We visited the cable station in Heart’s Content, Newfoundland, Canada, in August 2023. This was a nice detour of approximately 100km and 1h50 on our way from Gander to Saint John’s. Heart’s Content is a nice village and the station is right along the main road, easy to find and park by. On one side of the road stand the two buildings of the station itself ; opposite side of the road and immediately by the sea, a tiny memorial garden has been set at the very place where the cable was coming on shore. A long plaque with words in both English and morse code shows the way of the cable from the shore to the station. There are a few benches and free flowing potable water – we had a nice picnic there.

This station is the American end of the first cable laid across the Atlantic for morse communication, the other end being on Valentia Island, Ireland. This cable allowed the first modern and fast communication between Europe and America and started operations in 1866 for a period of 99 years At that time it was seen as the “eighth wonder of the world”. There is a nice introduction movie at the station, explaining why this was a clear technological breakthrough. The cable itself is 4000+ km long ; the floor of the ocean had to be surveyed and mapped first, to determine the best possible path for the cable ; the entire cable was loaded …