Deer Lake Regional Airport (YDF) → Port au Choix
Deer Lake Airport (YDF) to Port au Choix
- Drive time
- 3h 3m
- Distance
- 235.9 km
Conservative model estimate, Deer Lake Regional Airport (YDF) to Port au Choix — 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 town, 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 →
Route 430 north of Gros Morne is where the island empties out: the mountains fall back, the Gulf takes over the left window, and the communities thin to a string of fishing harbours a long wave apart. Port au Choix is the reward for staying on it — a limestone point that people have found worth living on for six thousand years, and the archaeology to prove it, curated by Parks Canada on the spot.
The Arches breaks the drive almost exactly in the middle: sea-carved rock right off the highway shoulder, the kind of roadside geology other coasts would build a visitor centre around. Here it gets a gravel pull-off and a ParksNL day-use listing, which is very Newfoundland.
Save the light for last. The Point Riche road runs past the visitor centre onto the barrens, and the 1892 lighthouse stands where the limestone meets the Gulf — the same ground the Maritime Archaic chose, holding the same view, with caribou often grazing between the dig sites and the tower. Six thousand years of reasons to stand on this point, and the view is still the argument.
Worth stopping for
The Arches Provincial Park
Sea-carved limestone arches standing in the surf right beside Route 430 — the map holds the park as a reserve and the rock formation by name. A ten-minute leg-stretch that photographs like an hour; ParksNL lists it as day use, and the sea decides how close you stand.
Stopping here adds about 1 min and 0.4 km to the drive.
navigate: Organic · OsmAnd · Apple · Google · WazePoint Riche LighthouseDetour
The 1892 light on the Point Riche Peninsula past the visitor centre — mapped at the end of the headland road, ten minutes beyond town. The limestone barrens around it are the same ground the archaeology sits in; caribou wander the point, and the Parks Canada site's trails link the light to the dig sites.
Stopping here adds about 10 min and 4.2 km to the drive.
navigate: Organic · OsmAnd · Apple · Google · Waze
What has been recorded near here
Species reported within 50 km of Port au Choix 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 July, August, September1,075 reports on record
- Atlantic puffinseabirdFratercula arcticaReports cluster in August, June, July35 reports on record
- Humpback whalewhaleMegaptera novaeangliaeReports cluster in July, October, April29 reports on record
- Fin whalewhaleBalaenoptera physalusReports cluster in August, July, September17 reports on record
- Minke whalewhaleBalaenoptera acutorostrataReports cluster in July, May, June8 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 Port au Choix
- Where to eat in Port au Choix → — 5 places the open map records, alphabetically, with addresses and phone numbers.
Doing it electric
- Fast chargers on this drive
- Deer Lake km 4, Rocky Harbour km 70, Cow Head km 116, Port Au Choix km 236
- Longest stretch without one
- 120 km
- Cow Head → Port Au Choix, of 236 km driven
- Nearest fast charger to Port au Choix
- at Port Au Choix
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
- 43%
- 98 km of 235.9 km driven
- No surface tag on the map
- 57%
- 131.6 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
22 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 122.1 km — after Whale‘s Back Grub Hub, until C&P Take-Out. That is the figure worth planning around.
- Big Stop Restaurantrestaurantkm 4 · 349 m off the road
- Tim Hortonscafékm 4.1 · 1624 m off the road
- Mary Brown'sfast foodkm 4.1 · 508 m off the road
- Pizza Delightrestaurantkm 4.1 · 1585 m off the road
- Subwayfast foodkm 4.1 · 1839 m off the road
- A&Wfast foodkm 4.1 · 1744 m off the road
- Tim Hortonfast foodkm 4.1 · 394 m off the road
- Wingn' itrestaurantkm 4.2 · 1148 m off the road
- Funland Resortrestaurantkm 11.1 · 948 m off the road
- Fisherman's Landingrestaurantkm 70.7 · 577 m off the road
- Earle‘srestaurantkm 70.7 · 1940 m off the road
- SunSet Cafécafékm 70.7 · 634 m off the road
- Jackie‘sfast foodkm 70.7 · 1647 m off the road
- Anchor Pubpubkm 70.7 · 566 m off the road
- Oceansrestaurantkm 70.7 · 553 m off the road
- Buoy & Arrowrestaurantkm 70.7 · 347 m off the road
- Treasure Box Crafts & Cafecafékm 70.7 · 712 m off the road
- Whale‘s Back Grub Hubrestaurantkm 89.9
- C&P Take-Outfast foodkm 212
- Pizza Delightrestaurantkm 212.2
- Harbour View Coffee Shop, Bakery & Takeoutcafékm 234.4
- Anchor Caférestaurantkm 234.8
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.
The National Historic SiteSeasonal — Parks Canada sets the visitor centre's dates
Port au Choix National Historic Site is the reason for this drive: Maritime Archaic, Dorset and Groswater sites layered on one peninsula, six thousand years deep. The visitor centre's season, hours and fees are Parks Canada's to state; the headland and its trails are the landscape's own.
Check it now →Road conditionsYear round, matters most November–April
Route 430 runs exposed coast for most of three hours; 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 — and the Viking Trail's long empty stretches invite exactly the speeds that make it worse.
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 actually at Port au Choix?＋
The densest archaeology on the island: a Parks Canada National Historic Site where Maritime Archaic burials, Dorset and Groswater Palaeo-Inuit dwellings and a Basque-era fishery all layer onto one limestone peninsula. The visitor centre curates it in season; the barrens, the lighthouse and the caribou hold the point year-round.
Does this pair with the L'Anse aux Meadows drive?＋
Perfectly — Port au Choix is on the same Route 430 north, about two hours before the Viking site. Together they make the Northern Peninsula's great two-day: six-thousand-year-old hunters on day one, Norse arrivals on day two, one road the whole way.
Is three hours each way a day trip?＋
The arithmetic says just over six hours of driving around whatever the site gives you. Possible in summer light; better as the first leg of a peninsula overnight — the drives further north only get emptier and better.
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-port-au-choix"
width="100%" height="420" style="border:0" loading="lazy"
title="Driving route: Deer Lake Regional Airport (YDF) to Port au Choix"></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/107364109 — Port au Choix town node.