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Top 10NewfoundlandAtlantic Canada

Top 10 Things To Do in St. John's

Country
Canada
Best months
Jun · Jul · Aug
Population
111K
Language
English
Budget / day
C$185–300
Quick answer

The best things to do in St. John's are Signal Hill and Cabot Tower, the drive out to Cape Spear at the eastern edge of North America, The Rooms for the province's museum and art gallery, the brewery village at Quidi Vidi, and a boat out of Bay Bulls to the puffin colonies of the Witless Bay Ecological Reserve. Three days covers the city and two of the coastal day trips. Come between June and August: that window holds the whales, the last of the icebergs and almost every festival on the calendar.

Best of St. John's

▶ Video guide

St. John's is closer to Dublin than it is to Winnipeg, and it behaves like it. The harbour is a near-enclosed basin reached through a 200-metre gap in the cliffs called the Narrows, which is why Europeans have been working out of it since the early 16th century and why the city climbs the hills around it in rows of painted wooden houses instead of spreading out. The Great Fire of 1892 took almost all of it, so the downtown you walk is a rebuild: Water Street and Duckworth Street at the bottom, the two cathedrals above them, and Signal Hill closing the whole thing off at the harbour mouth. It is a city of about 110,000 people with an outsized appetite for its own traditions, and the coastline starts four minutes from the last pub on George Street.

The 10 best things to do in St. John's

1

Signal Hill and Cabot Tower

Landmark· Signal Hill Rd, St. John's

The hill guards the Narrows, the only way into the harbour, and it has been fortified in one form or another since the mid 17th century. Cabot Tower at the summit was begun in 1898 to mark both Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee and the 400th anniversary of John Cabot's voyage, and finished in 1900. It worked as a flag signalling mast and then as a Marconi wireless station, and on 12 December 1901 Guglielmo Marconi received the first transatlantic wireless transmission near the tower: the letter S in Morse, sent from Poldhu in Cornwall. Parks Canada runs the site with an interpretation centre below the summit, and in summer a costumed programme fires the noon gun. Go up for the view first. Everything else in this guide is visible from it.

Time2 hrs
CostPaid admission
Best atLate afternoon
TipThe wind at the summit is the reason locals keep a coat in the car in July
Map↗ Website
2

Cape Spear

Landmark· Cape Spear Rd, Blackhead, St. John's

Fifteen kilometres east of downtown, on a headland that is the most easterly point of North America. There are two lighthouses. The old one was built in 1835 and lit in 1836, which makes it the oldest surviving lighthouse in Newfoundland and Labrador, and it is furnished as a keeper's house of that period. Below it sits a coastal defence battery: from 1941 to 1945 troops were stationed here and manned two 10-inch guns, and the magazines and gun barrels are still in place. The cliff walk beyond the car park is where people stand for icebergs in spring and whales in summer, and there is nothing between the railing and Ireland.

Time2 hrs
CostPaid admission at the lighthouse
Best atSunrise
TipStay behind the railings. The rocks below are wet, sloped and regularly swept by swell
Map↗ Website
3

The Rooms

Museum· 9 Bonaventure Ave, St. John's

The province's museum, art gallery and archives under one roof, opened in June 2005 and built to look like the fishing rooms where crews once processed a catch and stored their gear. It is the largest public cultural space in Newfoundland and Labrador. The museum floors run from the Beothuk and the province's natural history through the fishery and Confederation in 1949; the gallery holds around 10,000 square feet of space and commits most of it to contemporary art from the province. The fourth-floor café window frames the harbour and the Narrows, and it is the single best indoor view in the city on a day when the fog wins.

Time2 to 3 hrs
CostPaid admission
Best atA fog day
TipThe building sits above the Basilica
Map↗ Website
4

Quidi Vidi Village

Neighbourhood· Quidi Vidi Village Rd, St. John's

A working fishing cove wrapped inside the city, ten minutes from downtown and reached down a steep lane. Quidi Vidi Brewing was founded here in 1996 by David Fong and David Reese in a former fish plant, and it is now the province's largest craft brewery; its Iceberg beer is brewed with water taken from icebergs off the coast. The yellow-trimmed building facing the water is the Quidi Vidi Village Plantation, a studio block where local makers work in view of visitors. Mallard Cottage, one of the oldest houses in St. John's, sits a minute up the road. The whole village takes an hour to walk and most people stay three.

Time2 hrs
CostFree to walk
Best atLate morning
TipThe lane down into the village is narrow and parking is limited
Map
5

The North Head Trail

Hike· Battery Rd, St. John's

The best short hike in any Canadian city, and it starts inside a neighbourhood. The trail leaves the Battery, the cluster of painted houses stacked on the harbour side of Signal Hill, then runs along the cliff above the Narrows and climbs a long set of stairs to Cabot Tower. It is about 1.7 kilometres one way with a serious amount of vertical, and the drop to the water is unfenced in places. Walk it uphill from the Battery and take the road down, or make a loop with the Cuckold's Cove Trail into Quidi Vidi. Boots, not trainers, and not in ice.

Time1.5 hrs
CostFree
Best atMorning
TipPark at the Signal Hill visitor centre and walk down first
Map↗ Website
6

Puffins and whales in the Witless Bay Ecological Reserve

Boat tour· Bay Bulls, Newfoundland

Four islands 30 minutes south of the city hold the largest Atlantic puffin colony in North America, with over 260,000 breeding pairs, and something in the order of four million seabirds across the reserve at the height of the season. Humpback and minke whales feed in the same water. Boats leave from Bay Bulls and run out to the islands in under an hour, close enough that the noise and the smell of the colony arrive before the birds resolve. Puffins nest from May to mid-September and the whales are heaviest from mid-June to mid-August, so the two overlap for most of the summer.

TimeHalf day
CostTour fare
Best atJuly
TipBook ahead in July and August, and take a layer more than the weather in town suggests
Map↗ Website
7

A screech-in on George Street

Nightlife· George St, St. John's

Two blocks of nothing but bars, and the place the city sends anyone who has never been. The screech-in is the ceremony that makes a visitor an honorary Newfoundlander: a shot of Screech, the province's dark rum, a recited line in dialect and a kiss for a cod. Christian's is the oldest pub on the street and runs the version Anthony Bourdain filmed for Parts Unknown in 2018. Trapper John's, at the foot of the street, claims more than 100,000 screech-ins and performs them on the hour from 5pm until close, seven nights a week. It is deliberately silly and entirely sincere, which is the point.

Time1 hr
CostPrice of the ceremony
Best atEvening
TipGo early. The street is at its most crowded after 11pm and the ceremonies run all evening
Map↗ Website
8

Water Street and the Jellybean Row houses

Walk· Water St, St. John's

Water Street is very possibly the oldest continuously used commercial street in North America, with merchants keeping storehouses on this waterfront from the late 16th century. Almost none of what stands is that old: the Great Fire of 8 July 1892 destroyed nearly the whole city in hours and left 11,000 people homeless, so the buildings above the harbour are a rebuild of the 1890s. The row housing that came out of it is painted in flat, saturated colours, which is where the Jellybean Row nickname comes from. Walk Water Street, cut up one of the stepped lanes to Duckworth Street, and keep going uphill until the streets run out.

Time1.5 hrs
CostFree
Best atAfternoon
TipThe cross lanes between Water and Duckworth are stairs
Map
9

The Basilica of St. John the Baptist

Landmark· Military Rd, St. John's

Built between 1839 and 1850 to plans by John Philpot Jones, consecrated as the cathedral of Newfoundland in 1855 and raised to basilica a century later. It is a very early North American example of the Lombard Romanesque Revival, and it was deliberately sited on the ridge above the harbour so that the twin towers would be the first thing a ship saw through the Narrows. They still are. It is a National Historic Site, and it survived the 1892 fire while the city below it did not, which is why the interior is one of the few pre-fire spaces left in the centre.

Time45 mins
CostFree
Best atMidday
TipThe Anglican Cathedral is three minutes downhill on Church Hill
Map
10

Middle Cove Beach and the capelin roll

Beach· Middle Cove Rd, Logy Bay-Middle Cove-Outer Cove

A rock beach 15 minutes north of the city, and for a few nights each summer the strangest thing on the island happens here. Capelin, a small silver fish, spawn by throwing themselves onto the shore in their millions, and the water turns solid with them. Whales, gulls and seals follow them in to feed. The roll usually lands in late June or July, it lasts days rather than weeks, and nobody can tell you the date in advance. Come anyway if the timing misses: the cove is a good beach fire and a good sunrise, and the whales work the same water all summer.

Time2 hrs
CostFree
Best atEvening
TipWatch local news and social feeds in late June
Map

All 10, mapped

St. John's · 10 spots
AllLandmarksMuseumsOutdoorsFree

St. John's travel FAQ

How many days do you need in St. John's?+
Three days. One covers the city on foot, Signal Hill, the two cathedrals, The Rooms and George Street. The second goes to Cape Spear and the Southern Shore. The third is a boat out of Bay Bulls for the puffins and whales, or a coastal hike. Add a fourth if you want Bell Island or Brigus and Cupids as well.
When is the best time to visit St. John's?+
June to August. Puffins nest from May to mid-September, whales feed close to shore from mid-June to mid-August, and the icebergs run from April into June, so late June catches all three. Almost every festival on the calendar falls in July and August. Winter is windy, snowy and dark, and most seasonal sites close.
Can you see puffins and whales from St. John's?+
Yes. The Witless Bay Ecological Reserve, 30 minutes south of the city, holds the largest Atlantic puffin colony in North America, with over 260,000 breeding pairs, and humpback and minke whales feed in the same water. Boats run from Bay Bulls. Whales are also visible from the cliffs at Cape Spear and from Signal Hill without a boat.
Do you need a car in St. John's?+
Not for the city itself, which is compact enough to walk if you can handle the hills, and covered by Metrobus at a $2.25 cash fare. You do need one for everything outside it. There is no passenger rail anywhere in Newfoundland, and Cape Spear, Bay Bulls, Ferryland and the Bell Island ferry all assume you are driving.
What is a screech-in?+
A ceremony that makes a visitor an honorary Newfoundlander: a shot of Screech, the province's dark rum, a line recited in dialect and a kiss for a cod. Christian's Pub and Trapper John's, both on George Street, run it nightly, and Trapper John's performs one on the hour from 5pm until close.
Where to eat

Best restaurants in St. John's

Six kitchens, from a 200-year-old cottage in the fishing village to an oyster bar on Water Street.
All 6 restaurants →
In a heritage cottage
Quidi Vidi

Mallard Cottage

Newfoundland seasonal

Chef Todd Perrin and his partners bought the cottage in 2011 and restored it with the Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador. The building went up between 1820 and 1840 and is one of the oldest houses in St. John's, patterned on the Irish thatched cottages the Mallard family would have known. The cooking is seasonal and local: cod, wild game, foraged mushrooms, partridgeberry.

Map↗ Website
Downtown

Bacalao

Nouvelle Newfoundland

Named for the salt cod that built the island, and built entirely around provincial ingredients. This is the room that treats the traditional repertoire as a starting point rather than a museum piece, and the wine list is worked out to match it.

Map↗ Website
Water Street

The Adelaide Oyster House

Oysters and small plates

Narrow, loud, and open late, which is a rarer combination downtown than it should be. Oysters, cocktails and a menu built for sharing across a small table. Walk-in only for most of the evening, so put your name down and go for a drink next door.

Map↗ Website
Downtown

Portage

Modern Canadian

One of the harder tables to get in the city and the one locals name first when asked what has opened recently. Short menu, tight room, and a kitchen that changes the card with what the province is landing that week.

Map
Quidi Vidi

St. John's Fish Exchange

Seafood and oyster bar

Inside the brewery building at Quidi Vidi, with a raw bar and a view over the cove. The obvious answer to lunch when you have walked down into the village and do not want to drive back into town to eat.

Map
Water Street

The Merchant Tavern

Brasserie

A former bank hall on Water Street, high-ceilinged and hard-surfaced, serving a brasserie menu around a long central bar. It is the least fussy way to eat well downtown, and it takes a booking.

Map
After dark

Best pubs & live music in St. John's

Five rooms, and traditional music is playing in four of them most nights of the week.
All 5 pubs & live music →
George Street

Christian's Pub

Screech-ins

The oldest pub on George Street and the one that runs the screech-in most visitors have heard of, filmed by Anthony Bourdain for Parts Unknown in 2018. Craft beer, whisky and coffee the rest of the time, and a good deal quieter before nine.

Map↗ Website
Over 100,000 screech-ins
George Street

Trapper John's Museum n' Pub

Screech-ins on the hour

At the foot of George Street, and the self-declared home of the screech-in: ceremonies run on the hour from 5pm until close, seven nights a week. The walls are the museum half of the name, hung with traps, gear and a century of accumulated Newfoundland.

Map↗ Website
George Street

O'Reilly's Irish Newfoundland Pub

Live music nightly

Two floors in the middle of George Street with live music seven nights a week, weighted towards Irish and Newfoundland traditional. The upstairs room is where to stand if you actually want to hear the band rather than the crowd.

Map↗ Website
Water Street

YellowBelly Brewery

Brewpub since 2008

Brewing on site in a restored building at the west end of Water Street since 2008, and one of the reasons the province has a craft beer scene at all. Beer upstairs, a low stone-walled bar downstairs, and food that goes further than a brewpub needs to.

Map↗ Website
Solomon's Lane

The Ship Pub

Local bands

Down an alleyway between Duckworth and Water Streets, and the room the city's musicians and writers have used for decades. Small, unglamorous, and the best odds in town of catching a band before anyone outside Newfoundland has heard of them.

Map
On foot

Best coastal hikes in St. John's

Five cliff walks, four of them sections of the 336-kilometre East Coast Trail.
All 5 coastal hikes →
The Battery

North Head Trail

1.7 km one way

The cliff path from the Battery to Cabot Tower, hung above the Narrows the whole way and finishing on a long staircase. It is the hike in the top 10 above, and the one to do if you only do one.

Map↗ Website
North of the city

Sugarloaf Path

Quidi Vidi to Logy Bay

East Coast Trail path 9, running from Quidi Vidi up over Sugarloaf Head and the high barrens to Logy Bay. Two climbs of about 150 metres, the rock formations at the Skerries, a 1940s shipwreck site, and a full turn of view over the city from the Bawdens Highlands at the southern end.

Map↗ Website
South side

Deadman's Bay Path

Fort Amherst to Blackhead

The path along the southern jaw of the harbour, starting at the Fort Amherst lighthouse across the water from the Battery. A shipwreck on the shoreline, and a designated backcountry campsite at Deadman's Bay if you want to make a night of it.

Map↗ Website
Cape Spear

Cape Spear Path

Blackhead to Maddox Cove

Runs south from the lighthouse at the eastern edge of the continent, past the wartime battery and along the cliffs towards Maddox Cove. Whale sightings from the trail are routine between mid-June and mid-August, without binoculars.

Map↗ Website
Bay Bulls Big Pond

Spout Path

Long day, wave-driven geyser

The hardest of the paths within reach of the city and the one with a payoff you cannot get anywhere else: a wave-driven geyser that fires seawater out of the rock. A full day, remote for most of it, and not a first hike.

Map↗ Website
On the water

Best boat tours & wildlife in St. John's

Four ways to get at the puffins, the whales and the ice.
All 4 boat tours & wildlife →
Bay Bulls

O'Brien's Whale and Bird Tours

Bay Bulls departures

Runs out of Bay Bulls, half an hour south of the city, into the Witless Bay Ecological Reserve. Music on the boat and a crew that has been reading this water for generations, which is the difference between seeing a whale and watching one work.

Map↗ Website
Bay Bulls

Gatherall's Puffin & Whale Watch

90-minute cruise

The other long-running operator out of Bay Bulls, running a 90-minute circuit of the reserve and the coast around it on a larger and steadier boat. Worth knowing if anyone in the party is uneasy about swell.

Map↗ Website
Petty Harbour

Petty Harbour Mini Aquarium

Catch and release

Newfoundland's first seasonal catch-and-release aquarium, run as a non-profit in a fishing village 20 minutes south. Touch tanks, microscopes and lab demonstrations, and everything in the tanks goes back into the water at the end of the season.

Map↗ Website
Cape Spear and Signal Hill

Iceberg watching from the headlands

April to June

Ice calved off Greenland drifts south on the Labrador Current and passes the Avalon Peninsula in spring. No boat required: Cape Spear, Signal Hill and the road north to Torbay all look straight out at the current, and a good year puts bergs within sight of the city for weeks.

Map
The record

Best history & museums in St. John's

Four sites, covering the fishery, the garrison, the railway and 400 years of port wine.
All 4 history & museums →
Church Hill

Anglican Cathedral of St. John the Baptist

Gothic Revival

Bishop Edward Feild commissioned George Gilbert Scott, one of the leading Gothic Revival architects in Britain, and building started in 1847. The nave went up between 1847 and 1850 and served as the entire cathedral for 35 years. It burned in 1892 with the rest of the city and was rebuilt inside the surviving walls.

Map
Provincial Historic Site
Water Street

Newman Wine Vaults

Late 1700s

Brick and stone cellars dating from the late 18th or early 19th century, and among the oldest structures standing in St. John's. Newman's port was shipped out to Newfoundland to age in this cool, stable rock, which started as an accident of a storm-driven voyage and became a business.

Map↗ Website
West end

Railway Coastal Museum

In the old railway station

The island had a narrow-gauge railway for a century and coastal boats serving the outports for longer. Both are gone, and this is where the record of them lives, in the former station at the west end of Water Street. Seasonal, opening for the summer.

Map↗ Website
Provincial Historic Site
Quidi Vidi

Quidi Vidi Battery

Built 1762

The French built this gun position in 1762 after taking St. John's, and the British held it within months and kept it manned into the 19th century. It was the first provincial historic site the province developed, opening to the public in 1967, and it sits above the fishing cove on Cuckhold's Cove Road.

Map↗ Website
Where to walk

Best neighbourhoods in St. John's

Four districts, and the hills between them are steeper than any map suggests.
All 4 neighbourhoods →
Signal Hill

The Battery

On the harbour mouth

Houses stacked on the slope where Signal Hill drops into the Narrows, painted every colour and connected by lanes too narrow for two cars. It is a residential neighbourhood, not an attraction, so walk it quietly. The North Head Trail starts at the far end.

Map
Harbourfront

Downtown: Water and Duckworth

Rebuilt after 1892

Two parallel streets along the harbour, connected by stepped lanes, holding almost all of the shops, restaurants and bars. Everything you see went up after the Great Fire of 1892, which is why the streetscape is so consistent.

Map
East of downtown

Georgestown

The first suburb

The city's first suburb, laid out uphill from the harbour, and one of the few areas the 1892 fire did not reach. That makes it the place to look at pre-fire domestic architecture, in a grid of quiet residential streets a few minutes from the centre.

Map
North of downtown

Rabbittown

Working city

One of the earliest residential neighbourhoods built out from the centre, north of the downtown grid, and still the least self-conscious part of the city. Come for the corner shops and the everyday version of the row housing that Water Street sells to visitors.

Map
Out of town

Best day trips in St. John's

Four trips, none of them more than an hour and a half from the harbour.
All 4 day trips →
Founded 1621
Southern Shore

Ferryland and the Colony of Avalon

1 hr south

Sir George Calvert, the first Lord Baltimore, established a colony here in 1621, and the dig that has been running on the site since is widely called the best preserved early English colonial settlement in North America. Guided tours run through the excavation, the interpretation centre and the conservation lab. The lighthouse at the end of the spit is a 25-minute walk past the dig.

Map↗ Website
Conception Bay

Bell Island

20-minute ferry

The ferry leaves from Portugal Cove and takes 20 minutes with no reservations taken, so arrive early in summer. The draw is the No. 2 Mine tour, which walks you 650 feet down a 10-degree slope into an iron ore mine that ran under the sea floor, plus the U-boat history on the surface.

Map↗ Website
Southern Shore

Petty Harbour

20 mins south

The postcard fishing village, close enough to be an afternoon and small enough to walk in twenty minutes. The mini aquarium is here, and so is North Atlantic Ziplines, running ten lines from 300 to 2,200 feet over the village and the water since 2010.

Map↗ Website
Conception Bay

Brigus and Cupids

1 hr 15 west

Two villages on the far side of the Avalon. Cupids is the site of John Guy's colony of 1610, the earliest English settlement in Canada, with an archaeological site and visitor centre. Brigus is the prettier of the two, a walkable grid of stone walls and narrow lanes with Hawthorne Cottage at the centre of it.

Map
What's on

Festivals & annual events in St. John's (2026)

Time your trip around the city's biggest dates.
Apr

Iceberg season

Ice calved from Greenland glaciers drifts down the Labrador Current and past the Avalon Peninsula from April into June. There is no schedule and no guarantee in any given year, but Cape Spear, Signal Hill and the coast road north are the places to look from land.

Jul

Sound Symposium

A festival of experimental music and sound held every second year and running for close to four decades. Sound Symposium XXII took place from 15 to 21 July 2026. Its signature is the Harbour Symphony: at 12:30pm each day of the festival, the horns of the ships in port play a composed score across the water.

Jun

The capelin roll

Not a festival, but the event the city turns out for. Millions of capelin spawn by rolling onto the beaches in late June or July, and the whales and seabirds follow them in. Middle Cove is the closest place to watch it. The date is never known in advance.

Jul

Shakespeare by the Sea Festival

Outdoor performances through July and August at sites around the city, including on Signal Hill. Bring a blanket and a windproof layer, because the weather is part of the staging whether the company intends it or not.

Aug

George Street Festival

The bar street closes to traffic and turns into an outdoor venue for a week of concerts. The 2026 edition ran from 30 July to 5 August. It is the largest ticketed music event in the city and the busiest week of the year downtown.

Aug

Royal St. John's Regatta

Fixed rowing races on Quidi Vidi Lake, held on the first Wednesday in August if the weather allows and the next fair day if it does not. The first recorded race was on 12 August 1816, which makes it widely regarded as the oldest continuously organised sporting event in North America. The 208th ran in 2026, it is a civic holiday, and crowds reach 50,000.

Aug

Newfoundland and Labrador Folk Festival

Traditional music, dance and storytelling in Bannerman Park in early August, running since the 1970s. This is the counterweight to George Street: the same repertoire, played by the people who kept it, in daylight and on grass.

Dec

Mummers Festival

A revival of the Christmas house-visiting tradition, with workshops for making the disguises and the ugly sticks, kitchen parties, and a Mummers Parade in December. It is the one time of year the city is worth visiting in the cold.

Getting around

St. John's transport & airports

How to arrive and move around the city.
YYT

St. John's International Airport

The airport sits inside the city, a short drive north of downtown, with domestic connections through the Canadian hubs and seasonal transatlantic service. Metrobus route 14 serves the terminal with two stops, one by arrivals and one on World Parkway. Taxis wait at the arrivals exit.

Map↗ Website
City buses

Metrobus

The city bus network. The adult cash fare is $2.25 and drivers carry no change, so bring it exactly. Multi-ride and monthly M-Cards are sold at City Hall on New Gower Street and at the Avalon Mall, among other outlets.

Map↗ Website
24 hours

Taxis

Several companies run around the clock across the metro area. Meters start at $3.75, and the airport to downtown run is generally quoted in the mid twenties. Cabs are hailed by phone rather than off the street outside the downtown core.

No passenger rail

On foot and by car

Downtown is compact and walkable, with the caveat that the hills between Water Street and the Basilica are genuinely steep. There is no passenger rail anywhere on the island, so anything beyond the city (Cape Spear, Bay Bulls, Ferryland, the Bell Island ferry) needs a car.

Map
Traditional food

Must-try dishes in St. John's, Canada

The classics to order before you leave.

Jiggs dinner

Salt beef boiled with cabbage, carrot, turnip and potato, served with pease pudding. It is the Sunday meal in most Newfoundland households, and the name is usually traced to a comic-strip character who ate corned beef and cabbage.

Fish and brewis

Salt cod and hard bread, each soaked overnight to draw the salt and soften the tack, then cooked together and finished with scrunchions. Order it at breakfast and you will not need lunch.

Toutons

Bread dough fried in pork fat until the outside goes dark and crisp, somewhere between a pancake and a doughnut, served with molasses. The standard Newfoundland breakfast.

Cod tongues

The muscle from the base of the cod's jaw, floured and fried, usually with scrunchions on top. The texture is the point and it divides people. Try them once before deciding.

Scrunchions

Salt pork fat cut small and fried until it crackles, then spooned over fish, brewis or chowder. It is the island's answer to a crouton and it is on more plates than the menus admit.

Partridgeberry

A small tart red berry picked on the barrens in autumn and turned into jam, tarts and sauces for game. Sharper than a cranberry, and the reason Newfoundland desserts rarely taste sweet.

Bakeapple

The cloudberry, amber and low-growing on the bogs, and hard enough to pick that a jar of it costs real money. Served on cheesecake, over ice cream, or straight on toast.

Screech

The dark rum the province drinks, and the centre of the screech-in ceremony on George Street. Named, the story goes, for the noise made by an American serviceman who drank a glass of it without warning.

St. John's fact sheet

St. John's at a glance

The essentials worth knowing before you go.
Country
Canada
Region
Newfoundland and Labrador (Avalon Peninsula)
Population
110,525 (city, 2021 census)
Founded
Harbour in European use from the early 16th century
Nickname
The City of Legends
Language
English
Currency
Canadian dollar (CAD)
Time zone
UTC-3:30 (UTC-2:30 in summer)
Calling code
+1 709
Airports
St. John's International (YYT)
Power
120V, type A/B plugs
Emergency
911
Ideal length
3 days
Getting around
On foot downtown, by car beyond
Tourism board
Official site

Interesting facts

  • Newfoundland keeps its own half-hour time zone, UTC-3:30 in winter and UTC-2:30 in summer. It is the only half-hour offset left in North America, a holdover from the years when Newfoundland was a separate British dominion with its own clock.
  • Cape Spear is the most easterly point of North America. Its old lighthouse was built in 1835 and lit in 1836, making it the oldest surviving lighthouse in Newfoundland and Labrador, and a coastal battery with two 10-inch guns was manned below it from 1941 to 1945.
  • Guglielmo Marconi received the first transatlantic wireless transmission on Signal Hill on 12 December 1901: the letter S in Morse code, sent from Poldhu in Cornwall, 3,400 kilometres away.
  • The Great Fire of 8 July 1892 destroyed almost the entire city in a matter of hours, left 11,000 people homeless and caused $13 million in damage. Nearly every building in the downtown core postdates it.
  • Among Canada's major cities, St. John's is both the foggiest, at about 124 foggy days a year, and the windiest, averaging 24.3 km/h.

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