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The Place
On May 2nd, 1497, English explorer John Cabot and his crew of 18 men set out from Bristol in search of the Far East. Operating under a commission from Henry VII, Cabot was granted... "full and free authority... to sail to all parts, regions and coasts of the eastern, western and northern sea... to find, discover and investigate whatsoever islands, countries, regions or provinces... which before this time were unknown to all."
After 54 days of sailing in their small ship, the Matthew, Cabot and his crew made landfall on the island of Newfoundland. He described waters that teemed so thickly with fish that they could be caught in baskets lowered over the sides of the ship. His journals also detailed the features of a New Found Land that, as far as anyone then knew, had never been seen by european eyes.
Although these events took place more than five centuries ago, and the voyages of Viking longboats to the northern tip of Newfoundland had preceded Cabot’s crew by 500 years, this Canadian province is still largely unknown to most of the world. The convoluted shoreline, tiny villages connected to the outside world solely by the sea, the towering icebergs of spring and summer and the myriad islets that dot the beautiful coastal waterways: all of these and more are still beyond popular knowledge and familiarity.
Newfoundland is a land of contrasts and contradiction. Its vast inland regions are all but deserted in favor of the rugged coastline, as since the early years of its history, its inhabitants have built their lives around the sea. Half of the small population lives in the capital city, St. John’s, while the rest of the island is sparsely settled, and is truly pristene and wild, looking much the same today as it did 500 years ago.