Journey to the Labrador Coast Icebergs. Polar bears. Remote ferry served coasts. Isolated communities. Road’s end. Arctic’s edge. These were the images I had of the Labrador coast over the decades. It’s on the north west coast of Canada. Not far on a world map — perhaps 500 miles — from Greenland. I have been drawn to travel there on the mail boat run that services that coast since at least the early 2000s. But my plans, that sometimes advanced so far as ferry schedules and dates, were always thwarted by practicalities of working life. Brother Ian with an independent matching ambition beat me to it in about 2009 after he retired, which invigorated my interest to go there, to the coast of Labrador.. In July 2019 I finally did it and now have real not imagined images. I learned, when it came down to it, I hadn’t known what to expect, but nevertheless it was all I anticipated and exceeded expectations. part one Getting to Labrador I live in Maine in the northeast corner of the USA. Grab a map and drive north with me. I’m driving solo with only you, reader, beside me. Fast up the turnpike to cross the north Maine border at Houlton. We enter Canada and over the next two days head north through New Brunswick on the east shore of the Bay of Fundy, then dogleg east around the head of the bay, past Prince Edward Island just offshore to our left in the Gulf of St Lawrence, which I visited in the mid 1980s with mum and dad and where mum enjoyed touching Anne of Green Gables history, and then north again across the causeway to Cape Breton Island. After 700 miles we reach North Sydney on the north coast of Cape Breton at the northern tip of the province of Nova Scotia. Here we catch the overnight ferry across 110 miles of Cabot Strait to Port aux Basques on the island of Newfoundland — the car below deck, us above in lounge chairs, feet up with a view out the window, snoozing. We drive off the ferry and on to Newfoundland at 7:30am. We immediately head north up the west coast through the fjords and across the plateaus of Gros Morne National Park, and then along the coastal glacial moraine plains past sites of prehistoric settlements of the Maritime Archaic people from 4400 BP. After 330 miles we reach St Barbe. If we were to continue another 100 miles north, which Trish and I did last year, we could visit L’Anse aux Meadows where the Viking settled a thousand years ago at the tip of the Great Northern Peninsula. But we don’t have time on this trip, and we catch the ferry back to the mainland 25 miles north-west across the Strait of Belle Isle. If this were winter or spring our ferry would dodge icebergs and could be delayed. But now it’s July and relatively balmy. We have been enjoying the gradually cooling weather as we travel north, further into the Atlantic, and away from the continental effects of the North American landmass, which in summer brings baking temperatures inland and south. Now we’re comfortable in the low 70s (F), a sea wind, and occasional overcast and drizzle. We drive off the ferry at Blanc-Salon, at the far eastern tip of Quebec province. Off the boat, we drive east and within a few miles cross the border into the southern tip of Labrador province. Here we fill our car with gas, and also the spare 8 gallons reserves on the roof rack, then sleep the night in Forteau. Forteau, population 400, is one of a handful of tiny coastal towns on the south coast of Labrador. Trish and I visited last year but did not go further north than Red Bay, 40 miles farther up the coast. These towns are all on the coastal barrens, a region where cold and wind keep the trees low and often non- existent. The trees only get a foothold in occasional small sheltered valleys, The landscape is of low vegetation scattered across exposed uplands, sweeping down to exposed headlands and coves. Human occupation in the area has been documented to about 9000BP, for much of that time by the sea based people today called the Maritime Archaic, and later the Inuit. In fact a few miles up the road from Forteau at L’Anse Amour, we stop at a tiny gravel pull-off on the road near a small mound, perhaps 10 feet in diameter. This is the earliest known funeral monument in the New World, the grave of a child buried 7500 BP wrapped in skins or birch bark with objects beside him or her. That this site of such prehistorical interest and significance is in such humble setting — right beside a narrow two lane road, easy to miss, room for only a car or two to pause, with a simple sign, and no habitation visible for miles — reinforces the isolation of this coast, both today and when that child was buried. Modern occupation started with Portuguese explorers in about 1500AD, followed in the next few decades by Portuguese whalers. They set up seasonal shop in the many small harbors and coves up and down this coast, most notably in Red Bay where they rendered slaughtered whales into oil and shipped it to Europe. There is a very good museum there that Trish and I saw last year, and which includes a launch ride out to Saddle Island where a lot of the work was done. More recently the Labrador coast was home to a cod fishing industry which finally collapsed by the early 1990s. The area was devastated by loss of the cod fisheries. Today it has a very small population and I’m not sure what they subsist on, presumably mostly tourism and as one of only two land entry points to northern Labrador which has various extractive and tourist industries. This land entry point to the bulk of Labrador — the road to Goose Bay — was built only in 2002. The 1990s must have been very difficult. Until 2002 the only road system on the Labrador coast ran for 51 miles between Blanc-Sablon and Red Bay. The coast was entirely serviced by government subsidized ferry service from northern Newfoundland. When the fisheries collapsed some ten years prior it must have been a bleak period. A fellow that Trish and I met in Forteau last year said that when he first moved there in the 1980s, the local music festival — there Celtic music tradition — drew large crowds of people to a wide headland. A few years after he arrived it had shrunk to fill a small church hall. In 2002 the government connected Red Bay to the “major” inland town of Goose Bay by road. For many years the new “road” was a very rough tire-destroying affair, and is now a comfortable but long 340 mile broad well graded road. Tomorrow we leave Forteau and drive that road, Rt 510, to Goose Bay. It is 380 miles including 150 miles of gravel, and there will only be one opportunity to fill up with gas on the way, at Port Hope Simpson at the 126 mile mark. The extra gas I’m carrying on the roof is not strictly necessary but the added margin will make the trip worry-free and more relaxed. The car is only a Subaru Forester which I am recruiting to long-range service with the extra gas tanks (8 gallons, 200 miles) and a full-size spare tire on the roof, and some camping equipment inside. The drive is long but generally comfortable with a low speed limit. Dust kicked up on the gravel stretch and construction is the only problem. The local RCMP officer told me that until recent years it was far more adventurous and rough on cars. You gain a sense of the isolation — familiar to Australians but not Americans — from the fact that there is a “borrow a satellite-phone” service available so you can call the RCMP if you get stuck miles from help. Goose Bay is 100 to 150 miles inland at the head of an enormous inlet called Lake Melville. Originally the only settlement in the area was the small nearby Hudson’s Bay trading post of North West River, but during WWII and the cold war Goose Bay was developed into a massive airbase with three runways each well over a mile long. It is large enough to have served as an emergency landing strip for the Space Shuttle. The base still operates but at a fraction of its earlier self. Until 1992 Goose Bay was served primarily by coastal ferry from Newfoundland, and was finally connected to the outside world by year round world in 1992, by the Trans Labrador Highway to Quebec City and the rest of Canada. Today Goose Bay with the twin town of Happy Valley is the regional hub for the Labrador region and points north, and home to about 8000 people. We have a lay day in Goose Bay, with a quiet visit to the nearby North West River settlement and its very interesting Labrador interpretation center. I also drop the car at the airport parking lot for security, where it will sit for the next 5 days, and catch a cab back to the motel. The next morning I get up at 4:30am and catch a cab to the wharf where the ferry, the MV Kamutik W, is waiting.