Kissing the Cod: Five Hundred Years of Salt, Song, and Survival in St. John's

By Finn O'Sullivan — Irish storyteller and folklorist who crossed the Atlantic looking for the Ireland his grandparents described, and found it weather-beaten, cod-fed, and twice as funny.

St. John's does not look like the rest of Canada. The houses are painted in colors that would get you an HOA letter anywhere else — salmon pink, mustard yellow, teal, and orange stacked shoulder-to-shoulder on steep hillsides. The streets curve around cliffs instead of settling into grids. The wind comes off the Atlantic with such consistency that the trees grow at a permanent lean. And the locals speak with an accent that sounds more like rural Ireland than Toronto — because, in large part, it is.

This is the city that claims to be the oldest in North America, a fishing station since the early 1500s when English, Irish, and Basque crews summered on these shores before anyone thought to build a permanent town. It spent four centuries as the beating heart of the salt-fish trade, survived plunder by the French, burned nearly to the ground in 1892, and then — in 1949 — voted itself into Canada after refusing twice. The referendum passed by roughly 7,000 votes, which locals will still argue about if you give them half a chance.

It still behaves like a port town that happens to have an airport. Fishermen unload catch on the harbour in the morning. Bars on George Street run live music seven nights a week in summer. The weather changes four times before lunch. Bring layers, bring curiosity, and do not bring an umbrella — the wind will eat it.

Signal Hill: The Castle Above the Narrows

Start at Signal Hill, the rocky promontory that guards the entrance to the harbour. The Narrows — the gap between the cliffs at the harbour mouth — is exactly what it sounds like, tight enough that generations of attacking fleets had to thread it under the hill's guns. The French took the city in 1762 and held it for months before British troops stormed this hill on September 15th in what became the final land battle of the Seven Years' War in North America.

The stone Cabot Tower on top was built in 1897 to mark the 400th anniversary of John Cabot's 1497 landfall. In 1901, Guglielmo Marconi climbed the hill with a kite-borne antenna and pulled the first transatlantic wireless signal — the letter "S," tapped out from Poldhu, Cornwall — out of the air. There's a plaque about it inside. Stand at the wall, look east, and consider that the next thing between you and Ireland is water.

The 2026 numbers: Signal Hill is a Parks Canada National Historic Site. Admission is CAD $10.00 adult, $8.50 senior, and free for youth 17 and under. The grounds are open year-round; the tower and exhibits are seasonal, so check the hours board at the gate. Come early in high season — tour buses arrive by 10 AM.

The best way down is the North Head Trail, a 1.3 km path that drops from the hill to the Battery, the cluster of tiny wooden houses clinging to the cliff below. Give it 45 minutes, wear proper shoes, and watch for slick rock after rain. The reward is the Battery itself — a fishing outpost turned artist enclave, all narrow lanes and laundry lines with the harbour glittering through the gaps.

Right at the hill's base is the Johnson Geo Centre (175 Signal Hill Road), carved directly into the ancient rock — half the building is underground. It covers Newfoundland geology (some of the oldest rock on Earth), the Titanic (which sank about 640 km southeast of here), and the province's offshore oil story. Admission in 2026: adult $15, senior/student $11.50, youth $8, family $40, under-5s free. Open April 1 to December 20, roughly 9:30 AM–5 PM. It is the city's single best fog-day refuge.

The Village the City Swallowed: Quidi Vidi

Ten minutes from downtown, Quidi Vidi sits in a gut — a narrow, cliff-walled inlet — with small boats still tied up alongside sheds that have held gear for generations. The city limits absorbed it long ago; the village declined to notice.

The landmark is Mallard Cottage at 8 Barrows Road: a low, weathered wooden house roughly two centuries old, designated a National Historic Site, and for years the table where chef Jeremy Charles and crew turned Newfoundland pantry cooking — moose, cod, root vegetables, bakeapple berries — into destination dining. The cottage went dark after a bankruptcy in 2024, a genuine loss that locals mourned out loud. Good news: it reopened in June 2026 under new ownership, with the same soul and a refreshed kitchen. It's mid-range to splurge ($$$), small, and popular — check current hours and book before you go rather than trusting old reviews that still call it closed.

A few steps away, the Quidi Vidi Brewing Company (35 Barrows Road) occupies a former fish warehouse. Their signature Iceberg Beer is brewed with water harvested from 20,000-year-old icebergs that calve off Greenland and drift down Iceberg Alley. A pint runs about CAD $8–9, and the patio looks straight down the gut. It fills fast on weekend afternoons.

If you're here on the first Wednesday of August, the whole city effectively takes the afternoon off for the Royal St. John's Regatta on Quidi Vidi Lake — fixed-seat rowing races that have run, weather permitting, since 1816, making it the oldest continuously held sporting event in North America. If the wind blows wrong, the races postpone a day, and so does the holiday. Nobody minds. That's the point.

Jellybean Rows and Merchant Streets

Downtown rewards wandering more than any itinerary. Water Street, which claims to be the oldest street in North America, runs along the harbour through former merchant warehouses — the Murray Premises at 5 Beck's Cove, dating to the 1840s, is among the oldest commercial buildings still standing. The great fire of 1892 took most of the rest, which is why the core wears a handsome, unified late-Victorian face.

The famous Jellybean Row houses are not one row but dozens, scattered up Prescott, Gower, Hagen, and the other steep side streets. Fishermen painted their houses in loud colors so they could spot home through the fog from the water. The best light for photos is mid-morning, when the sun clears the eastern ridge and hits the south-facing slopes. Walk, don't drive — these streets are staircases with mailboxes.

Two churches anchor the skyline. The Basilica of St. John the Baptist on Military Road was consecrated in 1855 — a massive neoclassical pile with twin clock towers you can navigate by from most of downtown. The Anglican Cathedral of St. John the Baptist on Church Hill burned down twice and rose again in 1880s Gothic Revival stone. Both welcome visitors during daytime hours; the Anglican Cathedral closes for services.

The Rooms: The Whole Province in One Building

On the hill above downtown at 9 Bonaventure Avenue sits The Rooms — the provincial museum, art gallery, and archives in a single bold building designed to echo a fishing shed on stilts, opened in 2005. Adult admission runs about CAD $13.80 in 2026; check therooms.ca for current rates and evening openings.

Start with the Indigenous galleries: Maritime Archaic artifacts up to 7,500 years old, and the story of the Beothuk, the island's original people, extinguished by disease and conflict within decades of sustained European contact. The art galleries hold the colony's visual memory, including works by Christopher and Mary Pratt. Downstairs, the archives guard four centuries of paper — this was a British colony with its own parliament until 1949, and the documents show a place that long considered itself a country that happened to be waiting.

The top-floor café has the best view in the city: the whole harbour, the Narrows, and Signal Hill in one frame. Coffee is normal café money; the panorama alone justifies the museum admission.

The Edge of the Continent: Cape Spear

Cape Spear is a 20-minute drive from downtown on Blackhead Road, and it is the most easterly point of land in North America. Stand on the headland at dawn and you're the first person on the continent to see the sun — in winter it rises around 7:40 AM, a perfectly civilized pilgrimage.

The lighthouse, built in 1836, is the oldest surviving in Newfoundland. Parks Canada runs the site — admission in 2026 is CAD $10.00 adult, $8.50 senior, youth free, same as Signal Hill. The grounds and WWII gun emplacements are open year-round; the lighthouse interior runs seasonally, roughly June 1 to October 9. In May and June, scan the water: humpbacks pass close enough to watch from the cliffs, free of charge, spray and all.

Keen walkers should note the East Coast Trail stitches this whole coast together. The North Head Trail links Signal Hill to the Battery (above), and south of the city the Spout Path reaches a natural sea-arch blowhole that fires spray fifty feet high when the swell is right. Trail maps at eastcoasttrail.ca.

Eating the Island

Newfoundland food is not fancy, and that is its strength. Five centuries of cooking cod, moose, root vegetables, and berries — through long winters and longer voyages — produced a cuisine of substance. When the federal government shut the cod fishery in 1992 with the moratorium, it ended 500 years of inshore fishing overnight and broke tens of thousands of livelihoods; the restaurant scene that rose afterward is partly an act of cultural preservation. Order accordingly and with respect.

Raymonds (95 Water Street) is the standard-bearer. Chef Jeremy Charles cooks almost exclusively from the island — cod, caribou, scallops, foraged mushrooms, seal on occasion — and the dining room has repeatedly been named the best restaurant in Canada. Dinner runs Tuesday to Saturday, seatings from about 5:30 PM; the tasting menu lands around CAD $110–140 per person, wine pairings another $65–95. Book two to three weeks out in summer.

The Merchant Tavern (291 Water Street) is the same team's looser sibling, set in a former bank with a moose head over the bar. Lunch mains run $20–35 and it's the easier reservation.

For fish and chips, climb the stairs at The Duke of Duckworth (325 Duckworth Street) — a narrow upstairs pub draped in rugby scarves. The fish is cod, battered and fried, served with fries and "dressing" (the local savory bread stuffing Newfoundlanders put on everything). A plate is about $18–22. If you see toutons — fried bread dough — on a breakfast menu anywhere in town, order them, with molasses.

Adelaide Oyster House (334 Water Street) is a tiny shuck-and-pour bar; oysters run $3–4 each and the El Camino is the house cocktail. It is jammed by 7 PM — go early. And Chinched (5 Bates Hill) cures its own charcuterie from local meats (the pig-ear fries are the famous order, boards around $28) and pours from every craft brewery in the province.

One liquid note: Screech is the local dark rum, and its name is the point. The old trade ran salt cod to the Caribbean and brought rum back; a Newfoundlander supposedly took one swallow and screeched. Whether or not that's true — and here, assume every story is 40% true and 100% entertaining — the rum is real and it appears again below.

George Street: Where Visitors Become Newfoundlanders

George Street is two blocks, closed to traffic, and claims more bars per capita than any street in Canada. The anchors — O'Reilly's, The Ship Inn, Christian's — host live music nightly through summer, mostly traditional sessions and kitchen-party rock. Covers are rare; a pint of domestic runs CAD $7–9. The George Street Festival takes over the street for about a week from late July into early August, with stages and big-name acts from the island and Ireland.

Then there is the screech-in. Bars up and down George Street run the ceremony, typically for $20–25: you recite a short verse ("Long may your big jib draw"), down a shot of Screech, and kiss a real codfish on the lips. You receive a certificate declaring you an honorary Newfoundlander. It is silly. It is also, somehow, genuinely moving — a town inducting strangers into its story the way ports have always done, with rum and theater.

What to Skip

• The souvenir t-shirt shops on the lower Water Street strip — generic maple-leaf merchandise you could buy in Niagara Falls. For real keepsakes, hit the Craft Council shop or the St. John's Farmers' Market (Saturdays, Freshwater Road) for preserves, knits, and woodwork.
• Kenmount Road — the big-box strip could be any suburb in North America. You didn't cross an ocean for a Walmart.
• Driving to George Street at night. Park the car; take a taxi or walk. The streets are medieval and the parking is imaginary.
• Trusting the forecast. If the morning is foggy, wait an hour. If it's sunny, don't gloat — it will pass. Planning around weather here is like planning around the tide.
• Waiting for the city to behave like Toronto. Service is warm but unhurried, shops close early off-season, and a "quick" conversation with a local can cost you forty minutes you'll count as a highlight. Budget for both.

Practical Logistics

When to come: July through September is prime — temperatures of 15–22°C (60–72°F), long evenings, everything open. June is foggy but delivers icebergs. October brings fall color and thin crowds. Winter is honest work: heavy snow, high wind, and many restaurants and attractions on reduced hours or closed November through April.

Icebergs and whales: Iceberg season runs May into June (occasionally early July); whales mid-May through September, peaking June–August. Iceberg Quest sails from Pier 6 on Harbour Drive, with two-hour tours around CAD $70–90. Cheaper and often better: drive 30 minutes south to Bay Bulls, where O'Brien's Whale and Bird Tours and Gatherall's run boats to the Witless Bay Ecological Reserve — one of North America's largest Atlantic puffin colonies. Figure $60–80 per person, with hotel shuttles from downtown for about $35 extra.

Getting around: Downtown is compact and walkable — but it is built on a cliff's worth of hills, and you'll climb them. Metrobus runs local routes with limited Sunday service; taxis are reasonable and the standard way to reach Cape Spear or Quidi Vidi without a car. Renting a car for one day covers Cape Spear, Quidi Vidi, and Bay Bulls nicely.

Money and time: Everything is Canadian dollars; cards are accepted nearly everywhere and tipping 15–20% is standard. And a small delight: Newfoundland runs on its own half-hour time zone, Newfoundland Standard Time (UTC−3:30) — the only such zone in North America. It exists so the island shares the same clock time as the maritime provinces it lies closest to. Even the hours here go their own way.

The Bottom Line

St. John's has been a crossroads for five hundred years — Basque whalers and Irish fishermen, British garrisons and Beothuk families, Marconi with his kite and fishermen trading cod for rum. None of it is museumed away. It happens nightly on George Street, at the tables of Raymonds and the reborn Mallard Cottage, on the cliffs of Cape Spear at first light.

Give it three days: one for Signal Hill and the Battery, one for Cape Spear and a boat out to the whales, one for Water Street, Quidi Vidi, and George Street after dark. Pack layers. Skip the umbrella. And when someone offers you a story, take it — even the ones that are 40% true are 100% worth keeping.

Finn O'Sullivan writes about the places where history refuses to stay in the past. He kissed the cod in 2019 and keeps the certificate framed.