Day 9 - A Day In Labrador

It was pretty chilly this morning as we awoke in our gravel parking lot of a campground. At least the showers were clean and warm. We decided to drive up to Red Bay, one of the few National Historic Sites in Labrador, making a few stops on the way. To go further than Red Bay would entail about a 100 miles of inland driving to get to the next town, Mary’s Harbour. It didn’t seem worthwhile...and given the condition of the roads, was a good decision.

Our first stop was Fortue, which, according to eBird, had the most active hotspots in Labrador. We had hardly started down a harborside trail when the ferocious black files made their appearance. We only saw a group of Ravens, a Robin an a few sparrows before turning back. It was on to the lighthouse at L’Anse Amour.

So far the drive had been mostly atrocious. The paved roads in Labrador are in horrible shape, full of patches and gaping, tire-eating potholes. Every so often there would be a repaved bit of road, but it would end before even getting up to the speed limit. It might be possible to dodge all the obstacles on a motorcycle, but it was slow going in Speedy. Even with care and slow speeds, we had our share of bone-jarring shocks.

After about 20 km of bad road, we turned onto the unpaved road out to the lighthouse. It was actually easier going on the dirt. Our first stop was a picnic area by a beach that had several flocks of gulls on it. Out came our spotting scope and we sorted though them. Most were Great Black-backed Gulls, many more than we see at home. They were intermixed with Herring and Ring-billed Gulls. We also spotted a couple of uncommon Glaucous Gulls. 

As we went further, the road ran right on the edge of the shore, with the rocky shoreline right next to it. Along this shore was a large dead whale. It looked like it had been there a while as the skin was all bleached out and the large jaw bones were exposed. We didn’t stop.

Finally, it was up to the bluff with the lightouse, a provincial historic site, and the tallest lighthouse in Newfoundland and Labrador. It is still a working light and seems to even still have a lightkeeper. The site includes the lighthouse with an attached building, the keeper’s cottage, an educational center, a research building and a gift shop.

As we passed the research building there was a woman in front of it putting small fish on a netting frame. She was drying freshly caught Capelin, a small member of the smelt family. They are are an important forage fish and are caught by dip netting as they come along shore to spawn. They are also prey to many of the larger fish, whales and birds.  She was drying them whole. Evidently, no gutting is necessary for the dried fish. She didn’t say how long it would take, but when we stopped back at the lighthouse later in the day, they had already begun to shrivel in the sun and wind.

We looked out for seabirds, saw a few that were too far away to identify, stopped in the gift shop, then headed on. While in the gift shop Ellen was talking with the young woman shopkeeper and the subject of puffins came up. There used to be many along the coast  here, but they were hunted until their recent protection. She barely remembered eating them as a child and she seemed to be in her twenties or early thirties at best.

The drive out to Red Bay was pretty spectacular. The road climbed into a rocky landscape covered in low green shrubs and grasses. At one hight point, it looked over a wide steep rocky valley with a wide river that was so clear that we could see the bottom from probably a 1,000 feet away. We drove through hills that were sprinkled with huge boulders and then came back down to sea level and the rocky shore of Red Bay.

Our first stop in Red Bay was the Whaler’s Cabin restaurant for lunch, then the National Historic Site. Lunch was excellent. More very good fresh cod. Fish and chips for me and the cod fish sandwich for Ellen. We shared an unusual, but tasty, carrot cake for dessert. Once again we were joined by a bus tour, not the Class A group again, but a Canadian tour group. Fortunately, we were already in the restaurant when the bus arrived and got our order in first.

After lunch it was off to the interpretive center. Red Bay is the site of a 16th century Basque whaling center. They hunted whales, mostly North Atlantic and Greenland Right Whales right out in the straits. The North Atlantic

whales arrived in the summer and the Greenland whales appeared in the fall, giving the whalers a year around hunting grounds. The historic site came from the discovery of a sunken whale ship in the bay and its excavation, as well as excavations of an island where most of the try works were. The interpretive center has a large exhbit of the collected artifacts including a section of the original ship and a full-sized replica of a second of the ship’s hold.

There was also a boat trip out the island and although it seemed interesting, it was also cold and windy, making two hours on the unsheltered island unappealing. We decided to move on. 

It was time to head back in the direction of the ferry. Between the bad roads and black flies, we decided that we would try to go back to Newfoundland tomorrow, but we still hadn’t figured out a place to stay tonight. We originally thought that we might stay at the Pinware Provincial Park, which was on the way back. We stopped in and took a look. There were a couple of sites on the water that looked good, but we had read that it was possible to boondock at the lighthouse. That seemed a more interesting spot and closer to the ferry, so we returned there. After a bit of a rest, we had a bit of a walk along the trail running along the cliff by the lighthouse. A few more sparrows, a robin and a Herring Gull was al that was seen.

When we got back to Speedy, I went online to see if we could make a ferry reservation for tomorrow. All three sailing had no reservable space for vehicles. This is not good. I tried calling the reservation number, but they were already closed for the day. We had read somewhere that they only book 75% of the vehicle deck space ahead of time; the rest is filled in by standbys.  The ferry terminal office opens at 6am and standby is first come, first serve. It was time to move closer...like the ferry dock.

We found a spot in a flat parking lot just below the booking office to park for the night. We will be waiting at 5:30 tomorrow morning. It hasn’t been really quiet yet as trucks keep arriving and leaving trailers, probably to go on the ship tomorrow. Today’s last ferry arrived at 7:30pm and overnights here, so there is also activity going on there. The first sailing tomorrow is at 8am. There are three sailings tomorrow; we hope to get on one.