Kelp Forests of Newfoundland and Labrador: Cold-Water Kelp and Cod

The kelp forests of Newfoundland and Labrador grow in some of the coldest, cleanest seawater on Earth. Just off the northeast coast of North America, where the Labrador Current slides down out of the Arctic carrying icebergs and nutrients in equal measure, underwater forests of sugar kelp, oarweed and winged kelp thrive on granite shelves that sit well below freezing point in spirit if not always in fact. This is kelp wrapped around a living history — the rise and fall of the northern cod fishery, a decades-old urchin invasion, and a coastline whose people are now looking back at the sea forest with new questions and new ambitions.

This guide covers where the forests grow, what lives in them, how they have changed, and how to experience them.

Where the forests grow

Kelp in Newfoundland is overwhelmingly a creature of the island's eastern and northeastern coasts, where exposure, hard rock bottom and cold, nutrient-laden water align. Concentrate on four zones:

• Trinity Bay and Conception Bay. Deep fjord-like bays on the Avalon Peninsula with extensive rocky substrate, dense summer kelp cover and some of the most studied subarctic reefs in the Atlantic.
• Bonavista Bay and the Northeast Coast. Complex archipelago coastline, cold-temperate communities and long stretches of shallow kelp beds interleaved with urchin-grazed patches.
• The Southern Shore between St. John's and Cape Race. Exposed headlands backed by relatively protected coves; strong seasonal kelp and abundant juvenile fish habitat.
• Labrador's sheltered fjords. The far-northern extension of the system — cold, remote and logistically challenging, but ecologically significant because it has been heated less by recent marine heatwaves than almost anywhere in the Atlantic.

It helps to picture the region as a shelf of granite shoulders, each one carved by glaciers and fringed with brown algae at depths of two to twenty metres. Wherever the rock holds and the grazers don't, kelp flourishes.

The species that build the forest

Newfoundland's kelp communities are mix-species affairs rather than cathedral forests of a single giant. Dominant and co-occurring species include:

• Sugar kelp (Saccharina latissima) — the long-bladed workhorse of cold Atlantic water, fast-growing in spring and forming dense understory canopies (see our sugar kelp species profile).
• Oarweed (Laminaria digitata) — a split-fan kelp whose holdfasts anchor in heavy surf; its dense, springy stipes create superb juvenile-fish cover.
• Winged kelp (Alaria esculenta) — a midwater blade kelp of fully exposed headlands, now gaining attention as both seafood and aquaculture crop.
• Sea colander (Agarum clathratum) — a leather-textured, hole-riddled kelp of deeper reefs that resists urchin grazing better than most.

Around and beneath the kelp, the skeleton of the community is classic northern Atlantic: brown crabs, whelks, capelin in season, lumpsuckers guarding egg masses on the substrate, shorthorn sculpins, and flounders cruising the sand channels at the forest's edge.

Cod, urchins, and a sound that changed

Few kelp stories on Earth are this entangled with a single fishery. Newfoundland's kelp reefs are the historic nursery, hunting ground and overwintering shelter of the Atlantic cod — the fish that built the economy of the province for five centuries and then, in 1992, collapsed so completely that the fishery closed and has never fully reopened.

The consequences turned out to be ecological as well as social. With cod and large crabs suppressed, a green sea urchin (Strongylocentrotus droebachiensis) population that had formerly been held in check expanded across shallow reefs. Fronts of urchins converted kelp stands into bare rock: urchin barrens, in the technical sense — stable, low-productivity reef states that can persist for decades. Substantial portions of Newfoundland's shallow rocky bottom are barrens to this day.

The food-web chain connecting a top predator to a kelp forest, mediated by a grazer, is a live demonstration of why restoration ecologists talk about trophic cascades in kelp systems. Where cod numbers have nudged back, where crab fisheries have grown, and where sea urchin fisheries harvest the barrens back toward the forest edge, kelp has returned in patches.

Climate pressure on a cold coast

The news on water temperature is nuanced rather than uniformly grim. Newfoundland sits at the confluence of two influences — the steady Arctic leakage of the Labrador Current and its sibling boundary currents, and the northward creep of warmer Atlantic water along the shelf break. The Labrador side of the province is still among the most reliably cold kelp habitat in the Northern Hemisphere. The island's southeast, by contrast, has begun to see episodic warm intrusions that arrive in pulses, each one capable of stressing sugar kelp at its thermal edge.

That contrast matters for restoration planning. Cold refuges exist here; not every coast is so lucky. Understanding which headlands stay cold in a warm year — a Tidewright monitoring preoccupation told in more detail on our impact page — is the first act of any future-proofing strategy for this coast.

Experiencing the forests

Cold-water kelp tourism in Newfoundland remains small and quietly excellent. Options include:

• Snorkelling the Conception and Trinity Bay kelp beds on calm summer days, when visibility peaks and capelin whirl through the canopy. Read our snorkelling safety in kelp country guide before you go; this is real cold-water work.
• Shore walking at low tide along headlands such as Ferryland, Cape Spear and the Trail near Bonavista, where wave-cut platforms give you intertidal browns, reds and greens in one step.
• Boat-based wildlife trips that combine puffin and whale traffic with visible kelp beds in clear water — humpbacks and minke whales patrol the same cold upwelling water that feeds the forest.
• Community museums and heritage rooms in outport communities, which tell the 1992 story in the voices of the people who lived it. Context that changes how you see the sea.

Why this coast matters

Newfoundland's kelp forests stand at the intersection of nearly every question the modern kelp world is asking: How do you restore a forest whose dominant grazer is abundant and valuable in its own right? How do you plan around a urchin fishery that benefits from barrens but also benefits from the structure kelp restores? How do you protect a coast whose productivity fed a civilisation, and whose ecological recovery must happen in partnership with communities that never left?

The answer emerging piecemeal along these granite shores — cold-water refugia, careful urchin management, the quiet persistence of the remaining forests — is one of the most hopeful and instructive kelp stories in the North Atlantic.

Key takeaways

• Newfoundland and Labrador's kelp is a multi-species cold-water community built from sugar kelp, oarweed, winged kelp and sea colander.
• The cod collapse of 1992 triggered a green urchin expansion that converted large areas of kelp reef into persistent barrens.
• Labrador's far north remains among the most thermally stable kelp habitat in the Atlantic.
• Recovery is patchy, local and real — particularly where urchin fishing and recovering predators overlap with surviving kelp.
• Coastal access for visitors is straightforward in summer; all kelp recreation here is genuine cold-water work.

FAQ

What kinds of kelp grow in Newfoundland?

Sugar kelp (Saccharina latissima), oarweed (Laminaria digitata), winged kelp (Alaria esculenta) and sea colander (Agarum clathratum) dominate, with many smaller browns, reds and greens around them. There is no giant kelp here — these are understory and mid-canopy forests rather than surface canopies.

Why did Newfoundland get urchin barrens?

When cod and large crab predators collapsed, green sea urchins expanded into shallow rocky habitat and grazed kelp faster than it could regrow. Once bare, the reefs stayed stable in the barren state until urchin densities fall or predators recover. See our explainer on how urchin barrens form.

Can you scuba dive Newfoundland's kelp forests?

Yes — summer visibility in protected bays can be superb and the cold-water reef life is unlike anything on warm-water itineraries. It is technical, genuine cold-water diving: drysuit, training, local guidance. Start with our cold-water diving essentials.

Are the kelp forests recovering?

In places, yes. Recovery tracks local urchin fisheries, recovering crab and cod numbers, and consistent cold-water refuges. It is neither fast nor uniform, and much of the shallow reef remains in barrens.