8?6/19 I had to check where I last left off as it seems so much has happened and a long time has past. Not like a “vacation” at a resort. A lot going on. It’s like the difference between sitting in a boat with a fishing pole…. a line in the water and a bobber…waiting all day for a strike… or fly fishing… lots of thinking, organization and active involvement in fast moving water… a lot going on thinking like a fish.
We awoke to a mini disaster at 5 AM… a 3 gallon water jacket for the solar shower had popped a leak and flooded the camper…. and it was raining. Hmmm. (definitely not a resort). So Luann took the dog out for her walk as I tore up the carpets…cutting them where needed and sopping up water with out two towels… bummer. We carry big trash bags so everything went in there … (remember we have a ferry to catch). So the camper is now loaded with bags of wet stuff. We had to pill the dog before the ferry of 2 hours in rough water so she would be semi-out of it as It is a loud below deck ship with large semi tractor trailers etc.
Onto the ferry for the crossing… arriving actually in the tiny port of Quebec province but then immediately crossing into Labrador.
Very different than Newfoundland. The land of snow, water, moss, lichen, rock and black spruce. The flag says it all. Our immediate needs were to get ice, a satellite loaner phone to be returned at the end of the 1,100 kilometer Trans-Labrador highway, and a place to properly dispose of the wet rugs and towels as there would be no drying time. It was raining and foggy so it made the landscape that much more mythical. Thinking that the Vikings had walked here a thousand years ago and it looked a lot the same. We went to the tallest light house in the Maritimes at L’Anse Amour… then on northwards.
Crossing the Pinware river was painful… I would have spent a week there fishing salmon… beyond perfect setting for beyond perfect fishing. When I fly fish I need to only fly fish. ( I still had brought all my gear but just knew it wasn’t in the cards). On a solo trip without Lucy the dog one day. We decided to go look at a few boondocks sites and then if these weren’t suitable we would do a drive up to Mary’s Harbour (wanting to see the en route, museum at Battle Harbour… two tour busses were there so we split). The bondock site there did not work and we were thinking …after two weeks we would get a motel for the night.
Now in Labrador… there are motels per-say… but dicey. We found a dog friendly place in Port Hope Simpson (actually the only ‘hotel’). Right on the water…an inlet…. a working (hard) harbor and we were thankful. Lucy’s first experience walking through a Hotel door. She did stellar. Then the helicopter landed outside the room. It is a ‘hotel’ and ‘restaurant’ and those who ferry things to the far north ‘drop’ in for the night. Talked to the pilot… he hated his job… said he had the largest ‘hotel’ soap collection on earth … the fog was so dense he flew at 800 feet following the road to get there. And I thought I had a stressful job.
Lucy’s first training on hotel room behavior. She got an A. I had fresh salmon dinner and Luann fresh scallops…. wow we needed a break with a shower. We ate breakfast at seven and were gone. We decided as we were starting the 560 kilometer (350 mile) dirt/mud/gravel/pothole MAJOR! road, we set our goals to be for a few boondocks sites to view on way but honestly the road is under construction through bog. Hundreds of miles of bog. Where the heavy machinery was the road was 10” deep …4WD struggled with our weight. So … after a very long day of breathtakingly beautiful tundra-like ground with black spruce bog we landed at a place that was a “company town” Churchill Falls on the Churchill River, a building that has a school, post office, grocery, swimming pool, sauna, and restaurant for road and hydro electric workers. It is like the pipeline building in AK. We parked in a dirt lot lot nearby and walked to the ‘town hall’ (Lucy locked in the camper again.
We stopped at a place to hike in to see the Churchill Falls. Before the massive hydro project diverted the majority of the river underground to generators the volume equaled Victoria or Niagara Falls … spectacular. So were the black flies. Being a math guy I was trying to figure… if in each step there are thousands…how many are there in Labrador, Alaska? It’s mind boggling. And only one in ten billion get blood to feed themselves to reproduce before they die. Anyway we had head nets on and though they can’t bite you the buzzing could drive you to jump into the falls.
It was a canyon carved by massive river forces below the falls. What the photo shows is what the water flow is now… the rock the spring melt….and before the diversion…unimaginable.
BTW ..we crossed AK and The Yukon …. Dalton in AK, The Klondike and Campbell crossing northern Yukon… this road is worse. One day they will have it completely paved… but at a few hundred feet a day it won’t be in my lifetime. Once opened to ‘road barns’ … it won’t be the same….in come the hordes.
An unplanned event almost got us stuck in “Happy Valley” for 5 days… What was thought to be a blown wheel bearing …where we limped to a car repair place 50 miles along… (mind you this was after 350 miles of mud and gravel… there is only this town, none other until another 150 miles and that is just a company camp town ) the town being on holiday festivities and the part thought rtf be needed was found in Montreal…. The guy in charge of the shop went for a drive to hear and feel it…turned out to be two large rocks wedged in the serpentine belt and the wheel control arm. Couldn’t turn left. Like a miracle we were back on the road…instead of a 6 day layover waiting for the part to be flown in.
It was a long day of focus a hundred feet ahead on the road to avoid the 2 foot holes… some were deviously hidden and it hit like dropping down a stair. Actually it was very much ;like driving down stairs… washboard. There is a ‘sweet spot’ speed described in the book “Jupiter’s Travels”, a man I met who traveled around the world on a BSA 500cc ‘thumper’ motorcycle in 1971.
Carrying a 1500 pound camper (with gear) it goes bang! A lot. On we went with a few pit stops for Lucy. If you have ever camped the North Maine Woods you know of black fly season… 5 seconds out of the truck and you are swarmed. We have head nets but Lucy brings in 50. Poor thing she needs to be purged each time out. If we stopped and I had left the window cracked open it would be only seconds to have the cab full of them. Then it was defroster on and all windows opened getting up to speed to flush them out.
Photos below won’t describe it as we were both busy sinking our nails into the truck dash to be bothered to grab a camera for shot out the window….the road was work. The scenery was gorgeous as unspoiled land is…. but it is worth it to see it. The other point is one can’t stop…there is no place to “pull over” … so one has to go forward to an end.
(We thought the dirt was over… ha!) We left the company town and went on to Wabash to drop of the satellite phone and then on to northern Quebec Province … expecting the the road that had turned to pavement to stay that way…. back to the largest mining operation I have even seen…dirt road for another 75 miles …wicked curvy and basically a toboggan run…then boom..a paved road again Quebec route 389 …. …the ONLY road in Northern Quebec. North to south. Long. It is a topographical road… no bulldozing blasted hills…it literally weaves, rises and descends like a wild roller coaster on the given terrain. It is dirt and so mud. Speed is monitored in the way that… I can’t go slow or I will be out here for weeks…or too fast and I will actually die out here. The squirrel-iness of the mud and potholed requires full attention on the spot at the point where those two aforementioned speeds allow one to be sure they can avoid hitting or losing it. I should have had a winch… I do have mud track mats …but a dive into a bog needs a winch.
We arrived at our boondocks site, which once was a small camping area and lodge now abandoned due to they are raising the water level. It is now a rough area on the shore where we camped. This reservoir is the impact crater of a meteor estimated to be 5 kilometers wide when it hit 150 million years ago. The diameter of the now water filled crater is 60 miles or 180 mile circumference. Big. One can easily see it from space. We met a nice Swiss couple there in their 4WD van drinking a glass of wine…by a fire. Similar to us in appreciation of seeing the last of the wild places before they are gone. We camped the night and were on the road early headed for the hydro-dam at the southern tip of the crater.
The road entering into the Quebec Province is beautiful. #389 was made to get to The Manicoagan Reservoir (Manic 5) Dam from the south, the Saint Lawrence Seaway. A Dam of Epic size and a marvel of 1960 engineering in a very remote place. It is similar in magnitude of the pipeline in Alaska…a city built to house the workers and what they did was nothing less than a marvel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40ruylIv1uk
I unwittingly believed the road would be paved…and curiously it was for awhile….then back to wild ride roads. Eventually it does become paved again…and I will stop here to make a very important motorcycle point. If you have driven the Kancamagus
Highway in New Hampshire … multiple it times 100 in curvy and elevation changes …a wild rollercoaster road for hundreds of miles. Scary miles as the hills and grade descents and ascents are nuts. 12% to 15%… really. Oh… and the scenery for the passenger is crazy pretty… I only saw glimpses due to the grip on the steering wheel focus of where is the road now? And, this goes on hour after hour.
We descended to the Saint Lawerence Seaway and drove along the Quebec road that slows a lot through towns to the last of the ferry crossings… a highway that stops… they load the vehicles and non-stop back and forth across a river finally to a road that will eventually in a few more hours approach Quebec city. We Tried a few boondocks camping site but were not happy… even after 10 hour drive. After stumbling on a rare find…a hippie eco-patch on the seaway coast an hour and a half east of the city. In the woods down an insane road to the bottom seaside where there is a commune…a cafe restaurant in a barn and “camp where you want” woods… there are trails to hike if you like. We wanted to sleep after a bagette with cheese and chili bowel…the nutty side was there was a store in the tiny village who had a 4 pack of Guinness Hop House 13 Lager… cold. Brewed in Ireland… needless to say I recovered fully from the day’s driving.
We woke at 5 AM …determined to, at this point, make a run for home. 8 hours seemed like a trip to the store… and………. after an hour wait in line to re cross ‘THE WALL’ we reentered the US.
And Home.
To the Buckland Manor …where field and yard were tall and the outside hot shower ended the 4,250 mile trip to the Canadian Maritimes.
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