Hunting Icebergs in Newfoundland
The first time I saw an iceberg, I was driving to Twillingate, Newfoundland. On a bridge connecting two islands, I casually looked to my right to take in the beautiful landscape, and it was just there. I screamed! Screaming isn’t a natural reaction for me, but the excitement was too much to be kept inside.
One day, I found out we could hunt icebergs in Canada, and a new travel obsession began. I didn’t need more reasons to visit Newfoundland, but this specific information shot iceberg-hunting straight to the top of my travel list. I love extraordinary experiences, and this new quest seemed like the perfect way to chase wonders at home.
The iceberg alley came to my attention in 2020, through a book named Death On The Ice: The Great Newfoundland Sealing Disaster of 1914 by Cassie Brown, and it was as terrifying as it sounds. Yet, this triggers my interest in the iceberg in the region.
The book retraces the story of seal hunters trapped on an icefield for days and nights up until their rescue, for those who survived… The author did an excellent job of reporting and storytelling; reading it felt like you were in it with them, and for that, this story still haunts me.
In spring 2023, while I was remote working from St John’s, for a few weeks, I had to see these icebergs and icefields for myself, and inevitably, my first stop was Twillingate, the Iceberg Capital of the World (even though the Greenland town of Ilulissat also proclaims itself the Iceberg Capital of the World…)
The drive from St John’s was a unique experience for me; I got to discover the region’s famous rocky landscape and occasional moose sightings along the side of the road.
Getting to Twinlingate was smooth until I went north of Gander; then the road made me realize why people drive pickup trucks around here. I should have been used to it, though, I was living in Montreal prior to this trip after all.
And after an hour of bridges and small-island crossings, the road signs showed Twillingate a few kilometres away. My main focus at the time was to reach my hotel and start sightseeing; it hadn’t crossed my mind that the icebergs could be within sight before I was actually ready for them. So when I looked on my right and saw an iceberg, just there, idling in the bay, I screamed!
Icebergs could be seen from anywhere as long as you looked toward the sea. From the shore, from the parking lot, the souvenir shops, the kitchen window. They were everywhere! Big ones, flat ones, sharp ones and the week before my visit, there was even a phallic-shaped one that entertained the World Wide Web for a while.
After this amazing weekend, I posted about my experience on my TikTok account, and it was met with warm welcome messages from the Newfie TikTok community, who were delighted to share fun facts in the comments. That’s how I learned the small pieces of icebergs stranded on the shore are called “burgy bits” and chunks of them are brought back home to be stored in the freezer and used to freshen their drinks. How cool is that?
Even cooler (pun intended) is the Iceberg beer, crafted by the Quidi Vidi brewery in St. John’s. While I’m not a beer drinker, I still had to try it and wash away the skepticism of drinking 20,000-year-old iceberg water. While I don’t recall the beer’s taste, I kept the packaging as a souvenir…
The Iceberg Alley, as I found out during my 6-week stay in Newfoundland, isn’t just a tourist destination but also a great merch opportunity. If the town of Dildo gets the funniest and most unhinged local souvenirs, some companies will give you a chance to bring an iceberg home in your vanity, as East Coast Glow has developed a range of cosmetics and soaps infused with icebergs.
Twillingate was my first Iceberg sighting, and it was all I wished for. And the other ones I spotted from my afternoon walk in St John’s, or on a Tim Hortons road trip stop in Springdale, and, of course, up there in St Anthony, were just the cherry on the Partridgeberry cake.
Newfoundland was a one-of-a-kind experience, and the iceberg wasn’t the only adventure that made me fall in love with the rock, but that’s a story for another time.