Travels East: Labrador Coastal Drive to Cartwright

From Happy Valley - Goose Bay to Cartwright

285 km of gravel road (route 510) opened in 2010 connecting to the existing Labrador Coastal Drive to L'Anse au Clair and side branch (route 516) to Cartwright (another 87 km), with no gas stations, food or lodging, no cell phone service, and a recommendation for borrowing a satellite phone for emergency use (provided by government), but none were available in Happy Valley - Goose Bay on the day we were leaving. It had rained most of the day before so there were pot holes and areas of "washboard", so it was a slow drive around the Mealy Mountains, passing by lakes (ponds in NL) and rivers (brooks in NL), through bush, some forests of black spruce, white spruce, tamaracs, and some aspens, and some barren areas of rocks with lichen and low scrubby bush (caribou country).

It had rained most of the day before so there were pot holes and areas of "washboard", so it was a slow drive around the Mealy Mountains, passing by lakes (ponds in NL) and rivers (brooks in NL), through bush, some forests of black spruce, white spruce, tamaracs, and some aspens, and some barren areas of rocks with lichen and low scrubby bush (caribou country). The colour of the gravel on the road changed from pink to black to grey and back to pink as we passed by the "quarries" beside the road with the local rock they had used for the gravel. Also along the road there were groups of boxes on sleds which we learned later was for hauling wood out of the bush in the wintertime.

Brook with Mealy Mtns in the background

Lichen

Where's the moose or caribou?

Sleds for wood

We arrived in Cartwright which is spread around Sandwich Bay and has no campground, but the local RCMP officer Mike suggested parking beside the outdoor arena, which was a nice flat area, for the night (no services). Cecil had hoped that we could get a boat tour to see the Viking named "Wonderstrands" a 56 km stretch of golden sand beach about 10 km to the north and only accessible by boat. Unfortunately the tours ended Labour Day weekend.

We had the opportunity to chat with some fishermen on the wharf folding up their nets. They had been out about 154 km in the ocean for a week fishing for turbot, the last trip of the season. They also fish for king crab in season. All their fish/crab goes to the local fish plant at the other end of the wharf, for freezing and shipping.