body-container-line-1

The hotel at the end of the earth

By escape.com
General News The hotel at the end of the earth
NOV 18, 2016 LISTEN

It took me a while to get to one of the four corners of the Earth — which is what the Flat Earth Society believe Fogo Island to be.

First there’s the flight to St John’s in Newfoundland, then a five-hour drive through the Terra Nova National Park, with your eyes peeled for moose clattering across the road. Finally a ferry ride across the Hamilton Sound — if you visit around May or June you’ll spot icebergs and whales along the way.

But oh, when you arrive no journey’s end was ever so sweet.

1118201693640jof6iknut2gbmgielix

The handmade quilts are one of the highlights of a stay at Fogo Island Inn.

With its startlingly modern exterior, designed to recall the traditional fishing stages once used on the island, you’d be forgiven for imagining that the Fogo Island Inn’s interior would be a stark minimalist vision, but no.

Bright tea cosy-like crocheted cushions dot its comfy sofas, and traditional hooked rugs are on the floor.

Beds are topped with bright quilts hand-stitched by islanders, and rocking chairs with seats as welcoming as a grandma’s lap stand temptingly by the floor to ceiling windows.

1118201693641r74ypknd0pojmg5mtqf

The furnishings are both comfortable and colourful.

What’s even more remarkable is this internationally-acclaimed inn on a tiny island in the north Atlantic is run as a community asset by the Shorefast Foundation, with 100 per cent of operating surpluses reinvested into the community.

It’s a story that you hear from most people on Fogo: “If the Inn wasn’t here, I wouldn’t be either.”

1118201693641txob6knfe654mgs57sh

Fogo Island’s fishing community has turned to tourism to survive.

After Canada’s Cod Moratorium shut down the cod fishing industry in 1992, putting 30,000 people in Newfoundland out of work and ending a way of life that had endured for generations, many small communities were in danger of becoming ghost towns.

The creation of the Shorefast Foundation and the opening of the Fogo Island Inn breathed new life into the island.

1118201693641txob6knfe654mgs57sh

Exploring the island with the locals is one of the most popular activities.

I explored next morning with community host Blanche Bennett, a town clerk manager whose husband died just before she retired.

“This saved me,” she says with a smile. “I didn’t know what I was going to do with my life, but now I’m happy. I meet people from all around the world and I’ve a whole new appreciation for the island since being a host.”

Taking an island tour with one of the locals is one of the inn’s most popular activities.

1118201693641txob6knfe654mgs57sh

Local guides lead guests on tours around the community.

Blanche and I drive around taking in the beach and the historic canon battery dating back to 1779, chatting all the while.

We call in to Linda Osmond’s crafts shop to admire her textiles and her husband’s paintings. Part of the Inn’s quilting project, Linda made 12 of the beautiful quilts and I resolve to check to see if she made mine when I get back to my room (nope, mine was beautifully made by Donna Rowe).

1118201693642qulx5kn0ann3mgpks51

The island has become a tourist attraction thanks to the Fogo Island Inn.

I spend the afternoon with the Inn’s sous chef, Ian Sheridan, who’s finishing a 48-hour sous vide-cooked pork loin with a birch wood char on a fire on the beach.

“Wait till you taste that later,” he grins.

Then we go foraging in front of the Inn for the low-lying berries and herbs which tenaciously grow on the wind-blasted tundra.

“It’s the minerality in our soil, the proximity to the water and salt in the air that ends up giving a freshness and taste that defines this place,” he explains as he offers me a young fresh wild celery leaf to chew on.

We look for the tart juicy partridgeberries that I tasted in last night’s cocktail and springy caribou moss, which Ian will soak to remove its toxic acidity than candy to add crunch and texture.

1118201693642q7mxpkn00on3mg5ls51

Foraging is part of the Fogo Island Inn experience.

Later at dinner the floor to ceiling windows are flooded with flattering rosy light as the scarlet sun sets on the horizon.

Ian was right: I can taste the fire and smoke in the pork and it’s mouth-watering with the peppery celery leaves we gathered earlier.

I look out to the darkness and sigh with happiness knowing I’ll wake to icebergs in the morning after a night curled under Donna’s quilt; paradise found at one of the four corners of the world.

body-container-line