A map of Canada – the arrow shows where I am now, at St John’s, Newfoundland at the extreme eastern tip of Canada.

I am staying in St John’s for 4 weeks, partly to sight see and partly to research some of my ancestors voyages in the Maritime Archives at Memorial University.

As soon as a fine day arrived, I set off for the best place to get an idea of the geography of St John’s, namely for Signal Hill. I am staying in an AirBnB in Downtown (the oldest part of town), not far from the closed end of the harbour. Downtown St John’s is built on the side of a steep hill. I am staying only about three streets up from the harbour, but it is at about 120ft, so I decided to contour the hillside as far as I could. I will write another post later on about the city itself.

This is not far from where I am staying. The hillside is too steep for houses to have been built on the right hand side.

This was my first good view of my target. Note the colourful wooden houses. All the older residential parts of the city are like this. Churches, schools etc are of stone, brick, concrete or glass, but even new housing is mostly wooden and cheerfully painted.

This was the view from a bit further on, where the port has ousted the housing.

After a couple of miles, I reached more modern housing and was clearly leaving the city centre.

I was still plodding along the same long road, when I noticed these 3 columns of letter boxes. I have since seen others. The Canadian Post Office does not deliver to your front door if it can get you to walk to a central location to collect your mail. These were at least 50 yards from the nearest house behind them. I am still quite high, but the ground in the distance is levelling out.

All my contouring did me no good as the road descended rapidly to sea level and I found myself in the village of Quidi Vidi which is a small old fishing village, now mainly surviving on tourism. This is Mallard Cottage, now a restaurant. By coming this far, I had lengthened my walk from about 4 miles to about 6 miles, as I had arrived at the far side of Signal Hill before even starting the ascent! Comes of not looking at a map at all.

The pleasure boat harbour and a very large restaurant.

But there are still some fishermen left in the village.

Though a larger employer is the Quidi Vidi Brewery.

This is a typical local cove, steep sided with a narrow passage to the sea. They provide very safe anchorages.

From a little further on, you can see the way the cove curves round to meet the sea.

I had to back track a little to find the route up Signal Hill, so I noticed this commemorative boat, which I had walked straight past originally. Having found the route, I started my upward course.

After climbing a while, the path started to follow the coast, with wonderful views. This is looking down to Cuckold’s Cove. There was a car park not far away, so this area was quite busy even midweek in October. It is probably crowded on a summer weekend.

Signal Hill is a National Historic Site, looked after by the Parks Canada. Any site they look after is immaculate, and every scrap of historical significance is recorded and displayed on information boards (always in English and French), which is where any facts in this post have come from.

This path was built by troops during the war as Signal Hill was vital during the Battle of the Atlantic. St John’s was at one end of a convoy route, and, as you will see later, Signal Hill guards the entrance to the port. The troops called it the Burma Road.

It must be busy at times to warrant the sign to keep to the right!

The Burma Road is the least steep way up, but I soon turned left onto the Ladies Lookout Trail which follows the coastline. It is an old path which the sailors’ wives used to use to watch for the ships returning.

It has wonderful views. If you are wondering where the autumn colour is, this is as bright as it gets, and it is berries not leaves. The coast of Newfoundland is so windy that, as usually happens in Scotland, the foliage turns golden one day, and the leaves are all blown off the next.

It is very steep in places, but wherever needed very well maintained steps have been built.

The entrance to St John’s harbour is off to the right. I eschewed the option of following the gentleman on the lower path. It just goes to that headland.

Signal Hill was the site of the decisive assault on the French Lines by British troops on 15 September 1762 in the last phase of the Battle for North America. The French surrender confirmed the British possession of Newfoundland.

This view is from the highest point – about 528 ft (194 m) according to the altitude app on my phone. The harbour is on the extreme left, and the modern part of the city of St John’s extends almost as far as the eye can see. The population is around only 115,000, but the city is very spread out and low rise. It is the capital and largest place of the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador.

The area abounds in small lakes like the two in this photo. The nearer one is Deadman’s Lake. There is not much soil over the impermeable rock.

Here is why it is called Signal Hill. This plaque (on the exact spot) commemorates Guglielmo Marconi receiving the very first transatlantic wireless signal on 12 December 1901 .

In 1837 two large wooden barracks were built on top of the hill. As they were deemed too damp, they became a prison in 1846 until 1850. In 1870 they were converted to a quarantine centre and eventually a Fever Hospital, which was only closed by a fire in 1920.

This is the Cabot Tower. Explorer John Cabot founded the town of St John’s in 1497, as he quickly realised it provided a large safe anchorage. The Tower was built to commemorate the 400th anniversary of his landing, with the Foundation Stone being laid on 23 June 1897. As you can see, the road goes all the way up to a car park and view point. This is not far below the actual summit.

Getting closer, the small building was a powder magazine built in 1790. The original intention was to make the hill into a citadel. After the last British Garrison left in 1870, it was used to store the powder for the Noon Day Gun, which told mariners the exact time.

It was last fired in 1949. Just one example of the many information boards in this area.

There is a very good viewpoint just below the Tower, so I persuaded someone to take my photo. You can see the whole of the harbour, with the entrance at the extreme left. I am staying just to the right of the far end. To my left on the lower level is a small building, This is known as ‘The Queen’s Battery’, and guards ‘The Narrows’ as the entrance to the harbour is called. The Queen in question was Charlotte, wife of George III. It was in active use for 75 years during the 19th century, guarding ‘The Narrows’.

Looking forward along the coast, the view was excellent. Note how small the lighthouse at the extreme edge of the harbour entrance appears.

Walking down to ‘The Queen’s Battery’ I passed these old cannons. The one on the left is stamped 1798.

They were part of a set of six, for once with no information board.

I had now arrived at ‘The Queen’s Battery’, and this is slightly more modern, pointing directly at ‘The Narrows’.

This is what the last cannon was pointing down on. It is really very narrow, but must be deep as quite large modern vessels manage to get through.

Then it was a plod down Signal Hill Road back to town.

This claims to be the oldest store in St John’s, but it doesn’t look all that old, unless it has been rebuilt several times. Anyway, I was definitely back in town, though I still had quite a long way to walk to get back to base.

A thoroughly enjoyable walk on a lovely October day.