Dear John

I wonder what John Cabot would have thought of Newfoundland some 500 years after first making landfall on the Bonavista Peninsula.

Today, he would have seen brightly painted houses in Trinity, a mummers parade in Bonavista (billed as Christmas in July), and a world-renowned coastal hike with the cutest of names — Skerwink Trail.

John would still recognize the beauty of the place, the blow spouts of whales feeding off shore, the screeching of seagulls the Charlie Chaplin walk of the puffins, and the purple irises dotting the landscape in the summer.

New found land — for both John and for me some five centuries later.Read more