Trepassey and the Irish Loop

The Irish Loop is a broad, sparsely-populated rural area in the southern portion of eastern Newfoundland's Avalon Peninsula. To the north is St. John's and the beaten-path Trans-Canada Highway; to the south is open ocean.

Understand
This area covers the southeastern portion of the Avalon Peninsula, with the large Avalon Wilderness Reserve occupying much of the inland portion and a highway (NL 10 on the east side, NL 90 on the west side) following the coastline through various small villages. Trepassey and Portugal Cove South are at the bottom, southernmost part of the loop.

There are no major cities; there's a string of tiny seaside villages, a UNESCO World Heritage listed fossil site and the first point of dry land seen by the inbound trans-Atlantic ocean liners of yesteryear.

Cape Race is famous for receiving the Titanic distress call in April 1912, a milestone for radio technology of the era, but only a small part of a long telegraphic history. By late 1856, a telegraph line ran from St. John's to Cape Ray, then underwater from Cape Ray to Aspy Bay, Nova Scotia. The latest news from Europe arrived "via Cape Race" until the first successful, permanent trans-Atlantic cable entered service in July 1866; the Associated Press paid shipping companies to drop off news in waterproof cylinders, to be brought to the telegraph station by small boats and put on the wire to New York City. In the steamship era, Cape Race was a first point of radio contact for inbound liners; later Cape Race operated as a LORAN-C navigation site before that system was supplanted by satellite navigation.

Get in
While this is Newfoundland sea coast and cruising on small craft was historically the way to reach the small villages, the Irish Loop is fully reachable by motorcar.

There are two roads; Highway 10 on the eastern seashore and Highway 90 on the west side. While the trip to Trepassey can be made on either road, this is normally presented as a southbound trip from St. John's on Highway 10 through Witless Bay and Ferryland, with the return trip taking Highway 90 north to the Trans-Canada Highway at Holyrood. This may be done as a day trip, as "the loop" is a 320-km (200-mile) return trip on two-lane paved highway.

Go next

 * St. John's
 * For another ethnic enclave in Canada, see Kalyna Country, Alberta's Ukrainian region