August 1, 2019 – August 4, 2019

The ferry from Newfoundland to Labrador actually lands a few kilometres south of the east-west Labrador/Quebec border in the remote town of Blanc Sablon. From here you can drive about 70 kilometres east along the south shore of Quebec, then take a series of ferries to hop from town to town, or you can drive north into Labrador. We headed north.

There are not many communities along the Trans-Labrador Highway, but Labrador offers travellers the use, for free, of a satellite phone. We stopped across the border in the town of L’Anse aux Clair to pick up the phone….seemed like a good idea. All you have to do is show ID and give them a credit card number and you are off.

Our first night in Labrador was spent at Pinware River Provincial Park. We stopped at the Ranger Station to register, and the conversation turned to the weather. The ranger told us that the snow had finally melted enough for them to open the final loop in the campground…and we were there on August 1st! He then went on to tell us how horrible the winter was in this part of Labrador, and then how horrible the summer was due to black flies….definitely not the guy you want to interview for the Labrador tourism brochure.

In the campground we did indeed see many trees that had been broken from snow load, as well as outhouses that were damaged where trees had collapsed. And the information about bugs was super accurate! We did get to see a small fox in the campground, so that was nice, but the weather remained foggy/rainy, and that combined with the black flies, kept us holed up in our camper.

We arrived the next day to Happy Valley/Goose Bay, home to the largest military airbase in northeastern North America. To get there, we drove past the Akamai-uapishki-Kakkasuak Mealy mountain range (often shortened to just The Mealy Mountains for obvious reasons), but the fog persisted, so we only caught glimpses of the range.

We chased down some supplies in Goose Bay, talked to some locals and were told about a local festival grounds on a nearby lake that had camping facilities that you could use for free. We headed out of town to the camp. When we arrived we found several vehicles parked at the lake, a few trailers set up, and white awning tents being set up. Derek talked with a local and found out that we had arrived on the one weekend of the year when you were required to pay to camp, $50 for the weekend. The annual Canoe Regatta would be taking place the next day. Derek explained that we were just passing through. The local told us to go ahead and camp (for free), and if anyone asked, tell them that we had given him $50 for our stay…nice.

The next day on the drive back into Goose Bay/Happy Valley we saw a black bear. Then in town we saw two young fox, one red, the other black and white.

We went for breakfast at a great little diner, then stopped for diesel. We had driven through a mud puddle on the way into the gas station, and as Derek was fuelling the truck he noticed bubbles forming in the moisture on one of the back tires….we had a leak. The other rear tire had also been slowly losing air…this was the back tire that we had put 4 plugs in way back in Bolivia, and as a result, we had not been able to rotate the tires properly Both tires were badly worn, so we decided we needed to shop for some new tires before we headed out on the remote highway.

It was the Saturday of a long weekend in Labrador, but we were fortunate to find a tire shop that was open AND that had the proper load range tires for our heavily loaded truck! We were instructed to come back after lunch, so we poked around town, took Piper to a very nice doggy park, and by 2 or 3 in the afternoon, were back on the road again.

We had originally planned on driving further that day, but made a new plan to try and get to Churchill falls, about 290 kilometres from Goose Bay.

The scenery was beautiful and there were many little roads taking off from the highway, some just going to a power line, some disappearing into the remote bush. We were getting close to Churchill Falls, but we decided that it might be nice to camp somewhere in the bush for the night, maybe have a fire. We tried a few side roads, but due to the recent rain, many of them looked suspiciously like bog holes, so we would turn around and head back to the highway. Eventually we found a spot that looked pretty good, and we jumped out of the truck to start putting the camper up.

Within seconds we were both covered with black flies and clouds of them hovered around our heads. We quickly changed our minds, dropped the camper and headed for the town of Churchill Falls.

Churchill Falls is an interesting little town from a sociology point of view. The town only exists because of the nearby hydro-electric plant. I would doubt if any of the adults in this town had been born there….everyone is from somewhere else.

If you are employed by the plant you can live in one of the houses in town for $80 per month. In the centre of the town is a huge complex which houses the school, the grocery store, the library, a gym, a curling rink, a swimming pool, a hotel and a restaurant, also all run by the hydro-electric plant. Travellers are welcome to park at the complex for the night and use the washroom facilities and the free wifi.

We got set up and took Piper for a little walk. Children who appeared to be only 5 or 6 years old peddled by on their bikes…when was the last time you saw kids that young out unsupervised? It occurred to us that everyone in town probably knew each other. The town had a nice feel to it, despite it’s utilitarian homes and grid streets.

We continued on the next day, driving past so many lakes, most of them dotted with little islands. We made it to Labrador City, an iron ore mining town. We headed to the hotel where we had been instructed to drop off the satellite phone. What a rough establishment. To say it had seen better days would be overly kind. The rest of town was not much better.

We continued on, crossing the border into northern Quebec. We were a couple of days drive from the St. Laurence River and we were actually looking forward to getting back to more populated areas (we normally love being in remote regions). Labrador was beautiful but the black flies had been incredibly challenging. We hoped that civilization and river breezes would give us a reprieve.