The Top Ten Experiences on Atlantic Island Odyssey

Endless beaches. Eerie fog. The world’s largest grey seal colony. And stallions galloping the dunes. Sable Island, an isolated sandbar as long as Manhattan but barely a kilometre wide, is a marvel to explore. Cruise its coasts, stroll its salt marshes, witness its rare animals, and learn about its lore, including five centuries of haunting shipwrecks.

The shallow waters between Newfoundland and Nova Scotia are among the world’s richest fishing grounds, for both humans and animals alike. While at sea, search the waves for whales—humpbacks especially, plus fins, minkes, and white-sided dolphins. Birders, too, will be delighted by the likely profusion of gannets, shearwaters, and sea ducks.

At one time a stand-alone colony, Cape Breton remains a world apart. Thanks to thousands of settlers from the Highlands and Hebrides, the island is said to be more Scottish than Scotland itself. Explore its Gaelic culture and music, plus the rolling mountains and rugged coasts aptly famous for the Cabot Trail and Cape Breton Highlands National Park.

Newfoundland’s south shore is its roughest and most remote. On this wave-lashed coast you’ll see roadless outports where the locals live much as their forebears did, surviving almost entirely from the sea. Here, too, you can experience raw and ancient geology, cool critters—puffins, seabirds, and whales—and, if the weather is right, take a perfect hike.

At this living museum on Nova Scotia’s Cape Breton, French soldiers march the streets, cannon fire shakes the ground, and the past bursts to life. Built three centuries ago, the fort was a flashpoint of colonial conflict, changing hands repeatedly between the French and British. Chat with its expert “inhabitants,” trek its trails, and live like it’s 1720.

The aptly named Bird Islands, just offshore of Cape Breton, bustle with breeding seabirds. Here, nesting on twenty-metre sea cliffs, you’ll find Canada’s largest colony of great cormorants, plus black-legged kittiwakes, razorbills, Atlantic puffins, black guillemots, and perhaps Leach’s storm petrels.

Clinging to Canada’s easternmost tip, Newfoundland’s historic and vibrant capital, St. John’s, is a city brimming with character, and it's worth planning to spend a few extra days here. Sailing through the famous Narrows, keep your eyes out for its photogenic attractions—including Signal Hill, the Basilica of St. John the Baptist, The Rooms (the city’s cultural centre), and the bright houses of the Battery neighbourhood. Beyond, the wild North Atlantic takes over. Watch for whales, seabirds, and, in the springtime, icebergs—some towering twenty-five storeys above the waterline.

Wee, twee, and on the sea, Canada’s smallest province features gentle hills, wooded glades, cozy coves, and rich red soil. This bucolic isle is most famous as the home of the beloved fictional character Anne of Green Gables. Tour PEI’s iconic sites, including historic Charlottetown, known as the birthplace of Confederation.

Just kilometres offshore of Newfoundland is Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, an official territory of the French Republic and its last colonial jurisdiction in North America. The 6,000 locals drive Citroens, smoke Gauloises, and pay in euros, but are crazy about ice hockey. Here you can (over)indulge in French food, wine, and shopping—without having to fly clear to Paris.

At the Gully, the floor of the North Atlantic plunges into a submarine chasm. Nurtured by this unique ecosystem are more than thirty species of cold-water coral, a resident population of northern bottlenose whales, and fish galore, including sharks, swordfish, and tuna. Join our on-board experts to appreciate the abundance of life in this Marine Protected Area.