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The Smiling Land

All Around the Circle in My Newfoundland and Labrador

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The Smiling Land

By: Alan Doyle
Narrated by: Alan Doyle
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About this listen

 From one of Canada's most beloved and celebrated Newfoundlanders comes a rollicking insider's guide to the province, told as only Alan Doyle can tell it.

Few Canadian musicians are as synonymous with their home province as Alan Doyle is to his—and even fewer once worked as tour guides. In The Smiling Land, Alan reprises his tour-guiding role to welcome the rest of Canada to his home and take readers on an adventure: a freewheeling road trip through Newfoundland, its history, and its culture. From Fogo Island to the Southwest Coast, Labrador to Ferryland, and everywhere in between, Alan's Newfoundland awaits you.

There are visits to windswept coastlines and towering crags, ancient Viking and Basque fishing settlements, and more lighthouses than you can shake a foghorn at. More recent settlements are also part of the itinerary, from burgeoning arts venues and communities to more humble but no less world-class locales, such as Foley's Shed, a jaunty live-music pub that—as its name suggests—happens to be in some guy named Foley's shed. Alan provides savvy insider tips for visitors to St. John's, like how to score fish and chips and a free ride by hopping into the delivery person's car as they drive your food to your desired destination. Or, for the aspiring rum smuggler visiting the Burin Peninsula, how to sneak bottles from the French territory of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon to the shores of Newfoundland. There are dolphin sightings, cliffside hikes among flocks of ocean-plunging puffins, and a pilgrimage to the home of the (late) great auk. And what tour of Newfoundland could be complete without a short history of what can best be described as "icebergs that look like things," an illustrious history that includes an exact replica of the Virgin Mary that once washed into St. John's harbour, and the more recent—and far less holy—"Dickie Berg," which made international headlines for looking like . . . well, not the Virgin Mary.

Wildly entertaining, informative, and brimming with Alan's classic brand of storytelling and romping good fun, The Smiling Land is a celebration of Newfoundland—both its storied past and its ever-vibrant present. Canada Cultural & Regional Music North America Travel Writing & Commentary

Critic reviews

NATIONAL BESTSELLER
One of the Tyee’s 2025 Holiday Reads
One of CBC’s 45 Canadian Nonfiction Books to Read This Fall

Praise for Alan Doyle:

“Doyle is exuberant, irreverent, hilariously funny, and a heart-on-the-sleeve Newfoundlander. As a writer, he’s all that and a bag of chips. . . . In his own words: Deadly.”
—Michael Crummey, bestselling author of The Adversary and The Innocents

“Doyle’s effortless storytelling will have you on his side from the first page. He writes like he sings: with a sincerity and a love of life that is infectious.”
—Mark Critch, comedian and author of Son of a Critch

“What amazes me is, for all he has seen and done, Alan Doyle has never put another human being down. You won’t be able to put him down either. You will get lost on his account. Lost on a brilliant journey.”
—Ron MacLean, host of Hockey Night in Canada
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