A day in Labrador

On Saturday morning, we got on the 8:00 ferry and headed for Labrador.  This ferry was not as big as the ferry we took from North Sydney to Port Aux Basques; but it still could hold several cars and 3 or 4 tractor trailer trucks.

As we headed out into the Strait of Belle Isle,

you could already see Labrador on the other side.

I was even able to zoom up the lighthouse at Amour Point which was the tallest lighthouse in Atlantic Canada.

Chuck talked with a couple of logging men who were bringing a truckload of firewood over to Labrador.  And we also talked with another couple from Green Island Cove which was further north of St. Barbe who were headed over to Labrador today also.  We could barely understand them, but we loved listening to them talk and they seemed to like listening to us talk too.

Chuck took a little nap on the way over too.  The rocking of the boat will put you right to sleep.

I saw my first whale on the crossing over but I wasn’t quite quick enough with the camera.

The ferry actually lands in Quebec…

…but within just a few miles you are in Labrador.

The first thing we noticed when we got off the ferry was how much more barren Labrador was than Newfoundland.  The logging men had told us that they “don’t have any trees” in Labrador and we didn’t see many. 

The first town we came to in Labrador was L’Anse-au-Clair where we stopped at the visitor center to get a map and some information about what to see during our 4 ½ hour day trip to Labrador.  We had to be back to get on the last ferry back to Newfoundland by 2:30.  There is only about 75 miles of paved road in this section of Labrador and Quebec so we didn’t figure we would be going too far anyways.

We found out we could drive as far as the lighthouse in the short time we had so we headed to Amour Point.  We drove by this small beach inlet.

The roads were not as good as in Newfoundland.

And we did see a few trees (just not as many and not as tall as in Newfoundland).

As we approached the town of Forteau, you could see the lighthouse way out in the distance.

It was a fairly steep grade down to Forteau…

…and another steep grade back out of Forteau.

Like Newfoundland, they have lots of rocks in Labrador.

We stopped at a museum before reaching Amour Point that contained a lot of antiques from the area.  Here was the original baby incubator from the hospital sitting on top of the birthing table.  (Doesn’t look very comfortable to me.)  The manager of the museum actually had one of her children on this table.  (I know….TMI). 

Here are a couple of old hunting traps.  Can you guess which one was for trapping bears?

Below are the points from harpoons used to capture whales.

And here I demonstrate how the women used this frame to keep their water from spilling out of their buckets as they carried water from the wells or creeks.

We even tried some of their homemade preserves.  Bakeapple berry was our favorite. 

Outside the museum, they had what looked like decorative landscape rocks…

…but what they really were was old whale bones. 

We walked down a pathway away from the museum where we could see the road we would be taking to the lighthouse…

…and Amour Point.  Population:  9.

We asked one of the girls working in the museum for recommendations of a good place to eat and she recommended Seaview Restaurant in Forteau which we had just come through.  She said her favorite thing is poutine.  We decided to check it out on the way back.

After we turned down the dirt road to the lighthouse,

we came to L’Anse Amour Burial, the site of the earliest known funeral monument in the new world.

It marks the burial place of an Indian child who died about 7,500 years ago.

From this road, we could also see a waterfall on the other side of the cove.

We continued down the dirt road…

…until we reached the Point Amour Lighthouse.

On the grounds of the lighthouse site were the concrete ruins of the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Station that was built in 1904.

Then we headed for the lighthouse.

This was the lighthouse keeper’s original house.

Off this coast, the H.M.S. Raleigh had wrecked in 1922

It was an absolutely beautiful day…

And I finally got a picture of a whale as he waved at us with his tail.

We drove back out the dirt road …

to the main 75 mile paved road and on to our last town to the north:  L’anse-Amour.

And then we turned around and headed back to Forteau for lunch.

We stopped at the Seaview Restaurant where guess what Chuck had for lunch?  Caribou!  How often do you get the chance to have caribou for lunch?  He thought he better try it why he had the chance. 

Chuck thought that, based on the way it was prepared, it looked more like what comes out of the south end of a northbound caribou.  It didn't taste any better than it looked.  We talked to some other people later on in our trip who said that if it is prepared correctly, caribou is actually quite delicious but Chuck said he probably would never try caribou again.  I had one bite and I would agree.

And I had poutine:  french fries covered in gravy and mozzarella cheese.

My poutine was much better than Chuck’s caribou.

In the time we had left, we drove into Quebec for a few miles.

No trees in Quebec to speak of either.

We got back to the ferry by 2:30 and waited in line in the parking lot until we could drive on board.  They loaded the tractor trailers on first;.  What was weird was the tractor trailers had to back on to the ferry so they could drive straight off when we reached St. Barbe, Newfoundland.  The cars did not have to back on to the ferry because we were able to do a U-turn at the other end of the boat and drive out the same way we came on.  The tractor trailers were too big to do this.

We didn’t see any whales on the ride back but the weather was still sunny and pleasant so it was a nice ride back home.