Days 8 - Happy Valley and North West River

It was damp and gray when we woke up at Gosling Lake, so we had coffee and left for Happy Valley and a second coffee and breakfast at Tim Horton's. 

There was supposed to be a Community Market every Saturday just across the road, but when we went there it was filled with balloons and Pride flags. Rather than the usual market, the Happy Valley Pride festival was being set up. No market today, so we moved on.

Our next stop was the town of North West River about 30 km outside of Happy Valley. Aside from a long wait at a roadworks, it was an easy drive. By this time the clouds had cleared and it was a nice sunny day by the time we reached the town. North West River has two well-known museums, the Labrador Interpretation Centre and the Labrador Heritage Museum (the former Hudson Bay Company trading post).

We visited the Interpretation Centre first. It is a new building on the outskirts of town. It features the history of the indigenous peoples of Labrador, the Innu, the Inuit, the Métis, and the Settlers. The main room of the center has a timeline of exhibits showing the inhabitation of Labrador. There were archeological finds, mostly tools, and reproductions of the dwellings and activities of each group through time. Beyond the similarity in name, the Innu and the Inuit are two completely unrelated groups. Accompanying the exhibits were recordings of oral history in English and the two native languages.

The Innu are considered a nomadic First Nations culture related to the Cree. The tribe spread into Labrador from the west starting around 10,000 years ago and at one point were the only people in Labrador. 

The Inuit are a polar people who came eastward in the far north later than the Innu, probably around 1300 CE. They were polar whale and seal hunters. The Labrador Inuit are southernmost of the Inuit groups with the others in Arctic Canada, Greenland and Northeastern Siberia. 

The Métis are considered an aboriginal group, but are descended from early European explorers (primarily trappers) who took indigenous wives. They emerged around 1600 as a distinct culture.

The bulk of the Settlers were British and other European immigrants who appeared in the 17th and 18th centuries to fish, hunt, log and mine the province. They also brought smallpox, decimating the natives already there.

The centre also had a collection of documentary films which we declined. One could probably spend several days seeing everything on offer.

A short trail lead from the parking lot. As it was pretty much the first fine day of the trip, we decided to take a walk in the woods. It went out to a point with an expansive view over the river, well worth the walk. It was less than a mile out and back and we also had a great look at a Swainson's Thrush singing almost next to us on the trail.

Next we were off to the Heritage Museum which was much different. It was housed in a restored Hudson Bay Company trading post and was entirely oriented towards the settlement of North West River. It had several exhibits. As we entered, we were in a reproduction of the trading post store complete with shelves full of items from the 30s to the 50s. There was also and exhibit about trappers and their families complete with a reprodced trapper's tilt, a small log building (almost a log tent) that trappers built along their trap lines as permanent shelters to use while tending the trap lines. There were also exhibits of an expedition to the north of Labrador and of the work of Dr. Grenfell who provided early medical services to the area, complete with a collection of 19th century medical tools. The most unusual collection was room full of mechanized models of buildings and boats and people doing things in North West River, all built by one man.

Museumed out, we headed back to Happy Valley, stopping at Minipi Outfitters (an outdoor store that more than rivaled REI), the local supermarket, the gas station, the local hardware store and the new YMCA for showers (the Gosling Lake campground only had cold showers). After that we drove to the Birch Island Conservation area to boondock in their parking area. After a dinner of takeout Souvlaki from the El Greco restaurant next door, we settled in for a quiet night.