will get to actually touch a wild animal in its habitat, without any danger,” he added.
Half days allowing 2hrs with the seals are also available at £285, as are five-day packages from around £830.
New Brunswick’s Bay of Fundy is one of the most popular spots for whale watching, with a number of local operators claiming “99% guaranteed” sightings.
Island Coast Boat Tours at North Head Fisherman’s Pier offers 4hr narrated tours of the whale region, priced at £20 per adult and £10 per child.
Golf
“Prince Edward Island would like to position itself as the Myrtle Beach of Canada,”according to Tourism Prince Edward Island project manager Tracey Peters. The province has more that 20 courses, including the new Fox Meadows Golf and Country Club, which opens this summer.
Last year, Rodd Hotels and Resorts opened Dundarave, the second of its 18-hole courses at its Brudenell River Resort in Charlottetown. The resort also has its own golf academy and this summer it will play host to the island’s first ever ladies skins-style tournament, organised by top Ladies Professional Golf Association golfer and PEI resident, Lorie Kane. The resort also has its own golf academy, offering lessons from one hour at £22, one day for £130, two days for £235 and three days for £290.
Three nights’ bed and breakfast accommodation at the Rodd Hotel in Charlottetown with Vacation Canada, including three rounds of golf with confirmed tee times leads in at £169 without flights.
PEI’s most prestigious course is the Links at Crowbush Cove, which is offered by a number of Canada operators, including Vacation Canada. Three rounds with confirmed tee times and three nights bed and breakfast at the Rodd Hotel leads in at £193, excluding flights.
Atlantic puffins: high on the agenda for nature tours
Open-air attractions
Canada’s natural assets are legion and this is just as true in the east as it is in the west. The newest addition to the Maritimes’ nature product is the national park site at Greenwich, on the peninsula that separates St Peters’ Bay from the Gulf of St Lawrence on Prince Edward Island.
Managed by Parks Canada, who acquired the 900 acres of sand dunes, wetlands, forest and beaches which make up the site, Greenwich is being touted as an ecotourism destination.
The site contains evidence of the oldest record of human occupation on the island, dating back 10,000 years. Its migrating sand dunes will also be of interest to keen geographers.
Tourism PEI project manager Tracey Peters said:”We are working in co-operation with Parks Canada to jointly market the site.”
The park, which opens this summer, will allow the public to walk various trails and visit interpretive centres from July to mid-October.
New Brunswick’s natural claim to fame is that it has the highest waves on earth at the Bay of Fundy, which have gouged out a strange lunar landscape at Hopewell Rocks. At low tide, one can walk around the rocks which are taller than houses, at high tide you can barely make out their tree-capped tops.
Natural history specialist Wildlife Worldwide offers 15-day itineraries to see Fundy National Park. As well as the rocks and tides, visitors can expect to see Pilot, Humpback, Fin and Minke whales, plus Whiteside dolphin as well as an osprey or two. The tour leads in at £1,495 per person, with flights and bed-and-breakfast accommodation.
Out of this world: Wildlife Worldwide offers the chance to see the Hopewell Cape Rocks
High-tech: Vancouver Airport
FOLLOWING the merger last autumn of Canadian Pacific and Fairmont Hotels, the North American luxury hotel chain, now Fairmont Hotels and Resorts, was promoting its Canadian portfolio at the Rendezvous trade show.
As well as completing a £62m restoration of Le Manoir Richelieu in Quebec last year, it opened the 392-room Vancouver Airport Hotel, which, according to Fairmont, is the first of its kind anywhere. Designed to take the concept of airport hotels to a new level, high-tech facilities include the world’s first in-room airline check-in service; satellite check-in in the arrival hall; and free television Internet access. Next month will see the hotel opening of North America’s first on-site airport hotel spa, offering a range of treatments from hydrotherapy and aromatherapy to body scrubs and pedicures.
Both properties are featured by British Airways Holidays, Kuoni, All Canada and Connections and are expected to attract interest from core markets of high-end fully inclusive tour travellers, as well as the incentives market.
Fairmont executive director for national sales, Europe Paul Ryan said: “Canada is doing very well for us out of the UK. Weare expecting increases of a minimum 10% over this year. There is also a high repeat client rate among visitors who go and seethe west, and come back to Ontario and Quebec on their second trip.”
Hotels seek a wider appeal