The great iceberg hunt on Canada's epic new road

Standing on a windswept outcrop on the island of Newfoundland's northern coast, I scanned the churning, blue-steel sea for icebergs. Somewhere beyond the restless waves lay the glaciers of Greenland and the ice fields of Arctic Canada. I was hoping to glimpse their offspring – behemoths calved from ancient ice shelves, carried south over two or three years by the Baffin Island and Labrador Currents into a region known as Iceberg Alley, a stretch of water between the southern coast of Labrador and the south-eastern shore of Newfoundland.

Squinting, I caught sight of a solid white shape; a still patch in the Labrador Sea. For a heartbeat, I thought I'd found one. Then it vanished in a burst of froth and spray.

My husband Evan and I continued along the rocky trail, ducking out of the wind behind a patch of tangled tuckamore. Made up of hardy, slow-growing boreal trees like balsam fir and black spruce, the wind-contorted forest barely reached my chin. Up ahead, Evan pointed out an osprey, fragile and exposed, as it spread its wings to dry. Beyond it, the ocean vista was punctuated by sea stacks, sculpted cliffs and a small, curved bay dotted with abandoned homes.

Despite the blue sky and warmth of late spring, life in Newfoundland and Labrador demands ingenuity and resilience. Like the meadow grasses and wildflowers clinging to the salt-laced soil, the people here have only ever held a precarious grip on this wondrous place. I inhaled deeply, marvelling at the austere beauty – then another glint of white caught my eye.