Canada's Newfoundland

The inhospitable interior and the fertile ocean kept the first European settlers on Newfoundland - most of English and Irish extraction - glued to the coast when they founded the outports during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Though they hunted seals on the winter pack ice for meat, oil and fur, they were chiefly dependent on the codfish of the Grand Banks ,

whose shallow waters, concentrated to the south and east of the island, constituted the richest fishing grounds in the world. It was a singularly harsh life, prey to vicious storms, dense fogs and the whims of the barter system operated by the island's merchants, who exercised total control of the trade price of fish until the 1940s in some areas

Terra Nova National park
The Trans-Canada Highway is the only major road running along Newfoundland's central northern shore, slicing through Terra Nova National Park (mid-May to mid-Oct $3.25 entry fee; mid-Oct to mid-May admission is free)

Several excellent walking trails thread through the park, most notably the strenuous Outport Trail, an eighteen-kilometre (5hr) walk along the south shore of the fjord to the rugged slopes of Mount Stamford and beyond. On the way there are a couple of primitive campsites for $8 per night, plus some semi-serviced ones closer to the Trans-Canada ($14-16) - wilderness camping permits are available from the main information centre. For a less strenuous way to see the countryside, Ocean Watch will drop passengers off near the end of the Outport Trail, and you can either walk back or wait for the boat to collect you. The park also maintains eight backcountry campsites that can be accessed by foot, canoe or sea kayak. Reservations for the interior are recommended for July and August. If you're not content to camp - or the weather turns foul - the village of CHARLOTTETOWN , inset into park property 13km south of Newman Sound along the Trans-Canada, has a motel , the Clode Sound (tel 664-3146, fax 664-4471; $60-80; May-Oct), with a reasonably priced restaurant known for its apple pies and apple crisps.

If you have the time, a worthwhile detour can be made off the Trans-Canada at the northern edge of the park, 20km along Hwy 310 to the tiny community of EASTPORT , hub of a small peninsula known for its artists' colonies and sandy beaches. Burnside , 8km north of Eastport, is the departure point for most tours. Close by the site of Bloody Bay Cove , one of the principal settlements of the Beothuks; the largest and richest archeological finds from this ill-fated culture have been unearthed here (mid-June to late-Oct daily 10am-8pm; tel 677-2221 or 677-2474). Burnside Archaeological Boat Tours (mid-June to late-Oct; tel 677-2474 or 579-0466, lmclean@thezone.net ) offers scenic tours to the former settlements that were occupied successively by the Maritime Archaic, Paleo-Eskimo and Beothuk aboriginal peoples over 5000 or so years. Basing yourself in Eastport, you can wend your way through islands and past abandoned outports on a tour with Smokey Hole Wilderness Tours (late May to mid-Oct daily; 2-4hr; $25; tel 677-2036 or 579-7888, www.chuckys.com ); they'll even pick you up at your hotel or B&B in St John's and take you to Eastport. If you want to stay overnight in Eastport, your best bets are Pinsent's Bed & Breakfast , 17 Church St (tel 677-3021, walterpinsent@nf.sympatico.ca ; $40-60), a quaint saltbox house surrounded by rose gardens and lilac bushes; Laurel Cottage , 41 Bank Rd (tel and fax 677-3138 or 1-888/677-3138, www3.nf.sympatico.ca/laurel ; $60-80); or the Doctor's Inn , 5 Burden Rd (tel and fax 677-3539 or 1-877/677-3539, off-season tel 489-3273; $60-80; May-Oct).

St-Pierre et Miquelon
The tiny archipelago of St-Pierre et Miquelon , 25km off the coast of the Burin Peninsula, became a fully fledged département of mainland France in 1976 and a collectivité territoriale in 1985, giving a legalistic legitimacy to the billing of the islands as "a little bit of France at your doorstep" - a phrase that attracts several thousand visitors each year and manages to gloss over the lack of actual attractions and the wetness of the climate. Yet the islands are still worth a day or two for the francophone atmosphere of the main settlement, St-Pierre , whose fine restaurants and simple guesthouses have a genuinely European flavour. All but 700 of the 6500 islanders live in the town of St-Pierre, with the remainder - mainly of Acadian and Basque descent - marooned on Miquelon to the north. The third and middle island, Langlade , has just a scattering of houses and is inhabited only in summer.

St-Pierre's restaurants are splendid, combining the best of French cuisine with local delicacies such as tiaude , a highly seasoned cod stew. Prices are quite high - reckon on about F80 for a main dish - but it really is worth splashing out at La Ciboulette , 2 rue Marcel-Bonin, for nouvelle cuisine at its fanciest; at Le Caveau , 2 rue Maître Georges-Lefèvre, for the Basque fish and lamb specialities; at Chez Dutin , 20 rue Amiral-Muselier, for the salmon; or at L'Outre-Mer , 29 rue Boursaint, for any of their local specialities. If you're on a tight budget, stick to the snack bars such as Le Marine Bar on Place du Général de Gaulle, or drop into Le Maringouin'fre , 16 rue Général-Leclerc, for excellent-quality crepes. On Miquelon, some good traditional food is available at the Snack Bar-à-Choix , 2 rue Sourdeval.

Trinity Bay
Exploring the serrated shoreline of Trinity Bay is a fine way to spend a day or two, with Route 239 twisting its way south from Trinity through a string of remote outports. Dunfield occupies a dramatic setting, straggling along a jutting promontory, whilst tiny TROUTY , just 6km from Trinity, is tucked into the rockiest of coves, whose steep and bare cliffs rise all around. This delightful village, with its tumbling brook and rickety wooden jetties, has a real hideaway, the Riverside Lodge and Tourist Home (tel 464-3780; $40-60; April-Oct), an unpretentious hotel-cum-B&B. A few kilometres on, Old and New Bonaventure circle another rocky bay at the end of the road - on a rainy day it seems like the end of the world. Heading north from Trinity, via Route 230, is the ribbon village of TRINITY EAST , home to the reputedly haunted Peace Cove Inn (tel 464-3738 or 464-3419, 781-2255 in the off-season, www.atlanticadventure.com ; $40-60/$60-80; May-Oct), whose owners run excellent coastal excursions - Atlantic Adventures - on a motorsailer (May-Oct daily 10am & 2pm; 2hr 30min; $30; 6.30pm; 1hr 30min; $20; full-day charters $85 per person; tel 464-2133).