I'm from Newfoundland and Labrador, the far East province in Canada. The land is nicknamed 'The Rock', as most everything is hard rock. Roads are paved through blasted rock, farms are planted on soil above rock, camping is a nightmare because the stakes have nothing to heave into. The province population is of about 500k. I live in a city that is old. It has culture and weather and friendly people and a bus system and hills and bulk barns and other mainstream stores and I quite like it. Its the most Easterly city in North America.
A Newfoundland cliff; I'm pretty sure this is in Quidi Vidi.
There is a road downtown called George Street which contains nothing but bars, and is closed at night for just pedestrians and opened again in the day for booze reloading. We have houses nicknamed 'Jellybean Row' for their color. We have traditions like 'Screeching in' newcomers and eating Jigg's dinner. We have thick accents derived mostly from Ireland. And plenty of music and songs.
Brightly colored houses on a hill.
The provincial flower is the pitcher plant, which is carnivorous. Newfoundland is the Island part which I reside on, and home to the Newfoundland dog. Labrador is the further North mainland part, which I would like to visit some day, home to the Labrador dog. We have many moose and a few bears but no moles or wild snakes or other specific creatures due to the cold winters and the fact that they've never been introduced to the island.
Farmer transporting sheep across the water.
We're the beginning of the Trans Canada Highway, Mile 0 of the Terry Fox run, and it takes about eight hours to drive across from my Easterly city to the most Westerly town which has the Ferry to Nova Scotia.
Map of Canada; I'm all the way over to the right
We have L'anse aux Meadows at the Northern tip of the island, which is a Norse viking site, with replica sod buildings and costumed interpreters showing what life would be like at that time period. We have towns with funny names, like d***o, Come by Chance, Cow Head, Goobies, Joe Batts Arm, Conception Bay, Paradise, Tickle Cove, and Badger.
Picturesque scenes like this are not uncommon.
The temperature fluctuates around 20 degrees Celsius in the summer, and around 0 degrees in the winter, the freezing point of water. Theres often snow, but more often we'll get a big snow storm from a system off the water somewhere and get dumped on, and it'll be just cold enough for the snow to stick around until the next storm. Theres skiing to be had in the winter on Marble Mountain. Gros Mourne and Terra Nova are the National parks, there are several provincial parks as well.
A downtown street in Winter. This is normal.
The scenery is beautiful. The Atlantic Ocean is never far away. There are plenty of trees, lakes, streams, waterfalls, bogs, and even a few lucky beaches. You can often see icebergs floating past, or whales coming out of the ocean for air, straight out of your car window even as your driving. There are cabins and inns and b&bs and most have great views. The water is clean, people even drink out of fresh streams sprouting out of the rock. The air is clean.
Yes, the iceberg is as big and close to the land as it looks.
There is wildlife and hunting and the whole province's culture was raised off of fishing cod. We have a University and colleges and more educated people than ever. Minimum wage is always rising, there are programs to help with child raising and education. I could go on forever, I love it here so much. I've had so many good memories here, just because of the culture and location I don't think I could ever leave.
