Attractions

In Trinity

In recent years, the provincial government and concerned individuals have taken a keen interest in preserving Trinity, and it's clearly benefiting from a revival in which many homes have been preserved and a good number made over as bed-and-breakfasts. Several buildings are open to the public as provincial historic sites, two others as local historical museums. Most are open mid-June to early October, then shuttered the remainder of the year. Allow about 3 hours to wander about and explore.

Days on which the popular historic pageant is held bring a flood tide of visitors to Trinity, making parking and rooms scarce and meals sometimes difficult to obtain. The village is also well worth seeing on nonpageant days, when a great quiet settles in.

Start your voyage into the past at the Trinity Interpretation Centre (tel. 709/464-2042) at the Tibbs House, open 10am to 5:30pm daily from mid-May through late September. (It's a bit tricky to find, since signs don't seem to be a priority. Follow the one-way road around the village and continue straight past the parish hall. Look on the left for the pale green home with the prominent gable.) Here you can purchase tickets, pick up a walking-tour map, and get oriented with a handful of history exhibits. Entry costs C$3 (US$2.70/£1.50) per adult. This ticket also admits you to the Lester-Garland property and the Hiscock House , which keep the same seasons and hours as the interpretation center.

A minute's walk away is the brick Lester-Garland Premises (tel. 709/464-2042), often the first stop on travelers' Trinity itineraries. Here you can learn about the traders and their times. This handsome Georgian-style building is a convincing replica (built in 1997) of one of the earlier structures, built in 1819. The original was occupied until 1847, when it was abandoned and began to deteriorate. It was torn down (much to the horror of local historians) in the 1960s, but parts of the building hardware, including some doors and windows, were salvaged and warehoused until the rebuilding.

Next door is the Ryan Building, where a succession of the town's most prominent merchants kept shop. The grassy lots between these buildings and the water were once filled with warehouses, none of which survived. The Rising Tide Theatre (tel. 888/464-3377 or 709/464-3232) was architecturally styled after one of the warehouses (a good imagination is helpful in envisioning the others). This 255-seat theater is a good stop if you enjoy the arts and offers a surprisingly full card of dramatic productions from mid-June through the fall. Performances here are top-rate, and well worth the admission cost; that's remarkable in such a remote outpost.

A short walk away, just past the parish house, is the Hiscock House (tel. 709/464-2042), a handsome home where Emma Hiscock raised her children and kept a shop after the untimely death of her husband in a boating accident at age 39. The home has been restored to appear as it might have in 1910, and helpful guides fill in the details. Again, the combination Trinity ticket gets you in here for C$3 (US$2.70/£1.50) per adult; children under 13 enter for free.

The Trinity Historical Society Museum on Church Road (tel. 709/464-3599), in a late-19th-century home, contains more than 2,000 everyday artifacts that one might have seen in Trinity a century or more ago; it's open mid-June through mid-October, 10am to 5:30pm daily. The adjacent fire pump dates from 1811 and is intriguing.

Also nearby, the Green Family Forge Blacksmith Museum (on Church Rd., just beyond St. Paul's Anglican Church) -- operated by the museum folks -- will teach you about what was one of the essential local industries in the early 18th century. This current smithy was built about a century later, and used until 1955; in 1999, it was restored and began operating once more. The smith and museum are open the same season and hours as the museum.

Tours & Shows -- An entertaining way to learn about the village's history is from the summertime Trinity Pageant. Local actors lead a peripatetic audience through the streets, acting out episodes from Trinity's past. For dates and tickets, contact the innovative Rising Tide Theatre ; also check with the theater about performances throughout the summer, most depicting island episodes or themes. In the past, the cast staged their shows at impromptu venues around town (upstairs at the parish hall, in a field at the water's edge, on the front porch of a B&B, and the like).

Also recommended is the 2-hour historical walking tour of Trinity led daily at 10am by Kevin Toope (tel. 709/464-3723). Toope's family has been in the area for generations, and Kevin (a schoolteacher in St. John's most of the year) has put together an informed and entertaining tour of the village he knows so well. After a tutored loop around the winding streets, you'll come away with lots of fascinating facts and bits of color that help bring the town to life. The tours cost C$8 (US$7.20/£4) per adult, free for kids. (One tidbit you'll learn: Whatever happened to the family of one of the town's merchant princes, who owned practically everything but treated his employees with contempt? Historians have traced a single descendent: a derelict in London.)

In Bonavista

The Ryan Premises National Historic Site (tel. 709/468-1600) opened in 1997, with Queen Elizabeth herself presiding over the ceremonies. Located in downtown Bonavista, the newish site is a very photogenic grouping of white clapboard buildings at the harbor's edge. For more than a century, this was the town's most prominent salt-fish complex, where fishermen sold their catch and bought all the sundry goods needed to keep an outport functioning. Michael Ryan opened for business here in 1857; his heirs kept the business going all the way up until 1978. (One elderly resident recalled that you could "get everything from a baby's fart to a clap of thunder" from the Ryans.) The spiffy complex today features an art gallery, a local museum, a gift shop, a handcrafted-furniture store, and an exhibit on the role of the codfish in Newfoundland's history. An hour or two here will go a long way toward helping you make sense of the rest of your visit to this singular island.

The property is open daily mid-May through late October from 10am to 6pm. Admission is C$3.95 (US$3.55/£2) adults, C$3.45 (US$3.10/£1.75) seniors, C$1.95 (US$1.75/£1) youths, and C$9.90 (US$8.90/£4.95) families.

On the far side of the harbor, and across from a field of magnificent irises, is the beautiful Mockbeggar Plantation (tel. 709/468-7300). Named after an English seaport that shared characteristics with Bonavista, the home was occupied by prominent Newfoundland politician F. Gordon Bradley. It's been restored to how it appeared when Bradley moved here in 1940, and it features much of the original furniture. With a few telltale exceptions (note the wonderful 1940s-era carpet in the formal dining room), it shows a strong Victorian influence. The house is managed as a provincial historic site, and admission is C$3 (US$2.70/£1.50) adults, free for children 12 and under; this ticket also gets you admission to the Cape Bonavista Lighthouse . The house is open to the public daily from mid-May to late September, 10am to 5:30pm.

A replica of the Matthew (tel. 877/468-1497 or 709/468-1493), the ship John Cabot sailed when he first landed in Newfoundland in 1497, floats in Bonavista's harbor. This compact ship is an exacting replica, based on plans of the original ship. (Don't confuse this ship with the other Matthew replica, which crossed the Atlantic and sailed around Newfoundland in 1997.) An interpretive center and occasional performances staged wharfside provide context for your tour aboard the ship, which is designed as a floating museum. Because it's an exact copy and looks roughly as it did 500 years ago, the ship doesn't have an engine or any modern safety devices, and thus isn't allowed to leave the dock for passenger cruises. It stays tied up along the dock in summer and is stored in an architecturally striking white clapboard boathouse in the off season.

The ship is open from June to mid-October, daily from 10am to 6pm (to 8pm in summer). Admission is C$6.50 (US$5.85/£3.25) adults, C$6 (US$5.40/£3) seniors, C$2.25 (US$2.05/£1.15) children ages 6 to 16, C$16 (US$14/£8) per family; plan to spend an hour touring the ship.

Just North of Bonavista -- The extraordinary Cape Bonavista Lighthouse Provincial Historic Site (tel. 709/468-7444) is located 6km (3 3/4 miles) north of town on a rugged point. Built in 1843, the lighthouse is essentially a stone tower around which a red-and-white wood-frame house has been constructed. The keepers' quarters (the lightkeeper and his assistant both lived here) have been restored to the year 1870; today, you can clamber up narrow stairs to the light and inspect the ingenious clockwork mechanism that kept six lanterns revolving all night, every night, between 1895 and 1962. (With some help -- it took 15 min. to wind the counterweight by hand, a job that needed to be repeated every 2 hr . . . all night long.) This light served mariners until its role was usurped in very recent times by an inelegant modern steel tower and beacon.

The lighthouse is open daily from mid-May to late September from 10:30am to 5:30pm; admission is C$3 (US$2.70/£1.50) per adult, free for children 12 and under. (This ticket also includes admission to the Mockbeggar Plantation.)

Below the lighthouse on a rocky promontory cleft from the mainland is a lively puffin colony. Dozens of these stumpy, colorful (and endangered) birds hop around the grassy knob and take flight into the sea winds. They're easily seen from just below the lighthouse; bring binoculars for a clearer view, but don't disturb them. Red-footed common murres dive for fish below as well, and whales are often sighted just offshore. (You just might catch sight of whales and puffins through your binoculars at the same moment -- with beautiful icebergs just out of frame.)

Also nearby is a statue of John Cabot. Although no one can prove it, long-standing tradition holds that Cape Bonavista was the first land spotted by the Italian explorer (who was working for the English) in 1497. The statue is located in the handsome Landfall Municipal Park, next to the lighthouse, where you'll find picnic tables and an exceptional example of a quiggly fence, a traditional Newfoundland windbreak made of vertically woven whips or saplings.

En route to the lighthouse you'll pass a turnoff to Dungeons Provincial Park. It's about 2km (1 1/4 miles) down a gravel road through cow, goat, and sheep pastures. Park and follow the short trail to a punchbowl-like cavity some 50 yards across. Relentless waves carved two tunnels beneath the pasture, and eventually the grassy roof collapsed, leaving this gaping hole to be flushed by the surf. Admission is free.