Gros Morne National Park

Gros Morne National Park, established in 1973 and designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987, protects 1,805 square kilometres of the Long Range Mountains on Newfoundland’s Great Northern Peninsula — a landscape of ancient Precambrian highlands, dramatic glacial fjord lakes (called “ponds” in Newfoundland), wave-cut coastal terraces, and the geologically extraordinary Tablelands, where a piece of Earth’s mantle has been thrust to the surface, forming a barren orange-brown plateau toxic to most plant life.

The park’s UNESCO World Heritage designation rests on its exceptional geological significance: Gros Morne contains one of the world’s finest exposed sequences of ophiolite — ancient ocean floor and mantle rock that was obducted (thrust upward) onto the continent during the Taconic Orogeny approximately 470 million years ago, providing the key geological evidence that confirmed the theory of plate tectonics. The Tablelands, a flat-topped orange peridotite plateau, represent a piece of the Earth’s upper mantle visible at the surface — one of only a handful of places on earth where this is possible. Western Brook Pond Gorge, a freshwater fjord 16 kilometres long surrounded by 600-metre cliffs, is the park’s most spectacular landscape. Gros Morne is Newfoundland’s pre-eminent wilderness destination.

Gros Morne’s recreational centrepiece is the Western Brook Pond boat tour (a 3-hour guided boat tour through the 16-kilometre fjord lake surrounded by 600-metre vertical cliffs; the Pissing Mare Falls — one of the highest waterfalls in eastern Canada — cascades 350 metres into the gorge mid-route; the scale of the glacially carved walls is genuinely overwhelming; reserve well in advance through Parks Canada). The approach hike to the boat dock (a 3-kilometre flat boardwalk walk across a coastal bog from the highway to the boat landing — accessible and rewarding even for those not taking the boat tour) traverses one of the finest examples of a raised coastal bog in Atlantic Canada. The Gros Morne Mountain hike (the park’s signature high-alpine route — 16 kilometres return, 806 metres elevation gain, Class 3 scramble on the upper plateau; the Long Range Mountains summit plateau gives a panoramic view over the fjord landscape of the Great Northern Peninsula; rated the finest mountain hike in Atlantic Canada by many) requires a full day and solid fitness. The Tablelands Trail (a 4-kilometre return hike onto the orange peridotite plateau — the most accessible way to walk on a piece of Earth’s mantle; the barren, rust-coloured surface, nearly devoid of vegetation due to the heavy metal toxicity of the ultramafic rock, is one of the most eerie and scientifically fascinating landscapes in Canada) provides a UNESCO World Heritage experience accessible to all fitness levels. Sea kayaking in Bonne Bay (the double-armed fjord that bisects the park — the inner fjord arms are sheltered, warm, and accessible to beginner sea kayakers, with tidal flats, waterfalls from the plateau edge, and frequent whale sightings), hiking at Lobster Cove Head and Green Gardens (coastal sea-stack and coastal meadow hiking on the western park edge), and the Lomond River valley for freshwater fishing (brook trout and salmon) complete the recreational spectrum.

Summer (late June through August) is the primary season for Gros Morne — the Western Brook Pond boat tours run daily (book the first tour of the day for the best light in the gorge), the Gros Morne Mountain route is fully accessible, the whale-watching season in Bonne Bay peaks in July and August (minke whales, humpback whales, and the occasional fin whale are regularly seen in the fjord arms), and the park’s extensive wildflower season on the Tablelands and coastal meadows peaks in late June and July. Fall (September through mid-October) delivers dramatic light on the gorge walls, the fall colour on the Long Range lower slopes (birch, maple, and mountain ash turning on the plateau edges in September and early October), and significantly reduced crowds after Labour Day. The boat tours typically run through mid-October weather permitting. Spring (May through June) is the season for the park’s spectacular iceberg coast — Iceberg Alley along the northern Great Northern Peninsula (accessible from the park as a day excursion) brings icebergs calved from Greenland’s glaciers within sight of the shore in May and early June; the combination of the park’s landscape and the icebergs visible from the northern coastal road is a uniquely Newfoundland experience. Summer for the boat tour and the mountain; spring for the icebergs.

The Great Northern Peninsula has been inhabited by Indigenous peoples for at least 5,000 years — the Maritime Archaic people (who hunted marine mammals, including walrus and harp seal, along the Labrador coast and the northern tip of Newfoundland) were followed by the Dorset Palaeo-Eskimo culture and then the Beothuk people, the Indigenous inhabitants of Newfoundland whom European contact eventually destroyed (the last known Beothuk, Shawnadithit, died in 1829). The area was home to Mi’kmaq and other Indigenous peoples who visited seasonally. European contact with the Great Northern Peninsula was transformative: the Norse arrived around 1000 CE (L’Anse aux Meadows, 100 kilometres north of the park, is the only authenticated Norse site in North America), the Basque and French established seasonal fishing and whaling operations from the 16th century, and the British and French competed for control of the Newfoundland fishery through the 17th and 18th centuries. The Bonne Bay community has been a permanent European settlement since the 18th century — the park was established in 1973, requiring the relocation of some communities from within the park boundary — a contentious process whose legacy is still felt in the relationships between the park and the surrounding communities. The geological discoveries made in Gros Morne (the Tablelands ophiolite) contributed directly to the scientific confirmation of plate tectonics theory in the 1960s and 1970s.

Gros Morne is one of the most geologically significant landscapes on earth. The park’s UNESCO World Heritage status rests on two geological features: the Tablelands ophiolite (a section of ancient oceanic crust and upper mantle, composed of peridotite — a dark green ultramafic rock that weathers to the distinctive orange-brown colour visible on the plateau — that was thrust over the edge of the North American continent during the Taconic Orogeny approximately 470 million years ago; the Tablelands are one of the finest exposed ophiolite sequences in the world, providing direct physical evidence of the plate tectonics process); and the adjacent Long Range Mountains (an ancient Precambrian massif, over 1,000 million years old, representing the eroded roots of a mountain range once as high as the Himalayas). The contact between the ancient Precambrian basement and the ophiolite — visible in the park as the stark boundary between forested mountain slopes and the barren orange Tablelands plateau — represents one of the most dramatic geological boundaries in North America. The fjord lakes (Western Brook Pond, Ten Mile Pond, Trout River Pond) were carved by glaciers during the Pleistocene ice ages; the hanging valleys, glacial erratics, and U-shaped gorges throughout the park are the products of repeated glaciation. The coastal plain (the low terrace between the Long Range escarpment and the Gulf of St. Lawrence) is a raised sea floor — uplifted by post-glacial isostatic rebound as the land recovered from the weight of the ice sheets.

Gros Morne supports the full suite of Newfoundland wildlife species — moose (introduced to Newfoundland in 1904; now one of the densest moose populations in North America; the park has an estimated 3,000 moose and they are encountered routinely on all trails and frequently on the roads at dawn and dusk; moose are a genuine highway hazard in Newfoundland), caribou (the park protects a herd of woodland caribou that uses the Long Range highland plateau; they are seen less frequently than moose but are encountered on the Gros Morne Mountain plateau and the upper Long Range highlands), black bear (present throughout the park’s forested areas; generally shy but active in berry season), lynx (resident but rarely seen), and arctic hare (common on the upper plateau and the Tablelands in summer — their white winter coats transition to brown in summer). Marine mammals in Bonne Bay and the Gulf of St. Lawrence include minke whale (common in the fjord arms in summer), humpback whale (occasional in the outer bay), harbour porpoise, harbour seal, grey seal, and the occasional pilot whale. The park’s bird life includes bald eagle (common — nesting along the fjord lake shores), osprey, merlin, American black duck (breeding on the coastal bogs), and the full suite of boreal breeding songbirds. Atlantic puffin colonies are present on the offshore islands in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, accessible by boat tour from the nearby community of Norris Point.

Gros Morne’s ecological diversity is exceptional — the park encompasses five distinct ecological zones: the coastal lowland (raised beach terraces and coastal bogs), the boreal forest (balsam fir, black spruce, white birch — the dominant forest type on the lower Long Range slopes), the subalpine zone (krummholz tuckamore — the wind-deformed coastal balsam fir that is the iconic Newfoundland landscape plant — and heath shrubs), the alpine tundra (on the Long Range plateau, above treeline, with arctic-alpine plant communities), and the Tablelands barrens (the ultramafic substrate with its heavy metal toxicity supports only a handful of specially adapted plant species — serpentine-tolerant plants like bog buckbean and some orchid species manage to grow in the peridotite soil, but the plateau is largely barren). The absence of the Tablelands vegetation makes the ophiolite geology directly readable in the landscape — the orange plateau is visible from the Gulf of St. Lawrence coast, 40 kilometres away. The coastal raised bogs (a Newfoundland specialty) support carnivorous plants (pitcher plant — the provincial flower of Newfoundland — sundew, and bladderwort) and nesting shorebirds. The fjord lakes are oligotrophic (nutrient-poor) and support brook trout and Atlantic salmon in their tributary streams.