For centuries, life in
ST JOHN'S
has focused on the harbor. In its
heyday it was crammed with ships
from a score of nations, but today -
although its population is about
105,000 - it's a shadow of its
former self, with just the odd oil
tanker or trawler creeping through
the 200-metre-wide channel of The
Narrows into the jaw-shaped inlet.
Once a rumbustious port, it's become
a far more subdued place, the rough
houses of the waterfront mostly
replaced by shops and offices, its
economy dominated by white-collar
workers who are concentrated in a
string of downtown skyscrapers and
in the Confederation Building, the
huge government complex on the
western outskirts.
Yet although the city's
center of
gravity has begun to move west, the
waterfront remains the social center,
home of lively bars that feature the
pick of Newfoundland folk music
- the best single reason for
visiting. Almost all of the older
buildings were destroyed by fire in
the nineteenth century or demolished
in the twentieth, so although St
John's looks splendid from the
water, with tier upon tier of
pastel-painted houses rising from
the harbor, there are not a lot of
major sights, with the notable
exception of the grand basilica
, and the Newfoundland Museum
, which provides an excellent
introduction to the history of the
island and its people. Elsewhere, Signal
Hill National Historic Site ,
overlooking The Narrows, has great
views back over the city and out
across the Atlantic, while the drive
out to the rugged shoreline of Cape
Spear , the continent's most
easterly point, makes for a pleasant
excursion, as does the trip to the Witless
Bay Ecological Reserve.
The City
of St John's
Running the length of the town center, Water Street has long been
the commercial hub of St John's,
though the jumbled storefronts of
the chandlers and tanners, ship
suppliers and fish merchants have
mostly been replaced by a series
of...
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