Chasing Icebergs on Fogo Island

by KAREN LEIVA

Fogo Island Inn

FOGO ISLAND INN Fogo Island | Newfoundland

Fogo Island Inn is on an island, off an island, at one of the four corners of the Earth. Situated along Iceberg Alley, all 29 rooms and suites feature floor-to-ceiling windows opening onto the most powerful ocean on the planet. The Inn delivers genuine, place-specific hospitality in a stark, unforgiving wilderness. Furnished with handmade quiet luxuries, it serves as a refuge from the numbing uniformity of modern times.

Fogo Island Inn Room

Fogo Island Inn is a 100% social business and a community asset. There is no private gain; all operating surpluses are reinvested in the initiatives of Shorefast, a Canadian charity dedicated to building economic and cultural resilience on Fogo Island.

Ensemble Exclusive Amenities • $100 CAD hotel credit per room, per stay • Upgraded room at time of check-in when available • Early check-in / late check-out when available

Rounding a corner on a walking path, my friends and I, bundled in winter coats and boots despite it being May, are gawking at a blue iceberg with jagged edges. We’ve been here on Fogo Island, Newfoundland, for a few days and have already seen many icebergs, but this is the first bright blue one – and it’s extraordinary.

We snap photos (never quite capturing this iceberg’s magnificence) and, suddenly, there is an incredible thunder. Literally, within seconds, the iceberg shoots water into the air and then disappears.

More than 10,000 years old, the iceberg has split in half and rolled upside down. Its journey from the Arctic almost complete. “You can wait forever to see that, and it wouldn’t happen,” says our guide, Fogo Islander Al Dwyer. “I’ve only seen it happen, maybe, three times in my lifetime.”

We are on a walking tour with Al, whose family has lived on this island for five generations. A retired schoolteacher, Al is also a community host with the Fogo Island Inn. All eyes have been on this rugged fishing village since the inn opened in 2013. An inspiring example of sustainable tourism, the Fogo Island Inn is a not-for-profit luxury hotel built by entrepreneur Zita Cobb, born and raised here. The inn employs locals, like Al, to give ‘come-from-aways’, a typical Newfoundlander welcome, and show them around.

I’ve had the good fortune of visiting Fogo Island twice in recent years – both times in iceberg season. Fogo Island is one of the key spots in this area known as Iceberg Alley, stretching from Labrador and beyond Fogo Island to the southeast coast of Newfoundland. Most of Newfoundland’s icebergs have made their way from Greenland. It can take several years before they reach Canadian shores. My first time seeing an iceberg was in Fogo Island. I traveled in late June 2018, but at that time, the icebergs had mostly passed. I got lucky on a boat tour, getting close to a large iceberg. It was thrilling, and I was hooked. I returned in May 2019, and it was perfect timing for the start of the season.

When traveling to Fogo Island, many people fly to Gander (made famous in the Come From Away musical) and rent a car or charter a flight to Fogo Island Inn. We rent a car. Not five minutes off the ferry that connects Fogo Island to the mainland, and my friends are calling out: “Iceberg!”

Making our way across the island over the next few days, we stop repeatedly to take photos. It’s exciting to see that around almost every corner and, in every cove, there is ice. One morning, we wake to find the area around Fogo Island Inn, that was clear just the day before, suddenly full of “pack ice” (which is basically sea ice that is on the move). Days later, it will be gone. We are fortunate to be there for Community Quilt Hang Out day to see the contrast of traditional hand-made quilts flapping in the wind alongside the ice.

On our walking tour, we spot many more icebergs along the coast. I ask Al, having lived on these lands his entire life, if he ever tires of seeing them. “We love them up here, and I just can’t wait for the icebergs to pass our way. There’s something about where they came from and how they were formed – it’s remarkable,” he says. “It doesn’t matter if you see them every year or once in a lifetime – it’s spectacular.”

I couldn’t agree more. I’m already planning my return to Fogo Island.

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