Newfoundland Nature – through Galen’s lens

September 6, 2025|Rick Juliusson

I've already waxed poetic about Newfoundland's dynamic culture, and the unique feeling of being at the very beginning (or end) of land and time. Now, the windswept edginess of her landscape and wildlife deserves its own portrait, coloured by the artistry of Galen's photography and the keenness of his partner Cairo's birding eye.

Rugged, raw, sweeping, epic… Newfoundland is the bold thick brushstrokes of the beginning outline of a Matisse painting you're glad he never got around to finishing. It smells like Old Spice, wears like Carhartt denim and kisses like a young Harrison Ford. And during a one-week visit, she posed for Galen’s grad-gift camera and big rented lens like an unabashed, I don't know, Lady Gaga? Mae West?

Gannet Sanctuary

We smell them before we hear them. Hear them before we see them. The trail winds closer and closer to the cliff edge then abruptly ends at a windy open point with sheer cliff edges down to the sea. Just 30 metres away, thousands of Northern Gannets nest and argue and poop. They ride the winds in the narrow gap between our rock outcroppings, land precariously and flappingly, then do the neck-rubbing greeting with their mates.

We have driven 2.5 hours (plus stops to marvel at moose, ducks, and a splendid specimen of abandoned vehicle) across the flat, tundra-like hyper-oceanic barrens to visit Cape St. Mary’s Ecological Reserve, the most accessible and third-largest nesting site of Northern Gannets in North America. Sarah and I already visited the North Atlantic’s largest colony in Alderney, but they're so much closer here, and it feels more like a shrine when in the company of birding fanatics Galen and Cai.

Hiking out to the rock outcropping

Greeting/mating ritual of rubbing beaks and necks

Puffin Sanctuary

Continuing down the Birders' Bucket List, we take a boat tour to the Witless Bay Ecological Reserve, the world’s second-largest puffin colony. It’s still nesting season so the rocks are still packed with many of the 350,000 puffins who return to this same spot each year to nest. The sanctuary also sports Leach’s storm petrel, common murre, razorbill, black guillemot, black-legged kittiwake, herring gull, and great black-backed gull and more, and from the boat we spot jellyfish colonies and a well-fed sunfish.

Black-legged kittiwake (juvenile)

Double crested cormorant (left), herring gull (right)

Man of La Manche

South of St. John's is the "Irish Loop" where waves of immigrants brought their passion and culture to establish the European fishing industry. With our visiting Lauri (sorry, the photos in the next 2 sections are mine, not Galen's) we drive past St. Vincent’s Beach to watch humpback whales feeding on schools of capelin just metres offshore.

Setting up camp at La Manche Provincial Park, we hike down to a suspension bridge that serves part of the 336km East Coast Trail. The foundations of a fishing village that was destroyed by a freak combination of high tide and storm in 1966 remind us of the cruel, awesome power of the ocean mother that envelopes this jagged rock with her protective and punishing arms.

Gross Morne National Park

We only have 2 days camping in this UNESCO World Heritage Site that deserves 2 weeks (or 2 months), but oh what a national treasure! Boat ride up into the glacier-carved fjord (complete with a deck-top "kitchen party" musical performance on the way back). Hikes along coastline, meadows, and mountainsides (though the highest and highest-risk trails are closed because all emergency helicopters are fighting fires elsewhere). Broad sandy beach at Shallow Bay with warmish water (by Newfoundland standards). Musical theatre, Newfoundland-style, at Cow Head.

A different fjord boat ride would take us up to the glaciers, and another 321 km of winding coastal beauty would take us to L’Anse aux Meadows National Historic Site where the Vikings first landed. But we have to leave something for next visit. Yes, dear rugged powerful NewfoundLAND (pronounced like "Understand"), we'll be back.

Fjord in Gross Morne

Coastal hike

Water is ultra-oligotrophic, meaning it has very few nutrients and cannot support many plants or animals

What looks like a shrubbed hillside is actually a "tuckamore forest" - wind-beaten evergreen trees, primarily spruce and fir, that grow along the coasts and in alpine areas of Newfoundland and Labrador...

...where they are deformed by the strong, cold winds, eventually growing low and sideways. Inside is a thatched-roof paradise

Final Newfoundland Photos

Again, the photos of La Manche and Gross Morne are mine (and Sarah's). But a post about the power and beauty of Newfoundland's nature deserves to finish with the power and beauty of Galen's photography. Be sure to see his earlier work when he visited us in Morocco and the Magdalen Islands, and also his own website: GalenJuliusson.com. I don't think I'm just a biased proud papa when I say he's a truly gifted artist.

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2 Comments

Lois Carter Crawford on September 6, 2025 at 10:09 pm

What lovely photos!

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Lynda Juliusson on September 22, 2025 at 8:02 pm

Oh my gosh so beautiful and the colours are magnificent.

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