On a standard map of the world, Newfoundland is a cartographical outcast, hiding behind Greenland up in that lonely, top-left corner. But lean over a globe and its proximity to Europe becomes startlingly apparent: a shade over 3000 kilometres to Ireland or Portugal, not much more than half the transatlantic distance to New York.

This adjacency shaped the province’s post-indigenous history, a new land to be found through no more than a wrong turn, contrary winds or a premeditated short, sharp foray into the unknown. A hardy band of Vikings settled here for a few decades back in the 11th century, and 400 years later Giovanni Caboto – John Cabot to his Bristolian sponsors – kick-started Newfoundland’s defining industry when his crew lowered a basket into the waters off the Avalon peninsula and brought it up flapping with fat silver cod.

Financial Times