Perils of Driving in Newfoundland

Driving in Newfoundland is not without its dangers - and to my mind, there are two of these.  The first is the scenery.  Each time you round a corner, there is a different stunning vista.  It takes great discipline on the part of the driver to keep one's eyes on the road and suppress the natural inclination to take in the entire view.  Fortunately, there are numerous look-out points along the highways where you can pull off, get out of the car, and observe the panorama.

The second problem is the moose.  In the late 1940's someone got the idea that introducing moose to the island might be a good idea, providing a food source alternative to fish and berries.  A pair of the animals were brought over from New Brunswick.  A couple of years later, the moose population remained at two, so another four were imported.  Those six moose are now the ancestors of the 130,000 or so that now roam the island.

In most of Newfoundland it is said that there is one moose for every two square kilometers.  However, in Gros Morne National Park and up the western peninsula, the density increases to two or three moose for each square kilometer.  That makes for a lot of moose!  And for a lot of collisions of moose and cars, particularly in the hours between dusk and dawn.  Here is a collage of the many warning signs to be found on the highways of Newfoundland:

We made a rule of not driving at night, and managed to stick to that thereby avoiding any such problem.  We saw 10 or 12 moose during our visit, only a small number of them anywhere near the road.  Our closest encounter was a safe one.  This cow moose crossed the road a safe distance in front of us and paused by the roadside to munch on some vegetation and provide us with this photo op.

On one occasion, we had returned in to our B&B near L'Anse Aux Meadows after dinner one evening.  Once we got into our room, we could hear horns honking out on the highway in front of the house.  We quickly figured out what that was all about and went outside to see not one but two moose standing no more than 20 feet away from where we had parked our car.  They safely retreated into the bush after a short while, but not too much later, we could hear the horns honking further down the highway where they had no doubt reappeared.