A tidbit of info. on the history of "Newfoundland & Labrador" and it's fun-filled Winter Season. ENJOY! "Christmas greetings" from "Nfld & Lab". The place where land, water and sky embrace like old friends. And the edge of North America holds an adventure as big as the sky. This site will show you the best ways to encounter a land old as time, and people who make you feel like you've known them all your life. Newfoundland and Labrador, a place that stays the same, but changes you forever. Where you'll always be welcome. The far east of the western world. Come to the place where the New World begins. Feel the power of the Atlantic as it meets North America for the first time. It happens right here at Cape Spear. Where Newfoundland's oldest surviving lighthouse has stood for 16 decades. Where the wind warms your soul and where you're closer to Ireland's Cape Clear than Ontario's Thunder Bay. Come to the city that started it all, the first in the New World. Come to St. John's and take a walk on Water Street, the oldest street in North America. Look out over a naturally-sheltered harbour, where 40 vessels lay anchored 40 years before the Mayflower landed. Raise a glass in a place that boasted over 80 pubs before the Americans began their battle for independence. Now that's history. Take a walk in our park. Come to Gros Morne National Park. Recognised as a UNESCO World Heritage site for its exceptional beauty and unique geological features. Ramble over an ancient expanse of mantle rock. Where colossal collisions of tectonic plates created formations as barren as the moon. Take a stroll through a jumbled mass of rust-coloured rocks. Visit the Tablelands, a 600-metre high plateau that forms one of the world's best examples of rock exposed from the earth's interior. Rock usually found only deep beneath the ocean floor. This is the land of the Titans, where human travellers are dwarfed by Precambrian cliffs towering thousands of feet above land-locked fjords. A serious hike takes you all the way to the top of Gros Morne Mountain and rewards you with an unforgettable view of Ten Mile Pond and the Long Range Mountains. This is where giant arctic hares make their home, and woodland caribou and moose can be found. Steep valley slopes are alive with lichens, mosses, and tuckamore trees. Orchids thrive, over thirty wild species in all. Berries answer to names like bakeapple, partridge, and alpine bear. Gros Morne is like no other place on the face of the earth. Come see our wild side. Take a walk in our park. Breathing room. Come to Labrador, one of the last great wilderness areas on earth - a colossal frontier. Over 300,000 square kilometres of unspoiled land. Mountain ranges containing some of the oldest exposed rock on the planet. The Torngat, the Kaumajet, and the Kiglapait mountains feature sheer walls that soar 5,000 breathtaking feet out of the ocean. Wildlife roam in spectacular numbers. One of the largest barren ground caribou herd in the world lives here, the George River Caribou Herd, 450,000 strong. There are moose, wolves, lynx, porcupines, and polar bears. Whales, seals, and giant arctic hares. It's wild. If you're a fool for fishing, you'll be crazy about our fish. Brook Trout tipping the scales at seven and eight pounds. Ouananiche, a landlocked salmon, the largest in the world was caught here, a 22-pound trophy. And Atlantic salmon run upwards of 20,000 fish in some of our rivers. You can see forever in Labrador. And you can see where the Palaeo-Indians lived 9,000 years ago. See the 7,500-year-old Maritime Archaic Indian burial site which is the most ancient evidence of a funeral in North America. And Red Bay is where the Basque whalers, in the early 1500s, rendered whale oil for Europe, establishing the first industry in the new world. The people of Labrador are your hosts in this big-hearted place. You'll notice that it's a personal thing when you come to our home. The Innu and Inuit are Labrador's indigenous peoples. Their history dates back many centuries, and it is they who first learned how to live in this land. Whaling, fishing, and fur trapping brought European settlement around 1700. You can see how it was at Hebron, Hopedale, and Nain where original, preserved Moravian mission sites still hold out against the elements. Come to Labrador. A place that will awaken your heart and soul. Exploring Newfoundland and Labrador brings you closer to your true self. This is a big place with a lot to see and do, so take your time. Discover the common thread. You'll find it hiking the rugged coast while whales frolic in the ocean at your feet, dancing jigs and reels, eating food with funny-sounding names, gazing at a glacier-carved fjord, and in the orange silence of the autumn forest as you listen for moose. Whether you are here for the sedate or the pulse-pounding, there's a rhythm for you. Where else can you experience the old world and the new, visit the past, present, and future in the same day? And at the end say, yes, this was the finest hour. Until tomorrow. Winter Fun Snowmobiling----With thousands of kilometres of groomed trails, hundreds of thousands of square kilometres of virgin back country powder, and a long, long season, Newfoundland and Labrador is a snowmobiler's dream destination. Take Labrador. This is the true north, with sledding from December to April. A long-distance trail that crosses from west to east connects local trail systems around the major towns. There's even a spur to the remote north coast. Many trails are groomed, and there's a camaraderie based on shared experience that strong clubs foster with special events. Labradorians are masters at keeping the winter blahs at bay. Winter trails open up this big land to adventure and exploration. This is a huge wilderness with few roads and only scattered pockets of civilization. Caribou by the hundreds of thousands roam the tundra. Overhead at night, the Northern Lights dance a celestial tango. Winter trails open up this big land to adventure and exploration. This is a huge wilderness with few roads and only scattered pockets of civilization. Caribou by the hundreds of thousands roam the tundra. Overhead at night, the Northern Lights dance a celestial tango. On the Island of Newfoundland, you can ride groomed trails in forests and sheltered river valleys, and sled up mountains on back country trails that were footpaths centuries before the snow machine came along. Imagine riding an ancient mountain spine between two UNESCO World Heritage Sites while keeping an eye out for red foxes, tall brown moose and big-footed Arctic hares. You'll find wilderness lodges and in-town hotels, guided tours and hot tubs, good food and good company. Western and Central Newfoundland offer the longest season: the snow stays in the mountains well into April, and the annual snowfall averages 16 feet. But it's the coast that will take your breath away. The snow-covered arms of inlets and the icy sides of fjords meet the sea, which may be covered with Arctic ice and dotted with icebergs, or open and steely grey, flecked with whitecaps - or is that a narwhal? Skiing and Snowboarding Out here, mother nature has created one mother of a mountain. Marble Mountain, Newfoundland It's 1,600 feet straight down More fresh powder than anywhere else in Atlantic Canada. It's ski all day and into the night. Marble Mountain is the headquarters for the Corner Brook Winter Carnival, held in February. It's a blast. And if you'd rather head for virgin powder, there's a Cat skiing operation that will take you up the wild side of a mountain. In Baie Verte, in Central Newfoundland, you can ski to the sea on the 12-run Copper Creek hill. In eastern Newfoundland at Clarenville, the White Hills resort offers 10 downhill runs and groomed cross-country trails. In Labrador, the Mont Shana downhill just outside Happy Valley-Goose Bay has seven runs, and in the Labrador City-Wabush area you 'll find the Smokey Mountain club with 18 runs. And let's not forget cross-country. Both the Menihek club in western Labrador, which has hosted World Cup events, and Birch Brook in Goose Bay are excellent. On the island, the Whaleback club in Stephenville has 33 kilometres of groomed trails, including 2.5 lighted for night skiing, and the Blow Me Down club in Corner Brook has 42 kilometres of trails that begin only 10 minutes from Corner Brook.