On Quirpon Island, NL, the lighthouse has been automated, no longer needing a resident lighthouse keeper. Canadian journalist Brandy Yanchyk visits the Quirpon Lighthouse Inn that now attracts tourists to this peaceful, northern tip of Newfoundland, where humpback whales feed in the waters in summer. Nearby is L'Anse Aux Meadows National Historic Site featuring the remains of buildings erected over 1000 years ago by the first European settlers in the Americas, Vikings from Greenland. Interpreters give visitors a hint of what life was like then. At Gros Morne National Park Brandy hikes the tablelands with a guide who shows her iron rich rocks where the earth's mantle is exposed and plants adapted to harsh conditions. Last, she takes a boat cruise on Western Brook Pond, a freshwater fjord formed by glaciers with a hanging valley on one side. Tourism is filling the huge void in the economy created when the fishing industry declined.

pt. 1. Western Newfoundland -- pt. 2. Northwest Territories.