Kathleen's Window: Red Bay and the End of the Pavement

This post is out of order. It did not post when we thought it did. It describes our second day in Labrador.

Saturday, August 3, 2013

By morning the rain had started and the fog hung over the area. We traveled up the road toward Red Bay, the end of the paved road, and the beginning of the gravel Trans-Labrador Highway. We didn't want to take our rig farther, but wanted to see the Red Bay National Historic Site. We crossed the Pinware River, a renowned salmon river and immediately began climbing into the fog. It was an impressive modern highway project with big road cuts and wide pavement and shoulders. There were brake checking areas (due to the very steep slopes) in the other direction as this road handles big rigs traveling to and from Labrador City in the interior and it's resource extraction areas.

On the road to Red Bay

Red Bay

We passed lakes with cabins but no villages, as we traversed the interior in order to come out again at the coast and Red Bay. When we arrived we found a sheltered harbor, a village, and after passing the turn onto the gravel road north, the end of the road at the water's edge. In front of us was Whalers Restaurant and we walked in through the light rain. We noticed a tour bus in the parking lot, but the riders seemed to be leaving as we entered. Inside we found a warm cheerful room, with a view of the village and harbor out the window. A local was playing a guitar and singing in the back room. We watched the locals come and go, including some indigenous peoples. I settled for chicken and chips again, and Greg had...fish and chips. I tasted some. The cod was so fresh it was almost still swimming, and sweet and tender, not fishy. We took our time and lingered over a shared piece of bakeapple berry pie. The red berries turn light orange when they are ripe, but have seeds in them like raspberries, only bigger. We decided we liked the taste of the partridge berry pie from The Daily Catch better.

No one ever OD'ed on fish and chips

Bakeapple Berry Pie

Whale vertebra

After lunch we went back up the hill to the Interpretation Center for Red Bay. Basque whalers from Spain began coming here in 1540 to harvest the Right whales, render the oil and ship it back to meet the demand in Europe. Several ships wrecked in the harbor and archeological divers have brought up the evidence of the activities. Other investigators worked on land and found artifacts and many whale bones on the shore. Inside the center is an original chalupa boat used by the whalers. They estimated the Red Bay population in 1550-ish to be about 1,000, probably ten times what it is now.

Remnants of a Basque Chalupa, circa 1540

Right whale flipper bones

Not a man-ikin

Model of Basque whaling ship

Hooked Rug

Ship wreck from mid 1970's

Sea Urchins next to museum dock

Jellyfish

Inukshuks next to museum

We began the drive back over the mountains with fog covering the road and the landscape. Some areas were clear and others foggy, as we drove back to Pinware and decided to head back toward the ferry. We were looking for someplace to boondock for the night. At L'Anse Amour we turned onto the gravel road from the main road and out the peninsula. After driving a few kilometers through the rain we reached L'Anse Amour lighthouse. It was raining hard and after 5 pm, so we decided not to try to go inside and up the steps to the top. I don't think we would have seen much anyway. We noticed another RV from Denmark that had been on the ferry with us and assumed they were boondocking there, since we had seen them in several boondocking spots in Newfoundland.

Beginning of the gravel road to Labrador City and Quebec

We headed back to civilization

The paved road out of Red Bay

Fog on the uplands

Below the fog in the coves

Pinware River

Labrador flag on the right

The road to L'Anse Amour

L'Anse Amour Light

A short way down the road was a turn off and parking lot along the water that was a trailhead to see the shipwrecks the HMS Raleigh and the HMS Lily. We settled in for the night. We decided to risk the rain and took the hike to read the placards about the wrecks and look at the debris. The Raleigh wrecked in 1922 and was blown up by the Navy 1926. It was a 12,000-ton cruiser that carried a lot of munitions. So instead of a wreck on the beach, the pieces that survived the blast are littered on the shore. We didn't see any evidence of the Lily. We returned to the rig totally soaked and had to spread everything out to dry in the already humid rig. So, we had fog outside and condensation inside! In between the breaks in the rain and fog we cleaned off windows and watched the seabirds and hoped for whales. We had a quiet night with the sound of the waves breaking on the shore.