Aviation history at Harbour Grace, and on to St. John’s

Posted On July 3 , 2026

Sunday, June 28th, Day 31 of our trip and the 24th day in Newfoundland, was an extremely varied day, going from the quiet of Chance Cove to the bustle of St. John’s, with a stop at Harbour Grace, an aviation mecca I could spend many hours at.

We spent a quiet night in the parking lot for the Coastal Trail at Chance Cove. This morning I made a short walk toward the beach and got this view that convinced me to have a look at the community before leaving.

A climb up the stairs that start the Coastal Trail gave me this view of the parking lot.

Along the entrance to the parking lot is this proud display. Very nice 🙂

I think Chance Cove is the most outwardly welcoming community we’ve visited. Even with no place for visitors to spend money, we’re welcomed with free overnight parking at two locations, and public washrooms.

Although our destination, St. John’s, was only 120 km away, we made a rather lengthy detour to Spirit of Harbour Grace Park, often called the Amelia Earhart Memorial. The Spirit of Harbour Grace is a Douglas DC-3 that was built in 1943 as a C47 for the U.S. Air Force. In 1977 Roger Pike, a native of Harbour Grace, bought the aircraft, using it to transport food and dairy products for 11 years. In 1993 the Spirit of Harbour Grace was donated to the town by the Pike family, to commemorate the town’s rich aviation history.

Information panels in front of the plane give the basics of that history. In 1927, local people built an airfield with the specific idea that it could be used for transatlantic flights, and it worked. Twenty attempts were made from the Harbour Grace strip, and they are all listed on the panels. Perhaps the most famous flight, however, was one made by Amelia Earhart in 1932. Given all the other incredible flights, and the tragic failures, I cringe at saying that, but it was Amelia who gained the most attention, and much of that attention has been retained to this day.

On May 20, 1932, Amelia Earhart took off at Harbour Grace in her single-engine Lockheed Vega 5B and, after a flight lasting 14 hours 56 minutes, landed in a pasture in Northern Ireland, becoming the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. In 2007, on the 75 anniversary of that flight, a statue of Earhart, sculpted by Luben Boykov, was erected at the park.

Spirit of Harbour Grace Park is more than aviation history. This is the entrance to a boardwalk along the shore.

Approaching the park on the highway, a wrecked freighter was visible in the harbour (in perfect light for photos), and seeing it from the boardwalk convinced me to walk back and get a good look. The vessel is the Kyle. Launched in 1913, she was fitted to carry 68 first class and 142 second class passengers. On her delivery voyage, she arrived at St. John’s on May 20th. She spent much of her life running between Newfoundland and Labrador, and in 1961 a new owner converted her to be used as a sealer, renaming her Arctic Eagle. After only 4 years, she received such heavy damage from ice that she wasn’t worth repairing, and on February 4, 1967, while anchored in the harbour, a storm blew her aground. Bought by the province, it was hoped to turn her into a museum, but she appears to now be beyond saving.

We had a reservation at the large Pippy Park Campground on the opposite side of Long Pond from Memorial University in St. John’s. As soon as we got set up, Cathy called for taxi and by 2:00 we had been dropped off at the waterfront to start our exploring. From what we saw on the short drive from the park, Cathy and I knew we were going to like this little city.

“Downtown St. John’s Welcomes You” banners line the main streets 🙂

While this isn’t the best view of the King George V Institute on Water Street East, it had the best lighting to show the details. I would discover later on my walk that this neoclassical building was built by Dr. Wilfred Grenfell in 1912.

I wanted to do some high-speed exploring before dinner, so Cathy found a shady bench to wait for me. From the street I could see below me in Waterfront Park a pair of statues that took me down for a good look. These statues of a Newfoundland dog and a Labrador Retriever were created in 2002 by Luben Boykov.

St. John’s harbour is a great place to see ships that are completely new types to me. Inuksuk II, operated by Baffin Fisheries, is a state-of-the-art 80-meter-long stern trawler that just put into service last year. Built in Turkey, she is now the largest Canadian-owned fishing vessel, harvesting shrimp and Greenland halibut (turbot) in the Eastern Arctic.

On the higher side of Water Street from Waterfront Park is the War Memorial, which was opened on July 1, 1924, so specifically honour the Newfoundlanders and Labradorians who served during the First World War.

I spent a long time at the memorial. Cathy understands that my estimates of when I’ll be back from an exploration wander are sometimes under-estimated.

This is the view from the memorial.

From June 25 to September 7, part of Water Street becomes a pedestrian mall, but it was pretty quiet this afternoon.

I wanted fish and chips for dinner again, and the #1 place for that on Tripadvisor is The Duke of Duckworth. We went in, but it was very crowded and extremely loud, so left immediately and looked for other options.

The Ship Pub two blocks away was the next destination.

This was perfect 🙂

We got a table out on the patio, and this fish and chips will rank well in my province-wide survey. The batter is much lighter than it looks. We were able to have a wonderful, lengthy chat with our server as well – yes, this was the experience we wanted. The Ship Pub gets top marks.

Back at Pippy Park Campground. It’s an excellent facility, but we got the worst site of the 217 sites in the park – #16 is so uneven that even the blocks couldn’t get us level.

Washrooms are a significant factor in assessing a campground, and these ones are very nice and immaculate.

I wasn’t ready to quit walking/exploring yet, so headed out again, starting with trails in the campground. I was soon across the highway to have a look at the Confederation Building, the seat of the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador. It was completed in 1960.

From there I walked over to the Memorial University side of of Long Pond – the main trail around the lake is very good. There were several species of flowers at their peak – these ones were on a Horse chestnut tree (Aesculus hippocastanum).