Chance Cove:
We didn't think initially that there was much to see in Portugal Cove South, a small, historic fishing town, that morning. It was only later that we realized its importance to the area. During the late 1400s and into the 1500s, great Portuguese navigators were famous for their daring explorations and beautifully detailed charts. Their maps, dating back to 1502, depicted this area, and many local place names reflect the early days of European explorations to the edge of the New World. Migratory fishermen from the British Isles, France, Spain, Portugal, and the Basque region came each spring beginning in 1600. One English captain described the codfish as "so thick by the shore that we hardly have been able to row a boat through them."
Portuguese explorer Gaspar Corte Real erected a banner five hundred years ago near Portugal Cove South, marking the westernmost point of his voyage. Though the Portuguese and the others all fished from these shores, only the Irish decided to stay, with William Hartery of Waterford County being the first permanent resident. Since the early 1900s, crab has replaced cod as the chief catch, and many residents have been forced to find work outside of fishing.
The colorful benches overlooking the sea were sure to bolster anyone's spirits!
A few minutes later, we were in Cape Race and Drook Cove, where we stopped by the sea. Steven and I hadn't recalled ever seeing miniature boats bobbing in the water before! I would have enjoyed asking someone what the reason was for them, as it looked like a decent wave would topple them, and they would never be seen again.
We stopped briefly at the Myrick Wireless Interpretation Centre, a heritage site near the historic Cape Race Lighthouse at the southeastern tip of Newfoundland. The centre was dedicated to preserving and interpreting the fascinating history of early wireless communication in the North Atlantic. It was here at 10:35 pm, on April 14, 1912, that three Cape Race telegraph operators received the now-famous message: "Titanic 41.46N, 50.14W. We have struck an iceberg."
Rescuing survivors from the Titanic:
The first full-time residents of Cape Race, lighthouse keeper Willian Halley, his wife, and his assistant, arrived in the winter of 1856 just after the light began operating. A few days later, the SS Welsford crashed on the Cape, with only four survivors to rescue - what a terrible initiation to life on the Cape. In 1874, Patrick Myrick of St. John's became the first in a long line of Myrick lighthouse keepers at Cape Race until Noel Myrick retired in 2007.
The Marconi Wireless Station opened in 1904, relaying marine traffic via the landline telegraph office at Cape Race. When the new lighthouse was completed in 1907, the Myricks worked as lighthouse keepers, fog alarm operators, telegraphers, and wireless operators. Their presence on the Cape provided valuable continuity. It is now one of the last manned lighthouses in Newfoundland.
Their work included installing, fueling, and servicing their equipment. Until electrical service came to the Cape in 1968, a supporting workforce was also needed to supply power to the lighthouse keepers and their machines. Workers, in August of 1882, for example, shoveled 26 tons of coal to power the steam whistle fog alarm.
Though there was no end of work, life was good with a social life founded on church activities and visits with neighbors. Up to 35 children attended school here during the 1950s, and there were even enough young men for a hockey team! Though the Cape survived during the war years, advancing technology gradually eroded its geographical advantage. Now, only the lighthouse keepers live there, keeping the light shining brightly as they have for over 150 years.
Though a summer cart road was brought in in the early 1900s and was later improved, thousands of tons of coal, diesel and other fuel, as well as building materials, rope, machinery, tools, and everything from paint to schoolbooks, came by boat well into the 1950s.
One of the world's most powerful lights was manufactured by the Chance Bros. firm in Birmingham, England, its seven-ton, hyperradial lens producing a beacon of 1,100,000 candlepower, making it the largest of its kind ever built. The Cape Race light commands one of the busiest shipping lanes this side of the Atlantic. Since 1856, it has been the first or last light seen by countless passengers, freight, and military vessels navigating the waters between North America and Europe. A sign warned that a foghorn might sound without notice and that its volume could be dangerous to our hearing. Luckily, it didn't sound when we were there.
At the southern end of the Avalon Peninsula was Mistaken Point Ecological Reserve, one of the world's most significant fossil sites. They date from the Ediacaran geological period, 635-542 million years ago, when these creatures lived on the deep ocean floor. A sign indicated that they were the "oldest and largest examples of complex, multicelled, animal-like creatures found anywhere on Earth."
Thank goodness we don't like to cut things too short when we travel, or we'd have been in a pickle! At the centre, we learned that on July 17, 2016, the coast of Mistaken Point was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Trepassia wardae fossil is the longest-known Ediacaran fossil, reaching nearly 6.5 feet. The reserve also had the greatest abundance, density, and diversity of large, deep-marine Ediacaran fossils anywhere on Earth. That was due to the broad tracts of ancient seabeds covered in volcanic ash, which left impressions of communities of organisms we'd see on the hike. The 565-million-year-old trails were the earliest evidence that some life forms from this time had muscles, allowing them to move in an animal-like fashion!
A red fox by the centre:
Imagine a thriving community that is suddenly wiped out, buried under tons of volcanic ash and dust. Its residents are entombed by the falling debris, frozen together in time. I imagine you think I'm referring to Pompeii, but no, this is about Mistaken Point. Its cliffs contain the fossilized remains of a community of marine creatures known collectively as Ediacaran biota. These organisms were named after the Ediacaran Hills in southern Australia, where organisms have been found in shallow water. These organisms represent the first appearance of large and complex life on Earth between 575 and 542 million years ago, 300 million years before dinosaurs roamed Earth!
According to the centre, the Mistaken Point fossils were first reported in 1968 by a Memorial University of Newfoundland (MUN) graduate student and a professor. Three other professors were critical to understanding the fossils' ages. Scientists have since documented more than 67,000 fossils representing more than 30 different species.
The small convoy en route to the Reserve:
These dramatic rock formations made me relieved we were safe and sound in the car, not tossed about in a ship, and worried about being slammed against the rocks in the fog at night.
There was so much fog that morning, we wondered if we'd see any fossils later. We later learned that there are over 160 foggy days a year here, driven by the combination of cold water and warm southwest winds from Labrador.
Our guides on the almost 4-mile round-trip hike, Matt and Pearl, reassured us that they had both received First Aid wilderness training. They told us the path was built by fishermen in the 1930s, when there had been a small community in the area. There was none beyond the 1960s because there were no schools or medical services.
It had been called Mistaken Point because sailors frequently confused this headland with nearby Cape Race, especially during the area's characteristic heavy fog, leading to numerous shipwrecks. Navigators, expecting to find Cape Race Harbor, would mistakenly turn north too early, causing their vessels to run aground on the treacherous rocks. Over fifty ships are known to have been wrecked in the area, and 300 wrecks from Bay Bulls, where we'd taken the puffin watching tour from the day before, and St. Mary's, where we'd end that night on an adjacent peninsula.
The thin, 10.5-mile-long strip of coastline has been preserved to protect the ecological region. Only 30 tourists per day may enter this area with a provincial guide on two daily tours. Matt said that locals can obtain a Travel Use Permit, however, to pick berries or go trout fishing. Neither the removal of gravel, open fires, bikes, nor drones was allowed, because they interfere with birds' nests.
This Eastern Hyper Barrens region on the southern tip of the Avalon Peninsula was known for its stunted vegetation and very acidic soil. There are many berries in the sparse vegetation, including bake apples, lingonberries, blueberries, creeping snowberries, and black crowberries, all important to migratory birds.
There were no trees, just creeping junipers everywhere. And, although it appeared barren at first glance, Matt and Pearl's "forest" was alive with cinnamon ferns, fiddleheads, and bottle brush plants, once we knew what to look for, thanks to them.
If I recall correctly, Matt said this was called a tuckamore plant because they were "all tucked together."
Bottle brush plants:
Fiddleheads are a real delicacy in Eastern Canada, but it's been years since I've eaten any!
Matt pointed out that these 80- to 100-year-old trees had grown out, not up, because of the many freeze-and-thaw cycles in winter.
Moose and caribou eat lichens on the barrens, according to Matt. There are also smaller mammals like red foxes, coyotes, and snowshoe hares.
A few trees grow taller when sheltered from the elements.
This was the only place on the hike where a profusion of white bake apple and cotton grass grew, because it was a boggy area. Both plants are common in Irish folklore and popular with fairies!
In the middle of a cinnamon fern, there was a broomstick plant!
Matt joked that Minke, fin, and humpback whales are common if you can see the water!
The fossil protection zone:
A view of Watering Cove, where fishermen from Trepassey, a small fishing community located in Trepassey Bay, come during cod season in small boats to cast their nets. They then lay out their salted fish on flat nets to dry. Merchants arrive from St. John's to haul the fish to the markets and restaurants.
Matt said it wasn't unusual for them to get socked in by fog for two straight weeks. Shoot me now, I thought!
Pearl showed us a whelk egg case, often found washed ashore on beaches. It is also known as "sea wash balls" or "fisherman's soap."
The bridge was only four years old. Before that, people had to wade through the shallow water to reach deeper parts of the reserve.
The fern valley, for obvious reasons!
More bottlebrush plants:
The tiny, flowering plants with black centers were Swedish bunchberries.
At the edge of the pond were some lovely, blue flag irises.
The fossils were located on this plateau. Matt explained that volcanic ash settled atop the organisms, then an avalanche of sediment formed other layers.
Matt explained that a bizarre group of organisms with uniquely shaped bodies, known as rangeomorphs, may have been among the earliest animals to appear on Earth, uniquely suited to ocean conditions 575 million years ago.
Matt offered a slightly different explanation of who found the rocks. He said that two geology students from MUN were having lunch on the cliffs overlooking the flat rock and knew immediately it was very special. Subsequently, 67,000 fossils have been found on just two surfaces!
The first fossil he showed us, the Fractofusus misrai, was on a vertical surface. According to a handout he shared with us, it was a spindle-shaped fossil that bore new rangeomorph elements at both ends. The fossil's random orientations on the bedding planes suggest it lay on the sea floor during life, rather than standing upright in the water. This type of fossil has only been found in Newfoundland.
All the other fossils we saw were on the flat surface. Matt then pointed out a Bradgatia linfordensis, a bush-shaped fossil with multiple fronds that radiated from a central point like a lettuce. It was named after a country park in Leicestershire, England, where comparable specimens were found in the 1950s. I took pictures of others, but this came out the best.
Pectinifrons abyssalis was a comb-shaped organism whose rangeomorph elements branched from only one side of the main axis. The fossils almost always curve, and probably represent organisms that reclined on the sea floor during life.
The surface of these nearby rocks was significantly darker due to volcanic ash.
One of the most distinct fossils was Charniodiscus spinosus, which had a short stem and a larger frond with a spine at its tip. They are thought to have lived with the frond raised above the water, either to catch prey or to absorb nutrients.
Unlike the rangeomorph fossils, the triangular-shaped Thectardis avalonensis lacked fine structural detail. Most recently, scientists have suggested that it might have been an early sponge. However, with few identifiable details, precise interpretation has been difficult. It's nicknamed the ice cream cone for its shape!
These rounded collections of bumps or ridges are called Iresheadiomorphs and are found only in Newfoundland. Scientists believe they preserved the remains of creatures that died on the sea floor before being buried beneath the ash.
We saw plenty more examples of the Fractofusus misrai fossils.
Pearl helped us understand that the organisms had died where they lived, as evidenced by the ash that had fossilized them. That ash proved critical to dating the fossils, which, in turn, was important for securing UNESCO designation.
Beothukis mistakenis, named after Newfoundland's native Beothuk tribe, was a frond with a relatively complicated pattern. Though relatively rare, it is still found throughout eastern Newfoundland.
So-called dog's paws was an example of a decomposed Beothukis mistakenis fossil.
Although neither Steven nor I consider ourselves science fans, we still found the experience of seeing millennia-old fossils absolutely engrossing, as we like to seek out one-of-a-kind places when we travel. An added bonus was the fossils' relatively easy accessibility and the detailed descriptions the excellent guides gave of the plants in the 'forest' en route.
As is so often the case, the hike back didn't seem nearly as far as the hike to the fossils.
On the way, Pearl told us that while Matt had graduated from a university in Ottawa, she and many of the interpreters were locals from Portugal Cove South. I was glad the park service had hired locals to help interpret the Mistaken Point Ecological Reserve for tourists.
We drove past the small community of Peter's River, basking in the sun on the coast, on our way to St. Mary's. As we'd also found a few days earlier, alas, there were no food options as we wended our way north along the Avalon Peninsula.
Not a half-mile further on was fog-bound St. Vincent's!
Just beyond it was Holyrood Pond, which went on for miles and miles. It sure wasn't what we'd normally have called a pond!
Next post: Our last day in Newfoundland, with stops in Placentia and Cape St. Mary's Ecological Reserve before taking the 16-hour overnight ferry back to Nova Scotia!
Posted on February 9th, 2026, from our home in the Denver suburb of Littleton, where we continue to enjoy balmy, April-like temperatures in the 60s and even low 70s in early February. All is certainly not right with this world, but Steven and I are extremely lucky to be living here right now. I hope the same for you and your loved ones.
