I tell you it has taken me all my life
to arrive at the vision of gas lamps as angels,
to soften and blur and finally banish
the edges you regret I don’t see,
to learn that the line I called the horizon
does not exist and sky and water,
so long apart, are the same state of being. — “Monet Refuses the Operation,” Lisel Mueller
When I returned to the campground at Pistolet Bay after touring L’Anse Aux Meadows and the Grenfell Properties in St. Anthony the rain started up again, so there wasn’t much to do but turn in early. No problem there — I was dead tired and fell asleep still wearing my clothes and hat. One of the “good things” I scribbled in my journal the next day was “a good tent.” Also, “wearing a winter hat in the summer.”
Drizzle and fog greeted me again the next morning, the day I was booked on the ferry to Labrador across the Strait of Belle Isle. No surprise there. Most of the ferry trips I’d taken in that part of the world had been in bad weather, so there was no reason why this one should be any different. After another breakfast of eggs over hard on the camp stove I packed up my camping gear and left that sweet little campground to drive south to the ferry terminal in St. Barbe.
Route 430 passes a string of small settlements along the way: Eddies Cove East, Green Island Cove, Shoal Cove East, Sandy Cove, Savage Cove, Nameless Cove, Flower’s Cove, Bear Cove, Deadmans Cove. Even the largest of these communities, Anchor Point, has only 300 residents and falling. Now that the cod fishery is closed there are plenty of abandoned (and photogenic) properties along the shore. The biggest tourist attraction along this stretch of coast is probably the thrombolites at Flower’s Cove. These bun-shaped accretions of minerals trapped by microorganisms are among the oldest semi-living things on Earth; the only other semi-living examples are found in Western Australia. This being the Great Empty Northern Peninsula of Newfoundland, the thrombolites don’t get a lot of visitors, so I was all alone on the pleasant hike along to shore to see them.
Thrombolite pilgrimage completed, it was time to get in line for the ferry. The MV Apollo is like a miniature version of the Marine Atlantic ferries between Nova Scotia and Newfoundland — it even has an on-board gift shop — but boy is it ever rundown. The disco-vintage lounge I sat in reeked of cigarettes years after smoking was banned, and the loud banging and creaking sounds the ship made when hitting rough seas were a little terrifying. On the plus side, $25 for a vehicle and driver is a steal. I overcame my congenital shyness to strike up a conversation with another solo traveler who was roughly my age. He was on a similar trip but heading up the far northern Labrador coast on the ferry to Nain. Someday I’ll get there.
After exiting the ferry in Blanc Sablon almost everyone turns right toward Labrador, but I couldn’t come this far without seeing what lay to the left in Quebec. The far Lower North Shore region is a peculiar stepchild with no direct road access to the rest of the province. Route 138 extends 43 miles into Quebec to Vieux-Fort where it unceremoniously dead ends, leaving a 200 mile gap until it picks up again in Kegashka. And despite the road signs and place names that are all in French, the population here is almost exclusively English speaking. Culturally, historically and economically they are much more a part of Labrador than Quebec. The mayor of Blanc Sablon ruffled some feathers by asking Quebec to cede the area to Newfoundland and Labrador because he was so tired of feeling abandoned. People I talked to there agreed, but I doubt anyone thinks it’s a realistic notion. Quebec has still not officially accepted the border that the British Privy Council decreed in 1927 (when Canada and Newfoundland were still separate members of the British Empire), and to this day maps published by Quebec claim more land than the official border gives it. So it’s highly unlikely that they would give up this territory, even though it must cost them a lot to administer it.
The road to St. Paul’s River (the signs say Riviere-St.-Paul but the people living there don’t) was easily among the most scenic I’d ever driven. Too bad I couldn’t really see it. With steep hills and stunning views of the strait to my left and the lake-studded bogs to my right it was almost literally breathtaking at every turn, even with the rain and clouds reducing the visibility. As I passed scenic overlooks I decided it was better to keep my camera (and myself) dry and stop on my way back toward Labrador tomorrow, when the forecast was for clear skies. But I did make one stop to catch a lovely view overlooking St. Paul’s River.
In St. Paul’s River I stopped at the Cod Trap Cafe in the Whitely Museum for some lunch (this combination of cafe and museum seems pretty common up north). There I found a very basic menu of sandwiches and a friendly staff who were happy to chat about the region. The owners were a local woman and her husband who she met while living in Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories, so I was in geography nerd heaven talking about northern places I’d love to see.
Then it was on to the Auberge Whitely Inn, where I had reservations for the evening. “Auberge” and “Inn” mean the same thing, so the name is like those bilingual road signs in New Brunswick (“Rue Main Street”). The place was deserted so it seemed like reservations had been unnecessary to say the least. The only problem was there was no sign for an office and no one around to ask. After about 15 minutes of growing panic the innkeeper emerged from the house across the street and asked if I was looking for a room. He had forgotten anyone was coming that night. “You’re lucky I didn’t go visit family today.” He was an affable fellow, if a bit disorganized, still getting the hang of running the inn that had just opened that year. The province is eager to get more tourists from the ferry to turn left at Blanc Sablon like I had, and to that end had given him a grant to build the inn. Whale watching tours would start next year, and they were hoping to recruit someone to open a restaurant that would stay open past 5:00. I hadn’t realized that dinner would be so hard to come by, but I was in luck. The church just up the hill had their weekly supper that evening, and my host called ahead so they would know to set aside some meatloaf for me when they opened at 5:00. I carried my stuff up to the basic but comfortable room and set out on a stroll.
On the whole northern towns are not the quaint villages you might expect. They tend to be treeless, unkempt, haphazardly sprawling affairs. The people are often just scraping by and making things pretty is not their priority. But St. Paul’s River was tidier and appeared to be more prosperous than the typical coastal settlement, and it looked especially nice from the boardwalk trail that runs the length of the town’s waterfront. I ambled along the trail taking pictures, stopped at the grocery store for some beer to keep me company that night in my room, and headed up to the church at 5:00.
Well, I thought it was 5:00, but the nice church lady informed me that it was actually 4:00. I was hopelessly confused about the time. I didn’t notice if my phone had automatically changed time zones when I crossed the strait, but I guessed that it hadn’t because there was no cell coverage to speak of. That would mean the local time must be 30 minutes behind what my phone said — Atlantic Daylight Time, half an hour behind the Newfoundland Daylight Time I’d been on. What I didn’t realize was that they don’t observe DST in that part of Quebec, so they were actually 90 minutes behind their neighbors. Yet another reason to change the border! I killed some time watching satellite TV back at the room, which was a pretty frustrating experience because there were too many channels to find anything. All I wanted was some HGTV (my special treat because I don’t have cable at home). When the real 5:00 finally came I trotted back up the hill to the church, where I had my first encounter with Labrador’s famously awful black flies (they’re the black smudges in the photo above) and picked up the styrofoam-packed meal with my name on it. I finally found some HGTV to watch with my meatloaf, and by 8:15 I was already thinking about sleep.
Friday’s forecast was for sunny skies so I dawdled to wait for the fog to lift before setting out for the day… watched some more TV, chatted with the innkeeper… enjoyed my first really relaxing shower in a few days. But the fog only got thicker as the morning went on. At least it wasn’t raining. The town was incredibly quiet that morning in the fog. It seemed like everywhere I went was quiet like that; maybe everybody stays inside to avoid the flies. If there was more to do it might be nice to spend a few days there someday.
When I eventually gave up on the fog lifting I drove west to the end of the road at Vieux-Fort (Old Fort). It’s one of those things I can say I did, but there really wasn’t much to see there. Or maybe there was, but the fog made it hard to get any sense of the place. Old Fort has a waterfront trail like St. Paul’s River but neither the shoreline nor the town had as much charm. The cemetery with its peculiar crosses made of Trex was fairly interesting, but the black flies drove me nuts. Discouraged, I turned back east.
The poor visibility on the trip out to St. Paul’s River the day before might have been frustrating, but it was nothing compared to the fog on the drive back toward Labrador. I knew there were fabulous vistas all around because I had (almost) seen them on Thursday, but I could see little beyond the pavement the whole way. The fog had its melancholy charms but I hadn’t driven 2000 miles just to see pea soup. Unlike Monet in the poem I wished I could remove the cataract of fog and see the world as it was. A stop at the Middle Bay Interpretation Center — another cafe/museum combination — provided a brief diversion with its little dioramas depicting the various peoples who had lived in the region. By the time I crossed into Labrador the rain had started again. Here I was, frustrated and glum in the promised land. I was beginning to agree with Jacques Cartier’s opinion of the place: the land God gave to Cain.
A lunch of cod nuggets and poutine at the Northern Light Inn in L’Anse-au-Clair revived me a bit. Now that was a reason to drive 2000 miles! I had a tough time that afternoon finding the sites I wanted to see while driving in the rain and fog. I really could have used a navigator. I had to give up on finding a couple trails, but I managed to piece together a pretty terrific afternoon.
The Overfall Brook Trail in Forteau, a moderately easy mile out and back along the shoreline to a waterfall, was one of the highlights of the entire trip: fascinating coastal scenery and vegetation, a few vertiginous bits along the cliffs, and total solitude. The only down side was getting my jeans soaked while walking through the wet, shin-high grass. My photos couldn’t quite capture it, but it was on this hike that I was finally able to calm down and take in the amazing fact that I was in Labrador.
Next stop: the Point Amour lighthouse, tallest in Atlantic Canada. Point Amour is one of the best-known sites in Labrador, so I was surprised to have to drive several miles on a pretty awful gravel road to get to it (the mud from that drive is still on my car as I write this, several weeks later). The light has been automated for decades, so now the old keeper’s house is a terrific little museum and you can walk up the tower right to the light itself. “Point Amour Trivia” keep you entertained as you climb: “Some bad news and some good news. The bad news is that the winds in the Point Amour area can blow at more than 200km per hour. The good news is that these walls are more than six feet thick.” Trails on the park property lead through lovely coastal landscapes and past debris from multiple shipwrecks, the most famous being the HMS Raleigh which met its end in 1922.
On the drive back out to the main road I stopped at the unassuming little viewing stand and plaque marking the L’Anse Amour National Historic Site of Canada, location of the oldest known burial mound in the Americas, dating to between 6100 and 6600 BCE and part of a complex inhabited for thousands of years. The site is easy to miss and I drove right past it on my way out to the lighthouse, expecting a more elaborate commemoration for such a significant archaeological find.
The sky finally started clearing as I drove northeast from L’Anse Amour through the towns of L’Anse-au-Loup, West St. Modeste, and Pinware. In L’Anse-au-Loup I walked Patty’s Brook Trail, a pleasant but unexciting hike through the woods, and stopped for some decidedly random groceries: Kraft macaroni and cheese, some pepperoni, and a six pack of beer.
When I reached the day’s final destination, Pinware River Provincial Park, the clouds parted gloriously. I took off my sweatshirt and enjoyed the feeling of sunshine on my arms while I walked the beach, which was as spectacular in the late day sun as it was deserted. But as I walked back to my campsite the scourge of Labrador started to descend: black flies swarmed in ever growing numbers. Liberal doses of DEET kept them from biting the skin where it was applied but did nothing to keep the swarms at bay. I rooted desperately through my camping gear to find the head net I’d bought in Maine, then had a terrible time putting up the tent. I had wondered why the campground was so empty; now I knew. Fortunately the flies disappeared when the wind picked up and the sun went down, leaving me to my mac and cheese, my campfire, and my beer.
The sound of the waves on the beach helped lull me to sleep, safe in my tent from black flies and whatever other creatures might have been roaming at the fringes of civilization. In the middle of the night I woke up to the sound of howling winds. As I clutched my sleeping bag around me and scratched the welts where the flies had crawled into my beard, I watched the wind lift the corners of the tent, twisting it and pulling the stakes out of the ground. If I had not been inside the tent it would have blown away. Worse, I had to pee really bad. I eventually screwed up the courage to step out and relieve myself, praying the wind wouldn’t pick up while I wasn’t anchoring the tent. The tent and I survived in my absence, and I lay back down to try to get some sleep. “At least it isn’t raining,” I thought. And then it rained, too. Amazingly I got some good, deep, dream sleep that night. Being dog tired will do that sometimes.
The next morning I wrote in my journal: “Saturday morning. Pinware River Provincial Park. Jesus Fucking Christ.” I managed to cook my breakfast as the flies swarmed and even shoveled my eggs into my mouth while furtively lifting my head net, but after quickly dismantling the tent I hopped into the car to write in my journal in relative peace. “I’m drinking coffee in the car, which has black flies all over it, but they are leaving me alone for some reason. I imagine they will never leave.”
That morning’s destination was Red Bay, home to the third UNESCO World Heritage Site of the trip and a pretty little town in its own right. Red Bay is the end of the paved road in southern Labrador, and until the gravel Trans-Labrador Highway was extended north to Cartwright between 1999 and 2002 it was as far as you could go. A protected, deep-water harbor made Red Bay the principal center for Basque whalers in the 16th century, and intensive archaeological investigations of shipwrecks, work sites, and graves have retrieved an impressive trove of artifacts, many of which are on display at the visitor’s center and museum.
When I told the guides at the museum about my struggles with the flies at Pinware River they laughed. “That’s where the black flies come from!” I told them about the wind that had almost carried my tent away but they said they hadn’t been aware of a particularly strong storm overnight. I guess that sign in the lighthouse was true: crazy winds are pretty normal up there.
For a small fee (which no one ever collected from me) you can take a speed boat over to Saddle Island, where most of the Basque work sites were unearthed. The park provides a guide sheet with descriptions of the major archaeological features, keyed to numbers posted on stakes around the island, but because all of the digs have been reburied it’s difficult to make anything out. No matter, walking around the island on a beautiful sunny day was a joy, with plenty of wildflowers and contemporary shipwrecks to gawk at. The island’s back side, exposed to the winds off the Strait of Belle Isle, gave me a good appreciation of the value of a sheltered harbor like Red Bay in an environment that can be hostile even on a sunny summer day.
The boat captain had said he’d be back for me in an hour when he left me at the dock, but when I returned the boat had just deposited a couple more hikers and sped off. Much as I had enjoyed walking around the island I wasn’t really looking forward to waiting another hour for the boat to return.
But then serendipity struck: just a few minutes later the boat returned and the captain yelled out to me, “We’re going to see the iceberg out in the bay, want to come along?” Well duh! The boat was already packed but room was found and off we went. What were the chances that there would be an iceberg in the bay that late in the year and that I’d get a free ride out to see it? The berg had run aground a couple weeks before so a lot of it had melted away, but it was still an imposing, turquoise-streaked monolith, and getting that close to it was pretty damn sweet. The captain scooped up a few of the bergy bits that had calved off and dumped them in the boat for everyone to play with and pose for pictures.
Back on land I stopped for lunch at the Whalers Restaurant, where I got a cheeseburger because I was pretty tired of fish and chips by that point in the trip. A busload of tourists had descended on it, but it’s a big place. The boat captain told us that he never gets any business from the bus tours because all they do is stop at the restaurant and turn around. Well, I guess that’s one way to say you’ve seen Labrador, but I think spending a night with black flies is a bit more authentic.
