Deer Lake Regional Airport (YDF) → Cape St. George
Deer Lake Airport (YDF) to Cape St. George and the Port au Port Peninsula
- Drive time
- 2h 42m
- Distance
- 188.1 km
Conservative model estimate, Deer Lake Regional Airport (YDF) to Cape St. George — no stops, dry roads. Many of Newfoundland's provincial routes carry no speed limit in the open map data, so the router assumes a slow default: a driver who knows the road will beat this. Source: OSRM driving profile, terminal door to the village, checked 2026-09-05.
Drive it with your own nav:Organic Maps →OsmAnd →Apple →Google →Waze →The first two run on OpenStreetMap and don't track you — the same map this site is built from.
Or take the whole route with you: Download the GPX → — the measured drive plus every stop as a waypoint, for Organic Maps, OsmAnd or any Garmin, no account and no signal needed once it's on the device.
No one has sent a recording of this drive yet.Be the first — send the track →
The terminal side — parking, arrivals, ground transport — is the airport's own information: Deer Lake Regional Airport →
West of Stephenville the island does something it does nowhere else: it speaks French. The Port au Port Peninsula juts into the Gulf as Newfoundland’s French Shore — l’Anse-à-Canards, La Grand’Terre, Cap Saint-Georges — communities that kept a language through centuries when keeping it was hard work, and that hold the island’s only officially bilingual ground.
The drive works as a triptych. Stephenville first, the town an American air base built, where the runway is still the biggest thing for fifty kilometres and the street signs still name states. Then the shore road west, with Our Lady of Mercy rising wooden and improbable over Port au Port West. Then the peninsula narrows, the French names take over, and Route 463 ends at the cape — Boutte du Cap — where the cliffs drop into the Gulf and the next parish over is Quebec’s North Shore, a province away across the water.
This page’s dot is the westernmost thing this site has measured. The sunset agrees with the choice.
Worth stopping for
Stephenville
The peninsula's service town, built around a runway: Harmon Air Force Base put an American city here in the 1940s and the street names still say Texas and Georgia. Fuel, food and the last full services before the French Shore's smaller communities.
Stopping here adds about 2 min and 1 km to the drive.
navigate: Organic · OsmAnd · Apple · Google · WazeOur Lady of Mercy Heritage Church
One of the largest wooden churches in Newfoundland, raised on Port au Port West's shore in the 1920s and mapped with its museum beside it. Opening is the parish's and the museum's own call in season; the building's scale reads from the road either way.
Stopping here adds about 1 min and 0.3 km to the drive.
navigate: Organic · OsmAnd · Apple · Google · WazeBoutte du Cap ParkDetour
The park at the end of the road, its name in the Shore's own French: the cape's cliffs face straight across the Gulf toward Quebec, seabirds work the updrafts, and the sunset lands where sunsets should. This is the westernmost measured point on this site.
Stopping here adds about 7 min and 4.5 km to the drive.
navigate: Organic · OsmAnd · Apple · Google · Waze
What has been recorded near here
Species reported within 50 km of Cape St. George and shared to GBIF, the international record of species occurrences. The useful column is when — the months the reports cluster in.
- Northern gannetseabirdMorus bassanusReports cluster in August, July, September870 reports on record
- Atlantic puffinseabirdFratercula arcticaReports cluster in December, January, November8 reports on record
- Minke whalewhaleBalaenoptera acutorostrataReports cluster in July, June, August4 reports on record
- Humpback whalewhaleMegaptera novaeangliaeReports cluster in August, June3 reports on record
- Fin whalewhaleBalaenoptera physalusReports cluster in September3 reports on record
What this is not
- Not how many there are. A report means somebody looked, saw and wrote it down. A busy harbour with tour boats reports more than an empty coast with the same animals in it.
- Not a sighting you are promised. Nothing here says you will see one.
- Not complete. Only species we ask GBIF about appear, and only where somebody reported them.
From GBIF, queried 2026-09-14 — their record, not a copy of it.
When you get to Cape St. George
- Where to eat in Cape St. George → — 1 places the open map records, alphabetically, with addresses and phone numbers.
Doing it electric
- Fast chargers on this drive
- Deer Lake km 4, Corner Brook km 55, Stephenville km 135
- Longest stretch without one
- 80 km
- Corner Brook → Stephenville, of 188 km driven
- Nearest fast charger to Cape St. George
- 53.7 km
- 51 min by road, at Stephenville
NL Hydro lists an ultra-fast site coming in 2026 at Deer Lake (km 0) — not counted above until it opens.
Source: NL Hydro's published fast-charging network map, exported 2026-09-13 — sites within 3 km of this route's measured line, the km read along it, the drive to the nearest site priced by OSRM. NL Hydro lists these as 62.5 kW DC with CCS and CHAdeMO plugs on a ChargePoint account; whether one is free or working right now is the app's to say. Level 2 chargers in towns are not counted.
Paved or not, per the map
- Mapped as unpaved
- none
- Mapped as paved
- 10%
- 15 km of 188.1 km driven
- No surface tag on the map
- 90%
- 136.2 km the map does not describe either way
Why it matters: Hertz Canada’s published rental terms — the one set of Canadian rental terms we could read in full, quoted not recommended — list “use off paved roads or on roads which are not regularly maintained” as misconduct that voids the damage waiver. Read the agreement you sign before leaving the lot. The terms themselves. Source for these figures: OSRM driving profile, origin to destination, with node annotations; OpenStreetMap surface tags via Overpass, checked 2026-09-06. A road with no tag is unknown, not paved; what any road is like today is on 511.
Eating on the way — measured, not recommended
33 places to eat that the open map data records within 2 km of this drive, in the order you would pass them. No stars, no prices, no opinions, and no opening hours — distance along the road is the one thing measured here that a directory cannot give you.
The longest stretch with nothing mapped on it is 62.6 km — after Pinchgut Restaurant & Convenience, until Little Caesars. That is the figure worth planning around.
- Big Stop Restaurantrestaurantkm 4.1
- Tim Hortonfast foodkm 4.1 · 222 m off the road
- Mary Brown'sfast foodkm 4.6 · 192 m off the road
- Wingn' itrestaurantkm 5.1
- Pizza Delightrestaurantkm 5.7 · 235 m off the road
- Tim Hortonscafékm 5.8 · 225 m off the road
- A&Wfast foodkm 5.8 · 178 m off the road
- Subwayfast foodkm 5.9 · 178 m off the road
- KFCfast foodkm 6
- Burger Kingfast foodkm 6.1
- Peter's Pizzafast foodkm 6.1
- Langerspubkm 6.2 · 550 m off the road
- Oasis Grill Houserestaurantkm 27.7 · 245 m off the road
- Cafe 59restaurantkm 27.7 · 863 m off the road
- Tim Hortonscafékm 46
- Pizza Delightrestaurantkm 53.4 · 881 m off the road
- Tim Hortonscafékm 53.5 · 923 m off the road
- Mary Brown'sfast foodkm 53.5 · 912 m off the road
- Samuel's Sammiches and Sweetsrestaurantkm 53.6 · 1496 m off the road
- King Henry's Pubpubkm 53.8 · 1919 m off the road
- KFCfast foodkm 53.8 · 1992 m off the road
- Tim Hortonscafékm 53.8 · 1849 m off the road
- McDonald'sfast foodkm 54.4 · 310 m off the road
- Jungle Jim'srestaurantkm 54.8 · 197 m off the road
- Wendy'sfast foodkm 55
- Pinchgut Restaurant & Conveniencerestaurantkm 72.3
- Little Caesarsfast foodkm 134.9 · 1099 m off the road
- Tim Hortonscafékm 135.1 · 1112 m off the road
- A&Wfast foodkm 135.1 · 1341 m off the road
- Subwayfast foodkm 135.5 · 915 m off the road
- Subwayfast foodkm 135.5 · 914 m off the road
- NewfieBoy's Burger Busfast foodkm 135.6 · 843 m off the road
- Capeside Dinerrestaurantkm 183.1
What this list is not
- Not a recommendation. Nothing here is endorsed, reviewed or rated. It is in the order you drive past it.
- Not complete. Somewhere unmapped does not appear. This is never "all of them".
- Not open hours. We publish none, because the open data holds none. Never assume a kitchen is serving.
- Not necessarily still trading. A place that closed stays in the data until somebody removes it.
- Not for sale. No one can pay to appear here, to rank higher, or to have a rival removed.
Open map data is incomplete — somewhere unmapped does not appear here, and this is never "all of them" or "the good ones". A place that closed is also still on the map until somebody removes it, which is why no hours are shown and nothing here says a kitchen is open. From OpenStreetMap and Overture Maps (which includes data from Meta, Foursquare and AllThePlaces); swept 2026-09-12. Map the one that is missing → and every site built on the open map gains it, this one included.
Before you go
These change. We link the people who keep them current rather than copying numbers that go stale here.
Road conditionsYear round, matters most November–April
Routes 460 and 463 run open coast on the peninsula's south side; the cameras and plow reports are the honest source.
Check it now →MooseYear round, worst between dusk and dawn
The province states that the likelihood of injury in a moose collision is twice as high between dusk and dawn as in daytime; the lowland stretch between the Trans-Canada and Stephenville is classic moose country.
Check it now →
Arriving without a car
Every distance and time on this page is a drive. If you are not renting, here is what Deer Lake Regional Airport lists at this door — operators and numbers, not fares: a tariff is theirs to change, so it is linked and not copied.
No rideshare here.
No rideshare service is named anywhere on the airport's ground-transportation page, which instead lists three taxi firms, a shuttle and seven charter operators. Read off the page on 2026-09-15.
Taxi
Star Taxi, which the airport calls its primary ground transportation provider, serving the whole region with wheelchair-accessible vans and accommodating service dogs. The airport advises contacting them 24 to 48 hours before you arrive, which is the single most useful sentence on that page.
Taxi
Deer Lake Taxi, listed as operating around the clock across the province with no pre-booking required.
Shuttle
Star Taxi runs a shuttle between Corner Brook and the airport, serving named hotels, with a private-car option. It must be booked ahead. The per-person and private fares are the airport's to publish.
Deer Lake Regional Airport, read 2026-09-15 — the authority on what operates at this kerb, and the only place a current fare or timetable should come from.
Questions people actually ask
What is the French Shore?＋
The Port au Port Peninsula is the island's francophone heartland — communities settled from French fishing crews and Acadian arrivals, where the road signs go bilingual and the fiddle tradition is its own. Cape St. George anchors the Shore's western end; the culture is lived rather than staged, which is exactly why it rewards the drive.
Is this the same Stephenville with the big airport?＋
Yes — Harmon Field's Cold War runway still dominates the town plan, and the American grid of street names survives. The airport story is the town's own to tell; this route treats Stephenville as the peninsula's door.
Cape St. George or Port aux Basques — which west-coast drive?＋
Different arguments: Port aux Basques is the longer, grander run to the island's sea door; this one trades length for culture — the French Shore, the wooden church, and cliffs that face Quebec instead of the open Gulf. From the same airport, they bracket what the southwest coast does.
Put this map on your site
If you run a place to stay, a tour, or a town page along this drive, this map answers the question your guests already email you: how far are you from the airport? Free, no account, and the measured figures stay current because they are ours to maintain.
<iframe src="https://fromtheairport.xyz/embed/ydf-cape-st-george"
width="100%" height="420" style="border:0" loading="lazy"
title="Driving route: Deer Lake Regional Airport (YDF) to Cape St. George"></iframe>?lat=&lon=&label= to the URL to pin your own property on the map.Every distance, drive time and coordinate on this page was checked against its source on September 5, 2026. Origin: OpenStreetMap way/180061286. Destination: OpenStreetMap node/5408889571 — Cape St. George village node.