Exploring Newfoundland on the Trans Canada Trail: Our Walk, Stories, and Resources

Newfoundland on the Trans Canada Trail

Returning to Where Our Cross-Canada Journey Began

On June 1, 2019, we stood at Cape Spear, Newfoundland, looking west across a country that we hoped to explore on foot. Ahead lay thousands of kilometres of the Trans Canada Trail, countless communities, changing landscapes, and an adventure that we imagined would take approximately three years. At the time, we could hardly have anticipated that our #Hike4Birds would eventually carry us almost 18,000 kilometres over six years of walking, from the Atlantic to the Pacific and to the Arctic Ocean.

Looking back, Newfoundland remains particularly special. It was where we took our first steps from Cape Spear toward Fort Amherst, where the extraordinary Atlantic coastline gave way to the long railway corridor of the T’Railway, and where the idea of walking across Canada began to become a daily reality. It was also where we encountered remarkable kindness, discovered new birds and wildlife, and began to understand that the Trans Canada Trail would be considerably more complicated than the continuous line we had studied on our maps.

Throughout that first provincial crossing, we shared our experiences in daily journals, recording the places we visited, the people we met, and the natural landscapes we explored. Since then, we have expanded our Newfoundland collection to include reflections, walking itineraries, planning resources, birding observations, and assessments of the possibilities for cycling the Trans Canada Trail.

Whether you are planning your own journey, interested in Newfoundland's remarkable wildlife, or simply curious about what it was like to walk across the island, we invite you to explore these resources and Come Walk With Us.

Follow Our Walk Across Newfoundland

Our complete Newfoundland Trans Canada Trail journal brings together the daily entries, photographs, experiences, and observations from our journey across the province.

Beginning on the rugged East Coast Trail, we followed the Atlantic shoreline toward St. John's before heading west along the former Newfoundland Railway. Our journals trace that journey through the Avalon Peninsula, Clarenville, Terra Nova, Gander, Grand Falls-Windsor, the remote Topsails, Corner Brook, and the Codroy Valley before reaching Port-aux-Basques.

These entries document more than kilometres travelled. They include days when progress was slow, unexpected encounters with wildlife, difficult trail conditions, wonderful conversations with local residents, and moments when we questioned what we had undertaken. They also preserve the excitement and uncertainty of those first weeks, before we knew what the rest of Canada would demand.

Readers can begin with our first day at Cape Spear, explore the complete collection chronologically, or jump ahead to our final day walking into Port-aux-Basques before we set sail to Cape Breton to begin our second province on the Trans Canada Trail - Nova Scotia.

Planning a Walk or Cycle Across Newfoundland

For those considering their own adventures on the Trans Canada Trail, we have also assembled a collection of practical resources based on our preparations and experiences crossing Newfoundland.

Our Newfoundland planning and research guide examines the route, communities, services, and logistical considerations involved in preparing for an extended walk across the island. Complementing this, our Newfoundland walking itinerary provides a record of our daily stages from Cape Spear to Port-aux-Basques, including our stages, distances covered, and the amount of time required to complete the crossing.

We have also explored the practical question of whether the Trans Canada Trail in Newfoundland can be cycled. While the T’Railway appears to offer an appealing continuous route across the island, the nature of its surfaces and the challenges of travelling on its railway ballast make the experience considerably different from that of many developed rail trails elsewhere in Canada.

For a broader introduction, our guide to understanding the Trans Canada Trail in Newfoundland brings together questions about the route, trail conditions, distance, hiking, cycling, and the experience of travelling across the province.

These resources are intended to help future visitors understand the possibilities and challenges of the route, rather than prescribe how anyone should undertake their own adventure. Trail conditions, access, facilities, and services may have changed since our 2019 crossing, and current information should always be confirmed before setting out.

Discovering Newfoundland's Birds and Wildlife

Birding and connecting people with nature have always been central to our #Hike4Birds. Newfoundland offered an extraordinary beginning, from seabirds and whales along the Atlantic coast to boreal forest species, wetlands, and wildlife throughout the island's interior.

Our field observations follow those changing landscapes, beginning with birding the Avalon Peninsula, where coastal habitats, seabird colonies, and boreal woodlands provided our earliest discoveries.

Farther west, our observations from central Newfoundland and the Topsails record encounters with boreal birds, ptarmigan, moose, black bears, and Newfoundland pine martens. Beyond Howley, our western Newfoundland birding account follows the changing habitats through Gros Morne, the Humber Valley, coastal estuaries, and the Important Bird Areas of the Codroy Valley.

Together with our daily journals, these observations offer a record of the birds and wildlife we encountered while crossing Newfoundland on foot, and of the natural environments that made those encounters possible.

Reflections from the First Province on the Trans Canada Trail

Newfoundland also provided some of the earliest lessons of our cross-Canada journey. Walking along the T’Railway challenged our expectations about what a national trail might look like, how far we could reasonably travel each day, and the difference between planning an expedition and actually living it.

Our reflections on hiking the Trans Canada Trail in Newfoundland revisit the landscapes, wildlife, and experiences that defined this first provincial crossing, while the original journals preserve our impressions as they unfolded.

Only after continuing across Canada would we fully appreciate how much those early experiences had prepared us for the years ahead.

Come Walk With Us Across Newfoundland

Today, with our coast-to-coast-to-coast #Hike4Birds complete, we hope these collections offer something for anyone interested in exploring Newfoundland and the Trans Canada Trail. Some readers may be searching for practical advice about walking or cycling across the island, while others may be drawn to its birdlife, natural history, communities, or the everyday experiences of travelling through a landscape at walking speed.

Our complete Newfoundland archive remains the best place to discover the full collection of daily journals, photographs, itineraries, resources, and reflections. We invite you to begin wherever your interests lead you, whether at Cape Spear, somewhere along the T’Railway, or in the landscapes of western Newfoundland.

For us, Newfoundland was the beginning of a journey that would eventually carry us across the country and into Canada's Arctic North. From Port-aux-Basques, the next chapter of our adventure would begin across the Cabot Strait in Nova Scotia.

Thank you for joining us, whether you have followed our journey since those first days in 2019 or are discovering #Hike4Birds for the first time.

See you on the trail!