Lay of the Land

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Walking around the old town

St. John's doesn't seem like a tourist city, but it is. Many of the folks we see in shops we drop into "come from away," a Newfoundlander expression meaning they came from somewhere besides Newfoundland, in case you hadn't already guessed. Of those whom the shop keepers ask, most say they come from somewhere else in Canada -- I hear a lot of them saying they came from Ontario, but I don't know that this means anything. 

By the way, if you were wondering, the name of the island is pronounced NEW-fun-land, with a short "a" in land and a slight secondary accent on the last syllable, not, as I usually say it, NEW-fun-lund. The name dates to Cabot's "discovery" of a new-found land. 

Anyway, tourism might drive a decent part of the economy, but as the provincial capital, St. John's hosts the province's Supreme Court, with a criminal section downtown, a more modern building housing the family division more centrally located in the city, and a large Canadian government building. A large university is also located in the city, along with an impressive looking medical complex.

Canadian government building. A shocking piece

of modern architecture that doesn't match the older

buildings in downtown.

The back side of the Supreme Court building. Despite its old appearance,
this building dates back to the early 1900s. The first building erected here dates
to the mid-1700s..

Downtown is also the old part of town, though not much remains that goes back more than a couple of centuries. Three "great fires" swept through the city in the 19th century, destroying large parts of the original township. 

Three major streets run north-northeast to south-southwest, with one of them, Water Street, being the oldest street in St. John's. The other two streets are Harbourside, located along, well, you can guess from the name, and Duckworth, a charming street with many businesses in what used to be row houses -- and like the town's existing row houses, they are painted in bright colors.

Some of the jellybean houses downtown. These tend to be 

located on the cross streets to the main downtown streets. These

cross streets lead to the harbor and tend to be steep, almost as steep
as some San Francisco streets, though some of the sidewalks sport
stairs that make climbing a bit easier.

Look down the side streets in the old section of town, and you will see lots of row houses wearing these bright colors. The houses are often referred to as "jelly bean houses," and you can see other examples scattered about other sections of the city, some of which were built fairly recently. 

The origin stories about jelly bean houses vary according to who's telling them. The custom may go way back in city history and be the result of fishermen using the bright paints so they could pick out their houses as they sailed into the harbor, often shrouded in fog. Or as a tour guide told the bunch of us on a harbor cruises, the houses built after the Great Fire of 1892 were painted using boat paint because no one had any regular paint after the fire ravaged the city. Or, it was an initiative that sprung up as part of a revitalization effort in the 1970s. This last seems unlikely because historical records dating back to the first few years of the 1900s mention the gaily colored dwellings.  

Maybe if you combine all three, you have the real story. Or you can pick the one you like best. I like the first story because it sounds a bit like the story behind Dublin's painted doors -- only not involving drunken pub goers trying to find their way home. But the second seems plausible, and I can see a committee working on revitalization hearkening back to that time and encouraging owners to paint the buildings brightly as a way of recapturing a part of the city's heritage. 

The National War Memorial. The woman with the torch
represents Newfounland's willingness to serve the British empire.
The statue to the left is a sailor holding a spyglaas, while the one
to the right is a soldier in full battle gear. The figures in the middle
are a fisherman,representing the Merchant Marine, and a lumberjack,
representing the Forestry Corps.

An imposing war memorial lies between Duckworth and Water streets. Unveiled in 1924, it originally commemorated Newfoundland's involvement in World War I. Since then, plaques have been added to mark the contributions of Newfoundlanders in World War II, The War of 1812-15, The Korean Conflict and Afghanistan. A park-like area leads from the cenotaph on Duckworth to Water Street. One website I looked at later said it is one of the most famous memorials in the world. Yeah, I never heard of it either, but it's still impressive.

Statues of a Labrador and a Newfoundland watch over

Harbourside Park. We ran into some people walking 

a Newfoundland downtown. It was a beautiful, and friendly,

black dog about 3/4 the size of this statue. The statue's head

came up above my waist.

Not far away lies Harbourside Park, a nice place by the water where you can lounge on one of benches and enjoy a pretty day. On Fridays during the summer lunchtime concerts are held, though we missed it because we were on our way back from the Viking site. A pair of statues representing a Labrador and a Newfounland dog allows the province the chance to crow about being the only place that can claim two dog breeds. Is that true? I dunno; that's what the sign said.

Some other sights about town:

St. John's Convention Center. It lies to the west of downtown so the architecture doesn't clash as much.
The left side of the building depicts icebergs that float down in the spring. Sometimes larger bergs have
to be towed out of the shipping lanes and harbor entrance.

This mural depicts the Great Fire of 1892. It was painted and dedicated in 2017.

A little better view of how steep the streets can be.

George Street, which is a bit like Bourbon Street in New Orleans. Restaurants and pubs,
along with open-air stage line the street, and live music can be heard at night, when
the street comes alive.

High temperature this day was supposed to be 80. Too hot for these guys.

Trapper John's Museum and Pub. The home of the screech-in. Although

many places have screech-ins, the ceremony seems to have originated here

as a tourist gimmick of the owner. Tourists can become honorary Newfoundlanders

by, among other  things, repeating some Newfie phrases, kissing a dead fish 

(on the mouth), and downing a shot of screech, which used to be a 

really poor quality rum drunk by sailors but is now a  regular distilled rum

with the brand name Screech. And no, we did not go through the ritual.