More Labrador

One thing that surprised me about traveling the trans-Labrador was how few animals we saw. Aside from one beautiful red fox, we only saw a handful of song birds and some ravens. Since there is so much unadulterated forest, I'm hoping that means that all the bears and moose and everyone else are frolicking happily somewhere besides close to the road. However, the same could be said for the most northern part of BC and we saw piles of wildlife there.

We stopped briefly in Churchill Falls in the morning. All the houses look the same, the only variation being the kind and colour of truck in the driveway. At 8:30am the town was practically dead. Except for the occasional pick-up truck and small handful of pedestrians there was no sign of anyone at all. There is a large school with play grounds, a park and lots of bikes and toys in people's yards, so I found it rather confusing. It was a sunny, warm morning--where was everyone??  It is obviously a town with lots of families. We made breakfast in a parking lot next to the park, while I felt a bit creeped out at the silence. Then we went to the gas station and were immediately swarmed by black flies. So, even though there are clearly pockets of bug-free areas like our breakfast spot, it seems likely that everyone (not working at the hydro station) hides in their homes from the bugs in the morning.

We continued on driving and eventually made it to Happy Valley-Goose Bay.  It was much more interesting--cute homes, a nice new info centre, some arts and culture. Something very nice that I noticed all through our trip was that people are generally not on their cell phones. In such rural, small town places there probably isn't much need for it...regardless it was so so nice to see people not having their heads buried in their phones, oblivious to the world. I think we actually stood out, since we would have our laptops out in the coffee shop to use the internet while everyone else around us was socializing.

boat on the water in Goose Bay

We eventually continued onto the last stretch of the highway--it is the newest part of the highway that was completed in 2002, connecting the entire route. It was the worst stretch of the route too, with many many potholes, and seemed to be the busiest.

We had another terrible night of mosquitoes, even though we blocked all the gaps and vents. Then we had to hide from the bugs in the van for breakfast...which turned the van into a sauna. At least we have the luxury of doing that now that we have room and a little kitchenette!

At this point, having been mostly in the middle of nowhere for about a week, Luke was starting to develop a beard and insisted on referring to the province as "La-beard-or".

The road was so bumpy, our new bike rack was starting to regularly come loose. Luke also had his pivot bolt on his bike almost completely unscrew itself and his dropper post was starting to rise.

Finally, we made it to the coast and Red Bay. Such a beautiful landscape!

Red Bay, Labrador, with iceberg in the background

Whaling Station, Red Bay

We ended the day in L'anse de Claire, QC, where we found a windy, bugless place to sleep at the top of a hill. We had iceberg neighbours!