Second house from the left.
Second house from the right.
Photos: Dan Miller
dildo run, from the porch.
A big part of the charm is that it’s a little bit
Leslie Grattan & Dan Miller
hard to get to: it’s a five-hour drive from St.
John’s, then a 20-minute ferry ride and another
20-minute drive. So it really is a temporal and
ChANgINg gEARS
spatial separation from regular life. And where
CHANGE ISLANDS, NOTRE DAME BAY, NEWFOuNDLAND
else can someone have a view that looks straight
down Dildo Run!
Leslie grattan is an independent
I
wanted nothing between me and the ocean. And you know what’s amazing? We paddle
environmental consultant and Dan Miller
And now we have this place on Change Is- with icebergs, whales, sea ducks and dolphins.
is a retired federal fisheries biologist turned
lands in Notre Dame Bay off the north-central And there are some areas that, when it’s calm,
full-time paddler and photographer.
coast of Newfoundland. the water is so clear you can see down 40 to 50
The affordability of properties in
We spent a lot of time in the community, feet. It’s like an aquarium.
newfoundland’s outport communities
make it fairly common for folks in St. John’s
so people got used to seeing us. I put out word And there’s such variety of paddling. Within
to have a home “around the bay.”
that I’d be interested in buying a house as our 10 minutes from the house you can be paddling
around-the-bay home. In 2005 something in everything from Level 1 to Level 4 conditions
became available—and was affordable with with nothing between you and Greenland. But no
some left over to be able to consider renovations matter which way the wind blows, there’s always
(prices are noticeably higher now). somewhere sheltered to paddle, around the many
The house is just a bungalow converted islands and little passages. It’s incredibly beautiful.
from a two-storey house by an older couple In fact, it offers such variety of padding
who no longer needed the room and simply conditions that the Newfoundland kayak
removed the top floor. But for us, it means we Company (Dan is a certified instructor) ran a
can arrive with our loaded van and within half Level 2 course out of our place. We even had
an hour be on the water with the groceries put people bunking in the garage. That’s something
away, the water running and the beer cooling. we’d certainly do again.—Leslie Grattan, as told
That’s the joy of it. to Alison Dyer
40 ADvENTuRE KAYAK | Spring 2010
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