THE LONGEST DAY: DRIVING ACROSS NEWFOUNDLAND IN A 2024 CHEVY SILVERADO
The island of Newfoundland, if you’ve never been, is one far-flung rock. In a straight line, its capital city of St. John’s is closer to Ireland than it is to drive the 3,100 kilometres (1,925 miles) to Toronto. Makes no wonder we all have a steady diet of potatoes and speak with a charming lilt.
Summer kicked off this year on June 20, a quirk of the calendar which placed the solstice at its earliest time since 1796, handily about the time George Washington was sitting in the American White House. Nearly sixteen hours of daylight shines on The Rock at this time of year, such is its latitude, making it a great occasion to comfortably drive clear across the island. We’ll call it the Longest Day, setting off from its most western tip of Cape Anguille and heading 900 clicks to North America’s most easterly tip at Cape Spear.
Fun fact: the island of Newfoundland is so vast that the sun rises a good half-hour earlier on its eastern edge than it does on its west. Turning left onto the Trans-Canada Highway (TCH) from Cape Anguille and the Codroy area, Apple Maps instructed us to “drive straight for 848 kilometres” (527 miles), a command not possible in many areas of this country.
Actually, the drive isn’t straight at all, with Newfoundland’s portion of the TCH winding like the sinewy root of a tree. Locals joke the original surveyor was thirsty and followed a cow all the way across the island for a glass of milk, while one resident politician is said to have told his kids on a cross-island trip that they could only stop to pee at the next straight stretch of road. He made record time.
Hove underneath us for this drive is a 2024 Chevy Silverado , decked out in High Country trim and powered by the 6.2L V8 engine the way nature and Louis Chevrolet intended. That engine is one of a quartet on offer in this year’s Silverado line, and should be considered the default choice by most customers. Its 420 horsepower and hand-of-God exhaust note are pleasingly familiar, worth the $3,190 price of admission in this gearhead’s jaundiced eye, though you’ll want to pop for the $225 active exhaust valves for full effect. Pleasingly, the Sport mode remains engaged even after a key cycle, meaning GM engineers finally got one past its cadre of weasel-like lawyers.
Nine hundred kilometres is a journey best broken into some bite-sized chunks, especially across the island of Newfoundland, where moose are as plentiful as they are unpredictable (one is as likely to cross the road as it is to stop and perform a jig up the centre line) and the Trans-Canada Highway is primarily a two-lane affair with the scattered passing area hove in for good measure.
A great tradition for this author, and indeed most Newfoundlanders, is a so-called “mug up,” which pairs the likes of bread-based goodies and preferably some fish with a hot cup of tea (or instant coffee if you really insist — just know that someone is going to raise an eyebrow). Igniting a campfire is one way to go, but in this age of forest fires and no-burn areas, we simply deployed a propane stove sourced from the most patriotic of stores, Canadian Tire. A Newfoundlander was definitely on the design team for this thing, owing to the broad wind guards astride each of the burners.
Same goes for the retailer’s bear-resistant cooler, making for a brace of highly recommended road-trip gear, no matter the destination.
But the mug up was simply a welcome option, since it’s not like the Silverado induced fatigue on this journey. Its leather-lined seats are all-day comfortable, and GM has done a great job in dragging its interior near par with its crosstown rivals. A 13.4-inch touchscreen dominates the dashboard, serving up crisp graphics and reasonably quick response times. While the High Country is only available with front buckets, one can spec the likes of an LTZ or even RST with a bench seat, giving the third rider front-row seats for that infotainment Jumbotron. Shoppers should note that base Work Truck and Custom trims retain the old interior from the last-gen trucks, so shop wisely.
Opting for Super Cruise, a standalone $2,495 package which does require an active subscription after the three-year free trial, is an easy decision, even if none of the major roads we traversed in Newfoundland were mapped for the service. This isn’t totally surprising, since Apple Maps also tried to route me along an ATV path at one point along the journey, such is the remoteness of this place.
We did try Super Cruise in Nova Scotia prior to hitting the island ferry, and found it worked smoothly and predictably even on two-lane parts of Cape Breton where the Trans-Canada Highway was peppered with access to residential driveways and store entrances. It is an effective tool for reducing fatigue, and GM is smart to make it available on trims beyond this top-tier High Country.
The Silverado was sampled on both stock rubber and a replacement set of gnarly new all-terrains from the recently refurbished Motomaster brand, a decision made to try and reflect the type of tires average Canadians will mount to their pickup trucks in a few years. The Motomaster Eliminator X-Trails were noisier than the stock Goodyears, typical for off-road-focused rubber, but not notably so, and certainly worth the trade-off for what turned out to be far better traction in equivalent tough conditions. Ride was comfortable on both options.
Despite displacing well over twice the engine size of the 2.7L four-banger which is also on tap as an option, the mighty 6.2L averaged a reasonable 11.5 L/100 km over the route, actually beating the NRCan highway estimate by a few tenths for both the four-pot and this brawny V8; a loafing engine speed helped with this performance. Customers on the prairies may be pleased to learn that even better economy would likely have been realized if not for Newfoundland’s hilly relief.
At the end of the day, Mother Nature put on a show, burning off the St. John’s fog and revealing a dazzling array of colours as can only be found in the most eastern tip of North America. This land, the most eastern point of the western world, holds a special spot for this author and just about everyone who visits. Driving across it on the year’s longest day was a treat, one punctuated by fragrant spruce, wildlife, and great people.
Now, if you’ll pardon me, I need to prepare some potatoes for supper.
Sign up for our newsletter Blind-Spot Monitor and follow our social channels on X, Tiktok and LinkedIn to stay up to date on the latest automotive news, reviews, car culture, and vehicle shopping advice.
2024-07-26T14:59:05Z dg43tfdfdgfd