The drive from Cartwright to Mary Harbor was relatively uneventful. Since the road was built through the wilderness 10 years ago most of the gravel surface has become excellent. I drove at about 50 mph, though 60 mph was easy. We saw some moose, and 5 more bears including 2 cubs. We silently snuck up on the bear in the picture using the Prius electric motor. When he suddenly saw us he jumped and ran in the woods.
As usual the folks at the only hotel in town were friendly and there were small problems which got fixed. Because stairs are not good for Marge, we had booked a ground floor room, but found they are for smokers, so we got a basement room. The time zone south of Cartwright and including the island of Newfoundland is a half hour advanced from Atlantic time, so we were late to supper. We asked about the tap water after Marge drank it, and were told that yes, it's polluted, but they forgot to put the notice in our room. The electric things worked after I found them unplugged behind the furniture and connected them, and asked for a light bulb. During the night the bathroom light quit. The WiFi worked fine, but with no security lock.
The next day was our last on about 900 miles of gravel roads of varying age and quality. We saw more roadside snow than we had seen before on this trip.
Getting ready for winter, to arrive in 4 months. Countless firewood piles, box sleds, snowmobiles as in the picture are left at roadside, with no need for concern about security.
RRed Bay, the end of the road when we were here in 1999, was for us now the end of about a thousand miles of gravel roads of widely varying quality. We had now driven about 95% of all the public roads in Labrador, excepting only a few tiny ports in southeast Labrador. In Red Bay in 1999 we had been encouraged to take home a few pieces from the piles of red roofing tiles left by the Basque whalers.
Basque whalers had used for ballast from Europe about 400 years ago, and left here. Now there is an elegant Visitors Center, and the precious artifacts are protected.
We were so lucky that June 21, the summer solstice, is Aboriginal Day, and an expert on the peoples who occupied this land centuries ago (and to a lesser extent still do) had come from Goose Bay to talk to visitors. Mr. Winston White's mother was an Inuit ("Eskimo"), so he is fluent in the languages of the Inuit and the Innu ("Indians") and definitely English. He also played the guitar like Johnny Cash, singing a couple of Labrador folk songs, and one he had composed. He tried to teach his small audience the fundamentals of the Inuit language, but left me only with "Na Ku Meek" ("Thank you"), which he richly deserved.
We were so lucky that June 21, the summer solstice, is Aboriginal Day, and an expert on the peoples who occupied this land centuries ago (and to a lesser extent still do) had come from Goose Bay to talk to visitors. Mr. Winston White's mother was an Inuit ("Eskimo"), so he is fluent in the languages of the Inuit and the Innu ("Indians") and definitely English. He also played the guitar like Johnny Cash, singing a couple of Labrador folk songs, and one he had composed. He tried to teach his small audience the fundamentals of the Inuit language, but left me only with "Na Ku Meek" ("Thank you"), which he richly deserved.
We stayed the night in a hotel hosting a busload of tourists. Tomorrow, June 22, we'll take the nearby 90 minute ferry to the island of Newfoundland. We had seen several small icebergs in the adjacent Belle Isle Strait since Red Bay, and hoped to see a lot more on the road to St. Anthony, at the island's northwest tip.
On June 22 we took the ferry from Blanc Sablon, barely inside Quebec, across Belle Isle Strait to Newfoundland.. The 1 1/2 hour crossing cost us a mere $23.10 Canadian.
This beautiful TV video perfectly captures the charm and beauty of the island of Newfoundland, where our narrative continues: click here
The private potato patches beside Route 430 in the northwest corner of Newfoundland work on the same honor system as do roadside firewood piles in Newfoundland. The fence is supposed to keep out moose, and the flapping plastic bags are supposed to scare them off. The patches are built beside Route 430 because it's convenient and because they use fertile soil stirred up in road building and mostly freed of large rocks and roots.
On June 22 we took the ferry from Blanc Sablon, barely inside Quebec, across Belle Isle Strait to Newfoundland.. The 1 1/2 hour crossing cost us a mere $23.10 Canadian.
This beautiful TV video perfectly captures the charm and beauty of the island of Newfoundland, where our narrative continues: click here
The private potato patches beside Route 430 in the northwest corner of Newfoundland work on the same honor system as do roadside firewood piles in Newfoundland. The fence is supposed to keep out moose, and the flapping plastic bags are supposed to scare them off. The patches are built beside Route 430 because it's convenient and because they use fertile soil stirred up in road building and mostly freed of large rocks and roots.
We stayed that night in a B&B close by L'Anse aux Meadows, where the Vikings had a brief colony 500 years before Columbus, and where the International Appalachian Trail ends, for now. We saw only a few small icebergs in "Iceberg Alley" where Newfoundland is closest to Labrador. We'd seen many more in the summer of 1999, but this year most of the icebergs were blocked on their path from Greenland by about 20 miles of sheet ice off the shore at Cartwright. The B&B owner provided drinking water because the tap water was so sulphurous. Isn't sulfur often associated with petroleum ? It is in Texas. Hmm....maybe there's a fortune under the ground here.
How exciting to be there on Solstice Day. How lucky or was it the result of excellent planning?
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