Due to circumstances beyond our control, our planned lodgings for when we visited St. John’s fell through, and we opted for a less common lodging for a week there. We stay at MUN in NL during the summer. MUN stands for Memorial University.
MUN is a university founded in part to be homage to those Newfoundlanders lost in the great war. It “was decided that a school would be established as a memorial to those Newfoundlanders who had died in active service” (https://www.mun.ca/)
Here’s the MUN experience we had:
When I called MUN but I reached the Corner Brook NL campus instead, and had booked a room there before discovering that it wasn’t the St. John’s campus I had reached. Kind redirection from the young person in Cornerbrook soon had me connected to the right campus in St. John’s, and booking was fast and easy, similar in process to calling any hotel and making a reservation.
They refused a credit card on the phone saying I could use it upon check in.
We arrived at the dorm residence in McPherson College, we were asked about preferences, and were assigned a 6th floor room in Shiwak Hall.
You may recall that Memorial was conceived to honour Newfoundlanders killed in the great war, and John Shiwak was one of those. The following is quoted from the Canadian Encyclopedia: “John Shiwak (Sikoak), Inuit hunter, trapper, soldier (born February or March 1889 in Cul-de-Sac, near Rigolet, Labrador; died 21 November 1917 near Masnières, France). Shiwak was one of more than 60 men from Labrador who joined the military during the First World War. He went on to become one of the best scouts and snipers on the Western Front.”
By the time we reached our room it was quite late NL time, and we didn’t have much energy left to do more than hit the sack.
Our room in McPherson dorm at MUN
What you see in the graphic above is similar to our room on the 6th floor of Shiwak Hall. Each room had a locking entry way with an automatic light that went on and stayed on as long as folks were moving in the foyer of the room. If one needed to visit the washroom overnight, the light would flash on, so be aware that it is necessary to prop the bedroom door partially or have it shut completely else the light would shine in and perhaps wake a sleeper.
As you entered our room the washroom was on the right and the shower was to the left, only a bit different from the graphic above.
This is what my bedroom in our room looked like:
It turns out that with my significant other sleeping on the other side of the wall in our room, each of us in a single bed, doing so relieved her of the opportunity of listening to me “sing” during the night which she claims I do from time to time. 🙂
Accommodation included a “continental” breakfast which offered visitors of a piece of fruit (sometimes bananas or apples), a plastic wrapped commercial muffin, a cereal bar, plastic bottled apple or orange juice, a selection of single-serving yogurts, along with brewed coffee or hot water for tea or chocolate. Every day!
We started the day with this for a few mornings, then broke out to find a bacon & egg breakfast elsewhere, just for the change.
We didn’t even notice Signal Hill in the distance in the view from our dorm window until a few days after we arrived. In the summer there is very little traffic on campus which made walking around even more pleasant.
Showers were adequate yet given their bent for conservation, I found the ‘low flow’ shower head to be less than ideal.
Here are some of the things you may want to know about staying in the dorm at MUN:
- the student staff are very accommodating and will bend over backwards to help if you have an issue including being tour ambassadors – how to get here to there
- there is no room service – you make your own bed… or not
- you are expect to use the same bed linens for your stay
- used washclothes and towels are to be brought down by you and dropped in a hamper at the front desk, where you would pick up fresh items (usually). Some days it was hit or miss but supplied almost always caught up during the day
- toiletries (shampoo, soap, conditioner) are provided with replacements on the cart at the check in desk
- the beds are quite comfortable
- during the week there didn’t appear to be any other guests on our 6th floor – nice and quiet for sleeping
- there is a kitchen / lounge on each floor with a fridge, sinks, microwave for guests use – with a TV and we mostly had it to ourselves during the week, a little busier on the weekend
- there is also a student common room on each floor with with comfy chairs etc
- each room has recycling containers
- local calls can be made from the phone on the desk
- there is no smoking in any building on campus and security will be called if smokers light up inside
Although much better than none thought the provided coffee was mediocre and the availability of cream or milk packets for those that wanted them was sometimes hit or miss.
Where to get better coffee and food on MUN campus during summer:
Good coffee can be found about 350 meters away from McPherson residence on the 3rd floor of the MUN University Centre building. Some food can be had there as well, but it is limited and what there is seems available only during the week and not much after lunch time. Most of the restaurants on campus were not open weekends, and only a very few were open during the week in the summer.
We walked a lot and drank a lot of water. Rather than buying water all the time, we got in the habit of bringing our empty water bottles to the same place at MUN where the morning coffee was, and there is a cold, filtered drinking water fountain on that same 3rd floor at the entrance to the cafeteria, near the washrooms.
When you’ve had enough of continental breakfast at MUN residence, may we suggest you walk east on Elizabeth Avenue which is just a couple of university blocks south of Shiwak Hall / McPherson Residence. When you reach Elizabeth Avenue, turn left and walk about 800 metres to a small shopping center where there is food, a drug mart, and other outlets.
One of the restaurants there is a relatively recent restaurant called Pop’s Diner.
What was our “non-continental breakfast” at Pop’s Diner? Only bacon, eggs, baked beans, home fries, toast, and touton with added black molasses as well as a bottomless cup of coffee.
Toutons, pronounced like “tout” and an N at the end, is slowly fried bread dough, crisp on the outside, chewy on the inside, crispy hot and then drizzled with black molasses or table syrup. It’s part of a “stick to your ribs” breakfast, for sure.
The folks at Pop’s Diner were very friendly and it was a pleasure kibitzing with peoplethat had grown up in St. John’s. Thanks for the great meals, folks.
MUN is near everything:
While we used St. John’s transit to get to almost all the areas around St. John’s that we wanted, we figured out after a few days that getting to downtown St. John’s from MUN was a fairly short walk, a couple of kilometers or so. Much of that walk from MUN is downhill, though caution if you have difficult walking, as some of it us uphill, and uphill in St. John’s means UP-HILL. The hills can be quite steep.
Walking downtown allowed us to explore a bit more of St. John’s on foot, and we found some treasures in so doing. If walking is your thing, do it. It’s not far… really. Just be sure to take the bus or a taxi back to MUN, as most of it is uphill.
There are often very interesting things to see at MUN while you are there. How’s this for just one of them:
The 30 metre (98 ‘) skeleton is in the lobby of the Core Science Facility and is an awe inspiring sight, with its head level with the 5th floor, and the tail seen as you walk into the building entrance at the ground level.
“The Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) cleaned the skeleton and prepared it for display. This involved removing the skin, blubber, internal organs and muscles, taking it apart bone-by-bone and placing the skeleton in containers filled with soil and compost. The compost helps remove remaining flesh from the bones. Then the skeleton was degreased, which can take two to three years.” https://www.mun.ca/csf/the-blue-whale/
Very well worth seeing.
Our final thoughts about staying at MUN St. John’s for a week:
The residence at MUN is not a hotel. It’s a student dorm. There will be no room service, no one will make your bed, no one will change your towels and washclothes, no one will take out your garbage during your stay. All of this you will have to take care of yourself.
Yes, you can acquire some food supplies and keep them in the fridge found on the student room on each floor, though after seeing the condition the students / guests had left the fridge in, we opted not to. I suspect they hadn’t had a cleaning since the last semester ended.
Yet they came through in a pinch. Their rates were very good. The room was clean if spartan. The location is good for getting anywhere in St. John’s.
Would we stay there again? If the next time we go to St. John’s our family there are unable to house us for some of the trip, you bet we would.
Cheers.
ST. JOHN’S CAMPUS
Postal Address
Memorial University of Newfoundland
St. John’s, NL A1C 5S7
P.O. Box 4200
CANADA
Main switchboard
Telephone: 709-864-8000
Website
www.mun.ca