Monthly Archives: September 2017

Thursday 14th September 2017 – I’M NOT SLEEPING …

… very well at all just now. It was another pretty miserable night from that point of view and I didn’t have much sleep.

I’d been on my travels too, but no idea where to because it’s all gone out of my head … “beacuse there’s nothing in there to keep it in” – ed … now.

Another thing that I didn’t do is to take my tablets. Not when I have an early start like today where I need to be on the road by 08:00.

And I arrived in North West River at 08:45, beating my local guide by about 30 seconds.

While he was busy provisioning the motor boat, I was busy provisioning myself. We are going quite far today – a lot farther than WE DID AT CARTWRIGHT.

It’s for this reason that I need to stock up with the supplies because there’ nothing whatever where we are going.

And so leaving North West River behind us, we head off down Hamilton Inlet.

We’re heading due east, in the general direction of Rigolet and the open sea.

But we’ll be turning off a long way before then – going probably about a quarter of the way down and then turning off to the north.

The first settlement that we pass is the rather enigmatically-named “Butter and Snow”.

I’ve no idea why it was so named, although it is known that the family who lived there, called Rich (although I have seen it spelt “Ritch”) owned a cow.

There was still a permanent resident there a couple of years ago, and he would be here today had he not died in a skidoo accident.

While you admire the absolutely stunning scenery of the Hamilton Inlet, maybe I should fill you in on a little history of Inner Labrador.

In the late 18th and early 19th century the Hudsons Bay Company recruited Scotsmen mainly from the outlying islands of the North, to come and work here.

That explains the proliferation of family names such as McLean, Campbell, Baikie, Goudie and the like.

There was a very strong French-Canadian presence here too and a rival company from Paris – Revillon Frères – set up competing posts in the area.

That explains the presence of French family names, the most famous of which is Michelin.

The job of these Europeans was to liaise with the natives and deal with the furs that the Innu and Inuit brought in.

Very often, being left to their own devices out of season, these “European” people would go off on their own to spy out the possibilities of the land.

Many chose to stay here after their term of engagement ended, and they quite often set up on their own account as trappers and fishermen.

But the fact is that they all would have died, because the climate here and the living conditions can be vicious.

The only thing that saved them were encounters with the Inuit – or occasionally Innu – women.

Most of the men took native women as partners and it was they who showed them how to survive in the extreme Labrador climate.

Each family would settle in its own cove or river mouth, and that was where they would fish, and hunt and trap in the hinterland.

Occasionally though, you might find a mixture of families living in the same cove.

What might have happened is that a family only had daughters, and sons from neighbouring families would marry the daughters.

These men would stay on to inherit the traplines of the wife’s family, rather than taking the daughters back to their own coves.

And the fishing and trapping lifestyle was carried on until, I suppose, the last 60 or 70 years.

Firstly the huge American air base and secondly the Government’s controversial resettlement programme resulted in the exodus.

But everyone here who is native to the area is what one would call a Métis – the offspring (sometimes many generations removed) of a “European” male and a “native” female.

A former phrase used quite commonly until about 50 years ago is now considered to be offensive

People still come out here regularly to the cabins of their ancestors, whether for weekends or holidays.

And a limited amount of trapping is still carried on. There’s a fur buyer in Goose Bay and a couple of fur auctions in Montreal and Winnipeg.

But mainly it’s to escape from the towns and return to the olden days.

Rather than take the direct route, because there’s quite a storm brewing up in the Inlet, we are hugging the coast.

And threading our way through the offshore islands – the North West Islands in fact.

According to the censuses of 1935 and 1945, these were inhabited by the “Baikie” family. Hordes of them in fact.

So after about 90 minutes of sailing (or, rather, motoring) we arrive at our destination.

This is the abandoned settlement of Mulligan, and it’s probably the most famous of all of the settlements out here.

And its claim to fame is that is was the home of possibly the most famous person in Labrador – Lydia Campbell.

I’ve come here with one of Lydia’s descendants. He’s going to show me around the settlement and later on, we may well be going to meet her.

And so we moor the boat up an the bank and step ashore – back into almost 200 years of history because the “Campbell” of our story is a late arrival.

He didn’t turn up from the Orkneys until the early 1840s

Mulligan was a huge settlement by the standards of the day. At one time there were 20 families living here and the settlement had its own school.

By the time of the census of 1935 there were 6 families of 32 people, all Baikies and Campbells.

And in 1945 there were 8 families of 39, and we have acquired a family called “Chaulk”.

the hump of earth that you can see in the foreground is said to be the site of the cabin of the more famous Campbells.

Of course, it’s long-gone now, just as they are. But it’s still interesting to see the site where they are said to have lived, even if there is very little left to see.

No memorial of course, because it’s not exactly on the tourist track here.

Of the more modern descendants of Lydia Campbell, that is their own former family home from before the relocation.

It still receives some occasional use and is currently undergoing a process of renovation.

Who knows? We might even end up with some more permanent residents. Wouldn’t that be interesting? But it’s unlikely.

By the time of the turn of the 20th Century most people had forsaken the traditional log cabin for a wood-plank house.

And then promptly realised their error, for nothing is as suitable to the Labrador environment than a traditional log cabin.

But one family has kept its original log cabin, and kept it in excellent condition too, regularly painted and maintained.

This is what all of these villages would have looked like 150 years ago – minus the paint of course.

By now, after all of our issues, it was lunchtime. So we sat in the shade and ate our butties.

I was regaled with stories of life out here 70 years ago, and life in Labrador in general.

But one interesting fact that I was told was that the red berries – the partridgeberries – were unknown in Mulligan when the place was in permanent occupation.

Today, there are partridgeberries everywhere all over the ground. You can’t move for stepping on them.

There’s something else around here that you can’t move without stepping in.

I can personally vouch for the fact that it’s a lie – bears DO NOT go to the bathroom in the woods.

Before we move off from here, there’s just something else to see. And it’s how Mulligan has been brought into the 21st Century.

One of the cabins here has not only an array of solar panels but a wind turbine too. Just like me back home.

So let’s hear it for the solar panels. Hip, hip, array!

Now comes the exciting bit – we have to get across there to thefar bank of the river.

And in case you haven’t noticed, there’s a sand bar blocking the passage for the boat. I have a feeling that the next part of our adventure is going to be very cold and very wet.

And I don’t have waders.

We’ve made it across to the sand bar anyway, but our adventure is only just beginning.

We now have to reach across the creek to the shore and I’ll tell you something for nothing – this water is deep and it’s freezing cold.

And I have no footwear either – no point in having that soaking wet.

So up to our waists almost we were obliged to wade.

And then a good trek through the woods in bare feet, which was probably not a good idea.

But we made it all the same, and here we are at Mulligan Cemetery, the home of the most famous woman in Labrador – certainly in the 19th Century.

and here is the heroine of our story, Lydia Campbell.And what an effort it has been to reach her grave.

She was born in 1818 and in 1848 in a second marriage she married Daniel Campbell, not long out from the Orkneys with the HBC.

Family tradition has it that Campbell knew absolutely nothing about life as a “liveyer” and Lydia taught him absolutely everything.

Later, as she grew older, she lamented about the loss of traditional “liveyer” skills, apparent even in her own lifetime.

As a result, a visiting clergyman encouraged her to write a book about the traditional liestyle of a “liveyer” woman and the result – Sketches of Labrador Life by a Labrador Woman is probably the most significant book ever to come out of Labrador

My guide took me to see the grave of his grandmother, Druscilla. I’d seen from the various censuses that his grandfather had lived alone with his children and I had wondered why.

And the date on the tombstone gives us a clue as to the cause of death.

November 12th 1918. That was at the height of the Spanish Influenza epidemic. It wasn’t as overwhelming down here as on the coast but nevertheless it had quite an impact

Of all of the other graves here in the cemetery, this one is quite important. In here are buried what are believed to be three bodies

One night, part of the bank underneath someone’s house collapsed and a pile of bones, believed to be of three people, were washed out.

They were sent to St John’s where there were examined and said to be “Inuit bones of historical date”. They were reburied here in 2004.

We’d spent so long in the cemetery that the tide had come in quite a way, and if we thought that it was deep coming in, it was even deeper going out and I was perishing.

Not only that, the wind had got up and the Inlet was now a churning mass of waves . We were going to be in for a rough passage.

Our trip to the abandoned settlement at Pearl River was summarily abandoned and we turned back.

But what made my day, and made me quite proud was my guide who tol me, afer all of the wrestling that we had done with the boat and the river “you’re some tough cookie”.

We were heading back that way, in the general direction of North West River, and that was what was awaiting us.

In fact there were several storm clouds building up all around us

They do say that Labrador is very much like the Auvergne in the respect that “if you don’t like the weather, just wait a few minutes – it’ll soon be different.

It was round about here that we had the legendary moment of
Our Hero – “is that a sailing boat over there?”
Local guide “it’s an island with a couple of trees growing on it”
Note to self – arrange appointment with opticians on return

But then, I suppose, if I’d been able to see what I was doing, I would never have set out.

Our next stop, which was going to be our last one given the weather, was the settlement of Sabesquacho.

Or however you might like to spell it because I’ve seen it spelt a thousand different ways

There never was an approved way of spelling many of the place round here in the 19th and 20th Centuries and people wrote down the names as they heard them

This was the home of the “Michelin” family – or, at least, one of their homes because they had spread out quite a way down the bay.

My guide told me that at one time there had been as many as 12 children (and presumably the adults too) living in that house.

Big families were not necessarily prolific here though. You’ll find many families with 6 or 7 children but the death rate was appalling.

Despite this being a British colony until 1949, there was no Government Health Service here until modern times. From about 1900 until the 1980s you had the “Grenfell Volunteers” and prior to that, there was nothing at all.

As well as the Michelins, there were a few Pottles living here in the vicinity in the censuses of 1935 and 1945

And of course we still have the summer cabins for the families, mot of whom resettled in North West River.

The cabin on the left is said to be a cabin of former permanent occupation but the one on the right is more modern.

And you’ll notice the ty bach on the extreme left. No plumbing of any sort here.

Having made a race of it when conditions allowed, we made it back to North West River, beating the torrential downpour by a matter of minutes.

There were some kids playng around on the quayside when we arrived. “I wonder how long it will be before one of them falls in” I said

“Pushed in, more like” muttered my companion

And so considerably lighter in weight and considerably wetter, I headed for home. My wallet was considerably lighter too but I may not be coming here again and I needed to make this visit now

Final trip for today was to Goose Bay airport.

My landlord had told me where there were several planes on display, including an Avro Vulcan “V-bomber” of the 1950s and 60s

Of course I didn’t want to miss out on seeing that and so I took a deviation on the way home topay it a visit. After all, I remember these from my childhood on the beach at Ramsgate

and remember yesterday when we saw the football ground in town?

Here, would you believe, is one on the air base. And it’s in much better conition too.

Actually, it’s no surprise really to find a football ground here. There were various branches of NATO air forces(British, Dutch, German) who came here during the war so I imagine that it’s something to do with them.

Everywhere else that I wanted to visit in town was closed by the time that I returned wo I went back to my digs, had a coffee and shower, and washed my clothes in the washing machine.

Tea was potatoes, veg and onion gravy made into a kind of soup, and then an early night. I was totally exhausted.

Wednesday 13th September 2017 – IN THE HAPPY VALLEY CEMETERY …

Our Hero, looking for the grave of Gilbert Blake, arguably the most famous Labradorian of the early 20th Century
Man in digger, digging a hole
two men in suits, watching aforementioned man in digger digging aforementioned …

Our Hero, quite casually and lightheartedly to man in digger –
“what are you doing? Putting them in or digging them up?”
Two men in suits – “We’re police officers. Would you mind leaving the scene immediately?” (You could easily imagine the “or else …”)
Later that evening on Goose Bay Radio “following a court order obtained by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, an exhumation was carried out in Happy Valley Cemetery this afternoon …”

Yes, it’s all been happening here today, hasn’t it?

Last night was another rather restless night.

I seem to be having them in cycles just now – a batch of good nights followed by a batch of not-so-good nights. And it’s annoying in a way, but can’t be helped.

But I did manage to go out on my travels last night, which is a good thing. It involved my red Cortina estate XCL 465X. The back axle had locked up and so I had taken it for repair. When they opened the halfshaft, a pile of water, not oil, flooded out.
“Ohh, we’ll have to wait for another 41 rinses then” said the mechanic. That filled me full of foreboding because that was going to work out to be extremely expensive and I wasn’t sure whether I could afford the cost of the repairs.

It was nevertheless a struggle to leave the bed and when I did finally make it to the living room, mine host was already there preparing breakfast.

I waited quite a while for my tablets to work and then I joined my housemates for breakfast. And this is the first place on my travels where I have ever been offered soya milk. Apparently mine host’s wife drinks it.

Once I’d gathered my wits about me, Strider and I set out for North West River to see what had happened to the guy whom I was supposed to meet.

At the Labrador Interpretation Centre, I met the lady who had been so nice to me two years ago. To my surprise, she remembered me.

And as for my contact, he’s “gone to his cabin until Friday”.

However, as a stroke of luck, she reckoned that she might know the person to whom my contact was intending to introduce me.

And the reason why it should have been yesterday was because today, he was going … exactly to where I wanted to go.

But she took my number and promised that she would have him telephone me as soon as he returned.

There are three cemeteries in North West River.

The influenza victims are said to be in the earliest one, but all that I could find was this headstone of Thomas Blake, aged 59, died in November 1918.

It’s hard to say what the day is, but if it’s the 12th, that might well tie in with what we know. The Sagoma with its infected crew arrived in Cartwright on 20th October and the infected Harmony arrived at Okak on 4th November.

But in the cemeteries, all of the old original “trapper” families of Hamilton Inlet are represented.

Here in this photograph, we have, for example, a couple of Meshers from Rigolet, a Michelin and a MacDonald.

The origins of the “Michelin” name are unclear. But there was a French trading post here on the south side of the river where Sheshatshiu stands today, and it might be connected with that.

Plenty of Blakes and Baikies as you might expect, and also dozens of Goudies.

This is the grave of Sarah Michelin, née Goudie and her name certainly rings a bell, although I can’t think for the life of me why.

In fact, everyone who is anyone is here – except of course for Gilbert Blake, even though he will for ever be associated with North West River.

Now I know that I shouldn’t smile about events in e cemetery, but sometimes it’s just not possible to stop.

Murdoch McLean, a beloved husband and father is buried here. And it reminds me of the American visiting the cemetery in Arbroath.

“Here Lies Jock McTavish, a loyal husband and devoted father”
“Now isn’t that ust like the Scots? Burying three men in one grave?”

But this next grave is enough to wipe the smile off anyone’s face.

Two young children aged almost three and almost four. Same surname, but different parents. probably related though died on the same day and buried in the same grave.

That’s the kind of tragedy that always seems to befall isolated communities like this. And the cemetery was full of the graves of small children.

This is the “Paddon memorial” in North West River.

Labrador was a British colony – not part of Canada – until 1949 but was treated even worse than Africa, with no infrastructure and no medical service.

It was a charitable organisation – the International Grenfell Organisation – that provided medical services here. And then only from the early years of the 20th Century.

It was Dr Harry Paddon and his wife – and later their son William – who came here from the IGA to deal with the health issues of the “liveyers” and the Innu and Inuit communities.

They are still fondly remembered in the community, despite Harry having on one famous occasion blotted his record by describing some trappers as “backyard bunny hunters”

Having done the tour of the cemeteries I went down to the beach.

The beach here in North West River is quite famous, being one of the nicest accessible beaches in this part of Canada.

But I would be very wary about bringing your bikini or your cozzy here because it’s not exactly sun-bathing weather and the water is freezing.

For lunch I went to sit on the dockside to look at the river.

But there’s also what was the Hudsons Bay Company offices over there, and also the North West River terminal of the chairlift.

The bridge here is of comparatively recent construction. Prior to that we had the chairlift, and prior to that it was either kayak, canoe or ice skates.

Having had a little … errr … relax, I decided to go for a stroll in the warm sun.

While I was walking along the boardwalk towards the tipi, I finally had my telephone call.

The person for whom I was looking was now back from up-country and I told him what I was hoping to do.

This led to quite a lengthy discussion and we worked out a cunning plan for tomorrow. I need to be back here for 09:00 and that means yet another night in Happy Valley-Goose Bay.

The highlight of North West River is the Trappers’ memorial. The whole raison d’etre of the town was as a centre for the trappers.

The Hudsons Bay company had a store here where trappers would trade their pelts for supplies.

And if you were in dispute with the Hudsons Bay Company, as many people were, the French company Revillon Frères had a rival post on the opposite bank of the river.

Now, isn’t this the right kind of place to live?

In my opinion it’s the most beautiful place in the whole of North West River in which to live.

Believe it or not, it’s not all that old. It was erected in 1995. And it’s not a kit home either, but constructed out of local materials by local craftsmen.

And they can construct something for me at any time they like.

You’ll remember that yesterday we visited one of the very few farms here in Labrador. Today we’re having a crafty peek at someone’s greenhouse.

I’ve absolutely no idea what it is that he’s growing in there – there was no-one around to ask – but I certainly admire anyone who gives gardening a go around here.

Mind you, having said that, it was quite the thing around here when the Grenfell Association ran the show before Confederation in 1949.

One of the things that I wanted to do was to take a drive down to North West Point on the southern side of the river.

This was the site of an American radio post in the 1950s and is something of an environmental disaster because the US Military cared nothing about the territory of Labrador.

A Canadian Government Environmental Report of 28th November 2011 “highlights chemicals of concern with concentrations exceeding the applicable criteria”.

I’d done some research to find out where the access road might be, but unfortunately, it seems to have been all ploughed up and impassible.

I wasn’t going to risk taking Strider down there and these days, I’m not up to doing a hike of any distance in these kind of conditions.

It looks as if I shall have to forget this one.

Instead, I continue down the gravel road, and I’m not disappointed by what I find.

I could show you 10 photos that I took from this spot but instead I’ll let you have a glimpse of just one – which I think might be of the docks and seaplane base down at Terrington Basin.

That’s where the ships come in, and where we saw the Fairlane the other day.

Talking of the seaplane base, which is at Otter Creek, we’re in luck yet again. Here on the slipway is Airborealis’ C-GNFZ.

She’s a De Havilland DHC6-300 – a type that is much better-known as the “Twin Otter” and is one of the more successful low-capacity commercial passenger planes, ideal for travel out here.

She was built in 1980 and as you can see, she’s still going strong.And, for a twin Otter, quite appropriately here at Otter Creek

But an earlier claim to fame for Otter Creek took place here.

Prior to the air base there was very little here at Goose Bay. The people who came here to build the air base had nowhere to live and so set up a squatters’ camp here on this spot.

They were soon moved on by the US authorities, but it’s here that it all started.

And here’s a thing!

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we have more than a passing interest in football grounds. And here is probably one of the most unlikely football grounds that you will ever encounter.

And, more to the point, who does the team play against? I can’t imagine that there’s much in the way of opposition around here.

And from here, I had my encounter in the cemetery.

Back here, I had more baked beans, baked potatoes and vegan sausages and yet another early night.

And it’s not as if I’ve done very much either.

Tuesday 12th September 2017 – I’M IN GOOSE …

… Bay right now, and this bed-and-breakfast is far too posh for me. Even the spare toilet rolls in the bathroom have little hats on.

But then I shouldn’t even be here. I should have been staying somewhere else but according to mine host here, the guy whom I’m looking for is “out of town” and that’s a huge disappointment.

It means that yet another one of my projects has tombé à l’eau, as they say back home in France.

Last night, I had another disturbed night’s sleep – maybe crashing out for an hour or two in the afternoon yesterday didn’t help. But it took ages to go off to sleep, and I was tossing and turning all night.

But I was on my travels too. Back running my business and it was a Saturday morning, really quiet, and so I wandered away. I ended up at a house ful of people who were visiting someone who was quite ill.People were being let in to see this person two at a time, and there was a lot of noise coming from that room. Eventually it was my turn, and found that the sick person was another former friend of mine. She had a puppy with her – apparently her cat had died. She wasn’t interested in talking much about anything serious – just chatting about nothing. I asked her why her house was surrounded by scaffolding and she gave me a weird look. The other person there said that the house was a wreck and falling down, and this was apparent, although the house wasn’t as bad as the one next door.
Somewhere along the line I was in my bedroom when I noticed a young rat in there. That filled me with dismay.

After breakfast, I set out to tidy up my living accommodation, and that took me longer than i intended too.

And then I had to take it all out and load it into Strider. Luckily I’d tidied him out the other dayso that didn’t take too long.

I could also take a photo of the caravan too. Expensive, but it was the only thing available and I was quite comfortable in there.

And so I went to cash up, and it wasn’t quite as painful as I was expecting. But then again, to do things like this you need to bite the bullet.

It also gave me an opportunity for Strawberry Moose and me to say goodbye to our crew.

Nothing had been too much trouble for them. I was made very welcome and I’ll be delighted to go back and carry out a further exploration.

The road into Cartwright the other day was beautiful and well-worth a photograph. But with it being late afternoon, I had the sun in my eyes to the west.

Not so this morning though. I have the sun at my back and the view is even better.

That’s Main Tickle over there again, I reckon.

Somewhere down there, I reckon, is Muddy Bay where the orphanage was.

It’s impossible, apparently, to go there by road and so we were obliged to go by boat the other day.

But the weather was nothing like as good as it is today and so the photography wasn’t as good as it might have been,
and that was disappointing.

At a certain point the Métis Trail goes over the brown of a hill and just for a brief moment there’s a view in the distance of what I reckon might be Paradise River.

You can see why Cartwright gave it its name, can’t you?

This new zoom lens that I have bought is doing really well and while it’s not as sharp as I like, it’s producing the goods fair enough.

Cartwright wasn’t clearly the only one who considered it to be Paradise.

It looks as if a native Canadian has chosen this spot for his homestead and, honestly, who can blame him?

It’s the kind of place where most of us would like to settle if we have the chance – and I’ll show you my preferred spot in due course.

This is one of the places where we always stop to take a photograph as we drive by – it’s where the Métis Trail rejoins the Labrador Coastal Drive.

It’s the first place where Labrador City appears on the signs – only 813 kilometres away – and it’s only another 500 or so kilometres from there to the North Shore of the St Lawrence and Highway 138.

And I’m not going to be there for a good while yet.

Although this is one of my favourite spots on the Labrador Coastal Drive, this isn’t my ideal place – at least, from a personal point of view.

But with a stretch of 414 kilometres without fuel and any kind of facilities whatsoever, this would be the ideal spot for a couple of fuel pumps, a small motel, a little food shop and coffee bar.

But of course they won’t let me in live permanently in Canada, will they?

Around here on the dirt road the speed limit is 70kph. And although I was doing … err … about 70 kph I was passed by a lorry as if I were standing still.

A few kilometres further on, there he was on the side of the road, receiving the care and attention of the local Highway Enforcement Office, a member of which was busily writing out a ticket.

It’s the first time EVER that I’ve seen Highway Enforcement out here, and if anything is a sign that times, they are a’changing, then this is it.

Somewhere hidden in those trees is another sign of the times – a Highway Labour Camp.

And they need it too because the road – bad when it was new in 2010 – was even worse in 2014, worse still in 2015 and absolutely disgraceful this year.

They can’t let it disintegrate much more than this, surely?

One of the main arguments put forward about the veracity of the Norse sagas of Vinland concerns the cattle.

The Norse are said to have brought cattle with them, and how they had them grazing in the meadows. This is dismissed as fantasy by the critics.

But there certainly are peri-Arctic meadows in this region – dozens of them in fact, and from what I have seen there are more and more of them developing as the forests are cleared, whether by fire or other means.

Another thing that there are plenty of are eskers. These are like sand ridges and stretch for miles.

But they aren’t brought by rivers but by glaciers. The stones caught up in the glaciers rub against each other and are slowly reduced to sand.

When the glaciers recede, the sand is dumped along where the edges of the glaciers would have been, and they are spectacular where roads have been cut through them.

I mentioned earlier where my ideal spot in Labrador would be.

If I could settle here, I would be extremely happy. But also extremely isolated too because it’s miles from anywhere.

Situated at N52° 52′ 30″ and W58° 19’52” in fact.

You can see what I mean about these peri-Arctic meadows. They are all over the place these days.

And assuming that the climate was kinder in the 11th Century – in the middle of the “Medieval Warm” period, there would have been many more too.

Bringing cattle here would not have been any problem whatever, especially if the cattle had been used to life in Greenland.

There’s another enormous work camp here at the side of the road.

We’re currently up on the Eagle Plateau and so it’s called, rather imaginatively, “Eagle Camp”.

I thought at first that it was something to do with Highway maintenance, but closer inspection revealed that it’s all “Valard” – the company that is constructing the electricity transmission cables across Labrador.

Mind you, the highway DOES need attention. It was resurfaced with loose gravel in 2015 and it’s already been ripped to pieces.

At one point I hit a hidden dip, the rear end of Strider lifted off the road and I was going sideways heading for the drop off the verge.

We had an exciting couple of seconds (which seemed like a couple of hours) as I wrestled for control of the vehicle. But we are still here.

I mean – you can see what the labrador Coastal Drive looks like simply by glancing in the rear-view mirror of Strider.

At this point we have loose gravel being thrown about everywhere and clouds – and I do mean clouds – of dust thrown up behind us.

No wonder that you spend so much time fighting for traction if you are thrown off course by the lumps and potholes.

But at least it’s not like the time in the Utah Desert where the trail was so rough that I was travelling slowly and the wind was so strong and in the wrong direction that I had the unnerving experience of being overtaken by my own dust-cloud.

But oh! Wait a minute! Look at this!

When we were here in 2015 we noticed that the asphalting of the highway had started – but had come to a sudden stop with patches of gravel road in between.

But now, the asphalting has extended far beyond where it was back then. There’s the sign telling you to prepare for the gravel road, and there’s the guy cleaning off the edges of the road.

Another 5 years and it will be asphalt all the way.

But despite how good the road might be, there are still challenges to face, such as the incessant climbs and descents.

We’re travelling from south-east to north-west and all of the river valleys around here are going from south-west to north-east.

You can see over there the line on the right – that’s the road back up the other side of this valley. On the left is the track of the Valard cable from Muskrat Falls.

But here is the final descent for now. That’s the valley of the Churchill River, and to the right are the towns of Happy Valley and Goose Bay.

That’s not quite my destination for tonight though – I’m driving on to North-West River where I have things to do.

But I’ll leave you here to admire the beautiful scenery.

But a little further on is the entrance to the controversial Muskrat Falls hydro-electric project.

And opposite is the camp of the protestors. Not quite as big as the Faslane camp, but it’s limited by law, and here all the same.

I’m not going into the rights and wrongs of the project, because everyone has his or her own opinion about it, but it’s one of these things where, from my own point of view, the environmental and cultural objections outweigh the profit considerations.

But then again, as I keep on saying, I don’t have to live here

But leaving aside Muskrat Falls for the moment, I clatter across the metal bridge over the Churchill River.

It’s been known by several other names, such as the Grand River (which it certainly is) and the Hamilton River, but it was renamed the “Churchill” upon the death of Sir Winston.

But whatever name it might have, it’s certainly the most famous river in the whole of Labrador,and probably the most important too.

As usual these days, arriving in Happy Valley, I find a different dirt road heading east and follow it all the way that I can.

And on this particular road, I can’t go any further. But it certainly brings me to a spectacular view over Goose bay and the head of the Hamilton Inlet.

It’s very easy to picture the scene as the first European explorers – maybe Louis Fornel the fur trader or maybe John Davis of the Davis Straits – or maybe even the Norse explorers – made landfall here.

But hats off to this guy here at Birch Lane Farm. It’s not everyone who would attempt commercial farming in a place like this.

But he seems to have plenty of crops and a good growth of hay, so it looks as if he can make a good go of it.

It totally undermines the opinions that people have about the “Frozen North” – just as it did when I saw the shipping container marked “Alaskan Agriculture”.

A quick call in to the port here at Terrington Basin in Goose Bay to see who’s about.

It’s been a long time since we’ve had a “Ship of the Day” and we strike it lucky here. We have the heavy load carrier Fairlane who left Shanghai on 12th July and came here via the Suez Canal.

That’s a long way to come for any ship and it makes me wonder what it was that she was bringing in.

At North West River we hit a temporary setback. My contact isn’t answering his telephone so that rules out my accommodation and my project for tomorrow, which is a disaster.

Not only that, the B&B in the town is fully-booked up.

The motel has a room, but it requires me to drive all the way back to Goose Bay to pick up the key as the unit here is unstaffed. And the girl at reception is particularly unhelpful.

So badger that for a gale of soldiers. A quick telephone call (thanks, Josée for the ‘phone) conjures up a bed in a B&B in Happy Valley, at a price rather less than the motel. I can do that so I cancel the motel room.

But it’s frightfully posh in here – way out of my league. The spare toilet rolls in the bathroom have hats on.

I’m more used to the kind of place where you can “spit on the deck and call the cat a b@$t@rd” as you know, but beggars can’t be choosers, not by any stretch of the imagination

At least I can use the microwave here, so it’s beans, sausages and spuds for tea. And then an early night.

I’m whacked!

Monday 11th September 2017 – WHILE I WAS SITTING …

… down drinking my coffee after breakfast, there was a tap on the door. Funny sense of humour, this guy here has.

But seriously, “come on – the wind has changed. Put your gear on!”.

So dressed in my flotation jacket and sea boots, I waddled down to the waterside and fell into the boat – which, I suppose, is better than falling out of it.

The tide was quite high up and so there wasn’t much difficulty in leaving here, even though we had an extra passenger.

A local Inuit woman had come along as a guide and to tell me a little about where we are going.

The sea wasn’t as rough as it might have been and so we could go comparatively far out to sea, and we made good time too.

Away in the distance just here is Main Tickle, which we saw yesterday from up on the top of Flagstaff Hill.

That was a summer fishing station used by people from the nearby winter settlements for fishing for cod and salmon.

However, there has been a cod moratorium since 1992 and salmon fishing is limited today.

Instead of catching barrel after barrel in an unlimited supply, people are allowed to catch just four per year and you aren’t going to make a living out of that.

Further down the coast is another summer fishing station.

This is North River and it was formerly a permanent settlement. However it was one of the places that fell victim to the controversial resettlement programme.

Most people moved to Cartwright and just come out here when time and conditions allow.

And here I am, with my feet ashore.

After much binding in the marsh and many vicissitudes, I’ve finally made it out this morning to the Porcupine Strand.

It has the nickname of “Wonderstrand” or “Wunderstrand” because, believe me, it is wonderful, but it also has another claim to fame.

If you were to read the Norse sagas about the voyages to “Vinland” you’ll read several very good descriptions about the areas to whch they sail.

The Norse make several references to the beautiful, long white sandy beaches here – the Furdustrandir – that so impressed them.

They also refer to a prominent cape to the north, and to the south they mention a great many inlets and islands.

A quick look at maps and aerial photographs will identify many sites that appear to correspond to the description that they give.

But in my opinion there’s one place that stands out above all of the others.

I have said for a long time that the 50-odd kilometre stretch of beach known as the “Porcupine Strand” fits all of the descriptions that I have seen.

It has been one of my lifetime’s ambitions to come here, and so regardless of the expense, I’ve chartered a boat, a driver, an Inuit guide and here I am.

I probably won’t ever have another chance to come out here, and I shudder to think how much it’s going to cost me, but ask me if I care.

It’s a once-in-a-lifetime chance and I wasn’t going to miss out.

as I said earlier, there was formerly a permanent settlement out here.

And where there has been a permanent settlement there was inevitably a cemetery, and so it is with North River.

This was another place that I was keen to visit while we were out here and so my guide took me along

Many years ago, I read a discussion about the Labrador coast. A Finnish anthropologist called Vaino Tanner who carried out research on the Labrador coast in the late 1930s had claimed that a small child had been killed in a Labrador village by a pack of dogs.

His critics hotly disputed that. They were insisting that dogs just wouldn’t do this kind of thing.

And so enlarge the photograph here by clicking on it, have a read, and make up your own mind.

But as I have been saying before, the Spanish Influenza epidemic that hit the Labrador coast in November 1918 was said to have killed off 10% of the population.

Here in North River Cemetery are the graves of a considerable number of people, many members of the same families, who died in November 1918.

While there is no evidence here to confirm that they died in the epidemic, the dates of death and their family relationships are very suggestive.

This is the grave of Isaac Lemare. And if you notice carefully, his cross is different from the other contemporary crosses and heis buried outside the limits of the cemetery.

The thought that went through my head was that maybe with a name like Isaac, he was of the Jewish faith and so was not entitled to the benefits of “consecrated ground”.

My guide however did suggest a couple of other reasons why he might have been so buried and I’ve really no definite idea.

This isn’t actually in the cemetery but on the headland overlooking the sea.

You will have noticed the number of people called Davis whom we have been encountering on our travels around Cartwright.

This monument is to Charles Davis, who is said to have come over here from Wales and was the father of the “clan”.

So back on the boat and out to sea again.

And although this photograph doesn’t represent what it is that you see with your own eyes, you’ll notice clearly the beach and how bright it looks from a good way offshore.

Anyone passing by this way would immediately notice the whiteness of the sand, and this is another justification of my theory.

The Norse sagas make much about a prominent headland in the vicinity of the furdustrandir and there’s at least one reference to a keel-shape.

I’m not quite sure that you’ll find any more prominent keel-shaped headland than this anywhere along any coast.

It’s an island though, and the sagas make no reference to that.

On our way back we took a little diversion out to what at one time was one of the largest outlying settlements on the island and where my driver spent many happy summers as a kid.

And when I stood up to take a photograph my hat flew off with the wind into the sea.

However, a keen-eyed guide and a boathook came to the rescue and I was restored to my headgear.

This is _ or was – the settlement of Pack’s Harbour. Over there are said to be the bunkhouses of the “stationers”.

These were the people who came over from Newfoundland in the summer to live on the island to fish.

There would be three kinds of people out here – the “floaters” who lived on their schooners, and the “stationers” who would be dropped off for the summer by the coastal boats such as the Kyle and the Ethie

The third class of people would be the “liveyers” – the ones that lived permanently on the Labrador coast.

Some would be permanent residents throughout the year, which was a pretty grim way of doing things.

But most would live in winter quarters on the mainland where they could attend their trap lines in winter and come here to their cabine for the fishing in the summer.

That little red building over there – that was the village store.

And seeing as how there was a “Fequet” listed on the censuses here for 1935 and that he had a “servant”, it’s a fair bet to say that the store was one of those operated by the Fequets.

My driver told me numerous stories of going in there for “candy bars” when he was a kid.

And so after a really good sail around for almost three hours, we set our sails … “you mean “our outboard motors” – ed … for home.

We managed that without being sunk or marooned, and once I divested myself of my marine equipment I came in here for a coffee … and somehow don’t remember much for an hour or so.

After lunch I was out for another hour or two. But I blame that on all of the exercise, the sea air and the fact that I’d had a restless night – and I fell down the steps in the caravan going to the bathroom in the middle of the night, which didn’t help much either.

TOTGA was there though- she was having a row with her boyfriend, and so was Terry. He had a pile of stuff that he wanted to givee me and was talking about having to empty his van, so when I went out of my front door (we were in Shavington by the way) it was all piled up against the wall of the front of the house – several really heavy ornately-carved pieces of furniture and I had no idea how I was going to move them or where I was going to put them.
But the worst thing of it all was that going down a hill in Caliburn, someone in a light grey large Nissan hatchback of the 1980s overtook a line of traffic and collided head-on with Caliburn. We both stopped, but he reversed, gave me a cheeky wave and drove off. I gave chase but lost him in the traffic. Caliburn wasn’t too badly damaged, but more badly-damaged than my liking.

Things didn’t get much better during the afternoon either. The propane tank ran dry and left me without heating, and then the electricity blew a fuse while I was cooking tea.

Rummaging around with a solar torch in an electrical compartment in the cold was not my idea of fun.

In the end, with everything working, I went to bed. It had been a long day.

Sunday 10th September 2017 – HAVING FALLEN …

… asleep listening to the radio yet again, I stayed asleep until about 05:30 and remember very little – including where I went to during the night. I know that I went somewhere though – but not quite where.

Something did disturb me though – I’m sure that I heard the siren of a large ship. It might have been Northern Ranger on her way to Black Tickle – if so, I’ll see her when she comes back later. (In fact that was her return trip – she’d gone out on Saturday).

It looks as if it might be a nice day for later, so I enjoyed the sunlight while eating my porridge.

But it didn’t though. Apparently there was a howling gale blowing outside and small boats weren’t leaving the harbour. That put paid to the whole reason why I’m here.

Just 10 kms away across the mouth of Sandwich Bay is a huge stretch of white sand – the Porcupine Strand. Having studied the Norse Sagas of Vinland and also having studied several maps, my theory is that these sands are excellent candidates for the Furdustrandir – the magnificent white beach that they saw on their travels.

It’s long been my ambition to go there, and this was the plan. But, unfortunately, not today. And I am as malade as a perroquet, as a French footballer might say.

But it can’t be helped, and there are plenty of things to see here in Cartwright – not the least of which being to spend more time sorting out the back of Strider which has once more become totally disturbed after all of the roads that we have driven over just recently.

First place to visit is the cemetery. In there is buried Garnett Lethbridge. He died in in the influenza epidemic of November 1918.

His claim to fame is that he encountered a certain young Clarence Birdseye who was trying to run a fur farm out at Muddy Bay. Lethbrodge showed Birdseye a technique that he knew about the rapid freezing of food which was practised here.

Birdseye made copious notes and when his fur farm failed, went back south and commercialised the technique, making millions.

But Lethbridge received an unmarked, pauper’s grave here in the Cartwright cemetery, along with dozens of others who perished in the epidemic.

Not all influenza victims are buried in unmarked graves though.

I have no evidence to suggest that John and Elizabeth Hamel were victims of the influenza outbreak but their ages (31 and 23) and dates of death (10th and 14th November 1918) are certainly suggestive.

These seem to be the only headstones from that period.

Pride of place – if that’s the correct turn of phrase to use – in the cemetery must go to this monument.

George Cartwright was the founder of the town in the late 18th Century and it is thanks to him that the area developed.

He’s not buried in there but back in the UK but nevertheless his niece thought it important that some kind of monument should be set up in the town to commemorate his exploits.

Famous names there are a-plenty in the cemetery, but none more famous than John Lethbridge there on the right. He’s much better associated with the town of Paradise River, being one of the first Europeans to settle there.

He was a tinsmith from Devon and when a salmon-canning plant was opened at Paradise River, he was recruited by the Pinson and Noble and later the Hunt and Henley companies to work in the canning factories.

He married a Metisse girl (half Welsh, half Iroquois-Micmak) and all of the (numerous) Lethbridges and many other families can trace their ancestry back to him.

When the Hudsons Bay Company took over Hunt and Henley in 1873 and closed down the canning plant, Lethbridge was so bitter that he refused to have any dealings with them.

And on his deathbed ordered that all of his possessions, including his boat, should be burnt so as not to fall into the hands of the company, much to the chagrin of his son who had travelled 40 miles on foot to rescue them..

While I was up at the cemetery, my musings were interrupted by this manoeuvre.

Seeing a helicopter take off is not an unusual sight, but seeing one take off with a load slung underneath it is an unusual sight for someone from the less-isolated parts of the world.

It’s an expensive way of transporting goods, to be sure,

We mentioned George Cartwright just now.

That huge rock there, Caribou Rock, marks the limit of Cartwright’s concession of land, and it was just there that he had his home, which he named “Caribou Castle”.

Nothing remains now, unfortunately, and there’s not even a sign to tell you about the place.

One of the big rivals to the Hudson’s Bay Company in the area was the company known as Fequet’s.

According to the sign on their premises they’ve been going since 1800 but that was in various outstations around Sandwich Bay. They came to Cartwright in 1918 but they aren’t going any more.

The place is closed down, locked up and up for sale – the end of yet another epoch in history.

Returning to our explorations, A trip out of the back of town brings me to Flagstaff Hill, and you can see why it earns its name.

And the painted stones to mark the footpath are painted in the colours of Labrador. We have blue for the water, green for the forest and white for the snow, all of which there is plenty in Labrador.

The Labrador flag consists of all three colours in horizontal bands, with a green twig with three branches to represent the three communities – Innu, Inuit and European.

We’e back to George Cartwright again, aren’t we?

He made his fortune here in Sandwich Bay but before he could cash in on his profits the bay was raided by American privateers and, quite naturally, he was the target.

He lost almost everything and, as a result, he arranged for two cannon to be installed up here to guard the entrance to the bay

The view from up here is tremendous and you can see why Cartwright chose this area to be his headquarters.

The bay is deep and sheltered by a couple of large islands that protect it from the fury of the onshore winds.

And if the wind up here just now is anything to go by, I can fully appreciate why we didn’t go to sea today in an open boat because it’s devastating even here.

Over there on the left of the image, thanks to the zoom lens, is the former settlement and now summer fishing station of Main Tickle – a ‘Tickle” being a sheltered stretch of water.

And way, way behind it to the right and in the far distance are the Porcupine Strands – the Furdustrandir in my opinion, where we should have gone today had the weather been any better.

But unless something dramatic happens, then this is a close to them as I am going to be, I reckon. We need good weather and the right tide and we don’t have either right now.

But not to be outdone – the guy here needs to go out to Muddy Bay up the coast so I seize the opportunity to tag along for the ride.

It’s quite sheltered all the way up there, although you might not think so from looking at the photograph, and so equipped with flotation jackets and sea gear and all of that, off we set.

I feel like,Captain Birds Eye dressed like this, but where I’m going to find him I truly have no idea.

Muddy Bay was another thriving little settlement along the coast and even at one time had its own trading post (which might have been a “Fequet’s”).

But the Resettlement Programme cleared it out and the inhabitants were moved out to Cartwright.

There are still a few cabins here, but these are used as summer fishing cabins. No salmon, and no cod either. Restrictions are so tight on the quantities of these that can be taken. Today it’s mainly trout.

But my interest in Muddy Bay is much more bizarre than that.

After the Influenza epidemic, Sandwich Bay was left with a pile of orphan children who had lost both their parents. An orphanage was built for them here at Muddy Bay

That concrete wall over there behind the cabin is all that remains of the orphanage today. Like most places in North America, it burnt down.

And so after circling around the bay and nearly being sunk by a minke whale that surfaced just by our boat (and I didn’t have the camera ready) we head back into Cartwright.

I may not have been to the Furdustrandir but I’ve done all that I can do about it – no-one can arrange the weather – and I’ve been able to see at least something on my list that is inaccessible by road.

A mug of coffee to warm me up and then more baked potato, vegan sausages and the rest of the beans for tea.

Not to mention a little “rest” for ten minutes or so. I’ve had a hard day today.

Now it’s bed-time. Tomorrow is another day and we’ll see what that has in store for me.

Saturday 9th September 2017 – I AWOKE WITH …

… a start this morning when the alarm went off – to such an extent that reaching out for the telephone I knocked everything onto the floor. And that made more noise than the alarm did.

I can see me being really popular at breakfast later.

But at least it shows you just how comfortable my bed is. That really was a good night.

During the night I’d been on my travels too but don’t ask me where too. Waking up like that, it had all gone completely out of my head … “well, not that there’s much to stop it, is there?” – ed.

For breakfast I sampled the local delights. Partridgeberry jam and cloudberry (bakeapple) jam. Bakeapple jam is apparently the thing out here and people go wild for it, with the berries fetching as much as $80 per gallon due to their scarcity and the very short growing season. But to me, the jam tasted of cheese and I much preferred the partridgeberry jam.

My landlady tells me that she is half M’iqmak on her father’s side and also on her mother’s side too. And that the precious metals prospectors who I met here in 2014 did actually find enough to make exploitation a profitable enterprise, but they can’t raise the capital to start – something that totally surprised me.

After breakfast I did some work on the laptop and then I went off to explore the village.

I’ve been past here on the main road on several occasions as you know, but I’ve only ever stopped for petrol at the garage up on top of the hill.

I’ve never ever taken the time to come off the road and go for a look around.

I was surprised at just how big the town is. There may not be a great number of people living here but it certainly covers a lot of ground.

Down there is the fuel oil store for the harbour and, presumably, the residents.

I hadn’t realised that the harbour was so far out of town – in the opposite direction to the main road.

I drove right the way through the town (and that took a while as I said) and to the quayside.

And at the quayside I fell in with a couple of locals. They told me much of what I needed to know.

Most importantly, this is indeed the quayside where the coastal boats used to tie up and also where the commercial boats used to tie up.

And coastal boats-a-plenty used to come here in the olden days.

Port Hope Simpson is a comparatively modern town and, surprisingly, it wasn’t due to the Resettlement programme but for commercial considerations.

Just like many towns that we have visited in Quebec in the past, Port Hope Simpson was founded as a lumber town, with the aim of exploiting the natural resources of the area.

A survey in the 1930s revealed that the area had a huge potential for the exploitation of timber products.

A really impressive deep, natural harbour was an added bonus and so a small town was created to house the workers who came to exploit the forest.

Unfortunately, the timber exploitation did not last as long as it might have done. By 1968 Bowaters had gone but in 1956 the first of the resettlers had arrived

They had come from the community of Kerry Cove which was abandoned. And other resettlers followed on subsequently from other isolated communities.

Port Hope Simpson is situated on the Alexis River, and it’s certainly one of the most beautiful places to be in the whole of southern Labrador.

And that’s saying something because there are many beautiful places around here as you know. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall having visited plenty of them with me in the past

And I might be lucky with the weather too – the sun is doing its best to peek out from behind the clouds. We might even have a nice day.

Lucky with the weather we might be – but lucky with the roads – well, I’ll let you decide that. It all depends upon which side of the fence you are sitting.

But you’ll notice that a great deal of work seems to be going on right now on the highway and there are work crews about in many places.

In five years time travelling this road will be a completely different prospect, and I can’t help thinking that this will be a bad idea, although of course this is written from the point of view of someone who doesn’t have to battle with the natural environment 365 days per year.

There’s a quarry a little further up the road and they are digging out loads of rock.

And so they have a whole fleet of these huge dump trucks fetching the rocks down to the stone crusher.

Why they can’t move the stone crusher to the quarry is something that bewilders me. That would make far more sense, for the stone would only have to be moved by road once.

So here we are again, at the time-zone changing point.

I can understand why Newfoundland would have a time zone all of its own (but not one of 3 hours and 30 minutes) but I could never understand why only part of the mainland – and a small part of that – followed Newfoundland time and not Atlantic time.

That was how come I had MY FERRY ISSUES IN 2010 – because I hadn’t realised this.

Mind you – in a couple of years time there will be a sign up at Dover “You are entering the United Kingdom. Adjust your clock by subtracting 150 years”.

After a while we cross the Paradise River Eastern Arm – something which implies that there’s a western arm somewhere.

I would have expected it to have been flowing towards the sea, which is to the east, but in fact it’s flowing to the west i.e. inland, and that’s something that causes more than a little confusion.

I suppose that it goes in a great big loop round inland and then doubles back on itself and into Sandwich Bay.

After lunch, which I take at the Transport Department’s snowplough store and where I’m attacked by a swarm of blackfly, I turn off onto the Metis Trail and Cartwright.

There’s a few things that I need to do at Paradise River, and then I’m going to Cartwright.

I’ve not been to Cartwright since MY JOURNEY IN 2010 my journey in 2010 and I have an outstanding project to attend to there too, about which you’ll discover as you read on.

When the sun comes out from behind a cloud the view is really nice here.

It’s not quite lighting up the mountains as much as I would like or as much as we have seen in the past, but that can’t be helped I suppose. It’s still beautiful.

And I’m lucky that I made it here at all given my health issues.

According to a Pilots’ Handbook that I downloaded from the internet (and I make no apologies for the spelling) –

“There is important and usefull airport in Paradise River. It is important for people and goverment of Canada.
Paradise River Aerodrome is the most important airport of Paradise River, Newfoundland And Labrador, Canada.
It is modern and one of the largest airport of the North America. Paradise River Aerodrome is important for people and goverment of Canada.”

What more can anyone say?

Happy landing

Down to our usual spot right at the end of the road to see what’s happening.

According to legend, the entrepreneur George Cartwright was one of the first Europeans to come here and when he arrived, on 27th June 1775, he was so captivated by its beauty that he gave it its name.

And you can understand that, can’t you?

Paradise River was one of the largest settlements in this area, and certainly the largest in Sandwich Bay, but it was devastated by the Spanish Influenza outbreak of November 1918.

The Reverend Gordon, minister at Cartwright, wrote in 1918 that “Paradise (River), once the largest settlement in the Bay, is a veritable city of the dead”

Today, just a handful of families cling on, although there are several summer fishing cabins.

One of the reasons for visiting the place again was to look for the cemetery to see the victims of the Influenza epidemic and to see if anyone from the 1945 census was in here

The cemetery took some finding and I had to rely on a very vocal local yokel to point me in the right direction.

Here lie Maud and Robert Mesher (Mesher is one of the “big” names of this region) who, according to the census, had 6 children in 1945.

The cemetery, despite being really overgrown and quasi-abandoned, is quite modern. And despite a great amount of searching I couldn’t find an older one.

Subsequent enquiries revealed that it’s across on the other side of the river and there’s no way of crossing if you don’t happen to have a boat handy.

Next stop – in fact the end of the road – is the town of Cartwright. And while I was taking this photograph, a funny thing happened.

Malcolm the Mountie and a friend pulled up alongside me.
“Have you come from the Highway?”
“As a matter of fact I have”
“Did you see anyone walking along the road just now?”
As it happened, I did, and so the Mountie asked me to describe him – and so I did.
The Mountie broke out into a big, beaming smile, shook my hand (he really did, too!), leapt back into his pickup (I was rather disappointed that he didn’t have a komatic) and shot off down the road towards the highway.

Cartwright is looking sadder and more derelict than I remembered, which is a shame, and I noticed something straight away as I entered town that filled me with foreboding – the big hotel has gone, and the petrol station opposite has closed down.

Like most things in Canada, the hotel has been the victim of a fire – in 2011 so I was told, and the petrol station, run by the same owners, closed down when the owners moved away.

There’s another motel in town right on the docks – where I stayed last time that I was here – but doors wide open, stuff lying around, and as deserted as the Marie Celeste. The girl in the supermarket tracked down the owner and told me to go back and wait.

Eventually, after quite a while, she turned up. But she needn’t have bothered. She could have told the girl on the telephone that the motel was fully-booked. And with Cartwright now being abandoned and off the beaten track since the new road has been built, there’s no-one else in town offering accommodation.

So that was me snookered.

But not quite.

There’s a place across the bay that does these tailor-made adventure tours and they have some kind of accommodation over there. This is, would you believe, the place that I’m looking for anyway and so I went hot-foot over there.

So now I’m installed at an astonishing price in a caravan on the site of this adventure tour place, across the bay from the town.

It’s dark outside and rhe view across the bay to the town is quite spectacular.

As for me, I eating baked potatoes, beans and vegan sausages (at least the kitchen is worth something) and tomorrow I might have some good news, depending on the weather.

Right now though, I’m off to bed.

Friday 8th September 2017 – I HAD A …

…disturbed night last night – hardly surprising seeing as I knew that I needed to be up early.

But that didn’t stop me from going on my travels during the night, such as they were.

I was playing in a rock group and to be honest we weren’t much good – but what worked for us was that we were backing a Bruce Forsyth-kind of character who knew how to entertain the crowds and keep them in suspense as long as possible – hiding in the wings until the climax of the musical accompaniment and then sending on the cleaner or someone like that.

But by 05:30 I had made a conscious decision to rouse myself, pack, and eat my breakfast. Especially the last bit, seeing as it was included. Toast, cornflakes (with my own soya milk) orange juice and, eventually, once I had figured out the machine, coffee.

And much to my surprise I had a phone call. WhatsApp clearly works because Ingrid phoned me for a brief chat and it was nice to hear her voice.

It was only 15 minutes to the ferry terminal and I was second in the queue. So I was soon paid up and down on the quayside.

Apollo came in and, poor thing, she’s looking even sadder an older than she did last time that I was aboard.

47 years old she is now. Surely she can’t go on much longer. But there are no plans to replace her and with the Sir Robert Bond having been sold for scrap, she has to keep going regardless now.

There is, apparently, a type of fish called an “Arctic Char” but I’m imagining a kind of fish dressed in a fur coat that comes round to clean your cabin.

You can still see the signs on the ship written in Finnish and Estonian in the passenger compartment.

This shows you how long it is since Apollo has had a full refit. Even the power sockets are old European 230-volt.

The high winds meant that it was quite a rough crossing – the roughest that I have ever experienced on the Straits of Belle Isle – with the odd crash and bang as we collided with an iceberg or a walrus.

But that doesn’t bother me in the slightest. But there was one guy who was leaning over the rail.
“The trouble with you” I said “is that you have a weak stomach”.
“Rubbish” he retorted. “I’m throwing it as far as everyone else”.

And there’s a young girl on board who is the spitting image of an 11 year old Ginny Weasley starting Hogwarts. I had to look twice to make sure. She and her family were off to “Labby”, which is Labrador City apparently.

I was actually second off the boast when we arrived, which is something of a record.

I made a prominent note of that

But the weather was foul when we arrived. High gusting winds, a typical Labrador mist and it was doing its best to rain down upon us but somehow holding off for the moment.

Not as bad as 2014 but not far off.

As you know, I’ve been to Blanc Sablon on many occasions, but for some reason I’ve never taken any photos of the town.

Last year I’d made out a list of things to do next time I was here, and photographing the place was high on the list.

And so I parked up Strider and went for a little stroll around the town

The area was given its name by Jacques Cartier when he came here on one of his voyages of discovery in the 1530s.

No-one is certain though as to whether it refers to the “Blanc Sablon” which is near his home port of St Malo (just across the bay from where I live) or whether it really dos refer to the white sands that are found here.

And the bay here is another possible site for the elusive “Vinland” of the Norse voyagers.

Regular readersof this rubbis will recall that the area is quite controversial too.

It’s actually in the Province of Quebec but an isoltaed part that is cut off from the rest of the Province, and is known by locals as “the Forgotten Coast”.

They claim that because it’s English-speaking here and so isolated, they are (deliberately) starved of resources, and there is a movement afoot to secede from Quebec and join up with Labrador.

We have to have the obligatory photograph to say that we have arrived, don’t we?

I joined the queue, because it seems to be an obligatory thing these days to take your photograph here, rather like the place that we visited in Monument Valley in 2002.

Strider is of course very photogenic as you might expect. Strawberry Moose would have gone out too but the weather was atrocious and you wouldn’t put a dog out in this, never mind a moose.

Another thing on my “to do” list was to sort out the confusion over the churches in Forteau. And so I went in search of the aforementioned.

There were two that I discovered, and this is the Forteau United Church. I did not, however, discover the Forteau City Church. That must be somewhere else completely.

I must make further enquiries.

Before they started to build the coastal road network in the 1950s, access between the villages was by coastal path.

Nothing had changed here for 200 years since the early settlers and merchants had arrived in the 1740s.

This is the coastal path between Forteau and l’Anse au Clair – the next town to the south. It’s closed these days though because of erosion and landslips.

Way over there in the distance across Forteau Bay (thanks to the telephoto lens and a little digital enhancement) is the lighthouse at Point Amour.

We were there, as you may remember, on our travels in October 2010 when we went to inspect the shipwrecks.

There are the remains of two Royal Navy ships out there – the HMS Lily which ran aground in the 1870s and the HMS Raleigh which ran aground in the early 1920s.

Quite a lot of other ships have come to grief there two, including two in one day in 1941.

Forteau actualy consists today of two separate villages in the past.

Here is the site of Buckle’s Point. It’s on the South Side of the river and it’s where the Channel Islanders under de Quetteville settled.

Today though, the modern village has settled a little further round the bay to the south.

The English settled on the north side of the river andtheir settlement was rather imaginatively called “English Point”.

Today, though, it’s more like the suburbs of Forteau because all of the commercial activity takes place on the south side of the river

Very few people actually stop here and the area is quite often overlooked, just as I am doing right now.

We’ve talked … “at great length” – ed … about the Muskrat Falls and the distribution system that takes the generated current under the Strait of Belle Isle.

When I was looking into it, I noticed that Valard – the company that is doing all of the work – had applied for planning permission to build a quay at the site of their subterranean cable in order to offload their own materials.

And so I went in search of the aforementioned – and although I was locked out of the site, with a little judicious manipulation I was able tohave a butcher’s.

But it doesn’t look big enough to be an alternative landing stage for Apollo if Quebec bans the company from the port at Blanc Sablon.

The Province of Newfoundland and Labrador has a history of grand projects that somehow never seem to come to fruition even though a great deal of money is thrown at them

.Here at Capstan Island a great deal of noise was made about a farm and greenhouses that had been installed on the edge of townand it was even listed as a tourism site where people could come to visit.

Today though, it would be a waste of time to visit because it’s all closed down and abandoned. Part of it has collapsed and all of the roofs have gone.

And as a visitor venue – it’s “closed to visits”.

So much for that then;

When I came here in 2010 I told you that a section of the road that followed the Pinware River was one of the most beautiful that I had driven.

In 2014 however, I noticed that they had by-passed the road with a modern highway over the mountains and that this section had been abandoned.

And so I decided that I would do my best to follow the road round today and see how it was doing and to show you what you have missed.

“This Highway is no longer maintained by the Department of Transport. You drive this road at your own risk” said a notice.

And they were right too. Part of the road has been washed out and it was something of a struggle to findmy way around the obstructions.

But this is why I bought Strider, and quite right too. He made short work of this stretch of highway as long as we took it easy.

And it was well-worth it too.

After the recent rainstorms the Pinware River was in spate and the famous rapids were really impressive today.

The noise was deafening and so I took a little video of it from closer in. When I find a decent internet connection I’ll upload it.

I mentioned the new road just now.

Once I rejoined the main road I took a photo of the new route up over the top of the hills.

I remember watching a large artic struggle up there in first gear back in 2014 and remember wondering what was going through the minds of the planners when they re-routed heavy vehicles up there.

This mountain pass isquite significant because once we pass through it and out the other side, we are at the coast.

Red Bay and its famous 16th-Century Basque whaling station is just the other side.

But for some reason this path always reminds me of somewhere in Scotland and I can’t remember where it is.

First thing to do at Red Bay is of course to go and check to see how the MV Bernieris getting on.

She was delivering coal here one November in the 1930s when she broke free from her moorings during a storm and was driven across the bay onto the rocks of Saddle Island.

And here she sits today, looking sadder and sadder as more and more weather takes its toll.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that Red Bay has an exciting claim to fame.

A student was researching the history of Basque whaling in North America when she came across a whole pile of legal documents from the 16th Century relating to a dispute between a whaling captain and his financial backer over the loss of a couple of whaling ships.

The losses were described in such detail that she reckoned that it would be possible to identify the site of the whaling station from aerial photography.

Accordingly, she pored over thousands of photographs and maps, until she came across one covering Red Bay – and then the light went on.

She came over here to do fieldwork and found, in the spot where she reckoned one of the buildings to be, some red roofing tiles of a type unknown in North America but quite common in 16th Century Northern Spain.

She even rediscovered the cemetery where several sailors and other workers had been buried.

But the best was yet to come;

The story told how one of the ships had been gripped by a sudden storm in November, driven across the bay and wrecked on Saddle Island;

This sounded so much like the story of the Bernier that she went and looked where the Bernierhad come to rest. And sure enough – the Bernier was sitting on top of a 16th Century Basque whaling vessel.

All in all, several Basque ships were lost in the Bay and most have been identified.

Furthermore, they even discovered a Basque rowing boat that had sunk at the shore and because of the cold peaty water that was still in a surprisingly good condition.

That has been recovered and is on display in the museum here.

The road north from Red Bay is in my opinion one of the worst sections of the Trans-Labrador Highway – and that’s saying something.

It wasn’t opened until 1992 – prior to that, access was only by ship – and it looked at one time as if the road had never ever been maintained since the day that it was built.

But it won’t be like that for much longer because they are making headway with the road improvements that they had started in 2014 are well advanced.

And so our drive north is punctuated by sights such as these.

Diggers and graders, and lorry-loads of gravel being brought to the site.

And compactors too. We mustn’t forget tham. When I was on the Trans-Labrador Highway in 2010 I saw a grand total of two. There were two compactors working on this little stretch of highway.

But it’s not all like that. There are sections of the Labrador Coastal Drive that bring back many happy memories. So much so that on two occasions I had Strider going sideways.

He’s rear-wheel drive and relatively lightly-loaded and so the rear end hops around everywhere. So hit a bump or a pothole at the wrong angle and off you go, and you have to struggle to regain control.

I bet that the driver of the car coming towards me on one occasion had to stop and change his underwear;

But just look at this!

This is why they are carrying out all of the groundwork here. The aim is to asphalt all of the highway from Red Bay to Goose Bay. Such are the “benefits” that the Muskrat Falls and the power of Valard Construction have brought to the Coasts of Labrador.

And before anyone says anything, I do realise that i’m a tourist looking at things from my own perspective. I don’t have to live here in the depths of winter.

After acouple of mileswe have the double-tracked asphalt and I can set the cruise control accordingly.

But we can also see that they are realigning the road. Where the road runs through a cutting, it’s often impassible in winter because the snow drifts in and packs tight. It becomes a real engineering job to move it.

Going over the top means that the snow will be loose and blowy, and thus easier to move with a snowplough.

We don’t stay on the asphalt for long though. We’re soon back in the gravel.

And I’m soon driving over Lodge Bay too. I’ve been past here several times as you know but for some reason or other i’ve never ever stopped to take a photograph of the place.

Not that there’s too much to see of course, because it’s only a small place. In fact, had it not been on the direct route of the Labrador Coastal Drive, it’s likely that it too would have fallen victim to the Province’s resettlement programme.

But this is what you are faced with around here. In severe weather they simply close the road and that’s that.

If you are a traveller and are confronted with the closed gate, you simply park up, build yourself an igloo and go off hunting seal until the Spring.

After all, if you are the kind of person who is in a hurry, you shouldn’t be out around here in Labrador anyway. It’s not for the type of person who has a timetable or an agenda.

Another place that was high on my list of places to visit was Mary’s Harbour.

I’d been here before in 2010 but had been sidetracked by the fact that I had forgotten the change of time zone just up the road so I had lost half an hour.

Not a good plan when you have a ferry to catch and plenty of other things to do, so I couldn’t hang around too much.

Mary’s Harbour is another one of these “resettlement points” but its history goes back much farther than Joey Smallwood.

Outside just off the coast is the island of Battle Harbour and at one time this was the most important place on the whole of the Labrador coast.

However, almost 90 years ago, like most places in Canada, Battle Harbour was the victim of fire, and almost everything on the island was destroyed.

Seeing which way the wind was likely to blow in the future (which comes as quite a surprise to most people) it was decided to abandon the island and settle somewhere else, but on the mainland close by.

Mary’s Harbour seemed like the ideal place to be, seeing as it was close by, had a deep natural harbour that stretched a good way inland and was thus sheltered from the bad weather.

And over the course of time, the inhabitants of many other coastal communities have been resettled here, often quite controversially.

But then, this is not the place to discuss the Resettlement Policy. We’ll be doing enough of that when we arrive in North West River.

Abandoning a good rant before we even start, I make tracks northwards. I’m heading for Port Hope Simpson where I hope to be able to find a bed for the night.

And sure enough, I do. Campbell’s Place is home to home-made bread, home made jams from local ingredients and,like everywhere else in the town, home to the slowest internet connection on the planet.

But there’s a single room at what passes these days for a resonable price, and the bed seems quite comfortable too. First thing is to plug in the slow cooker while I have a shower and wash my undies.

Tea is pasta, mushrooms and vegetable soup, and aren’t I glad that I spent this $14:00 on the slow cooker? Yes, i’ve just seen the prices of the takeaway food.

No internet worth talking about of course, and so I can crack on with the … good grief! … 127 photographs that I took today.

And then a lie down while I listen to the Navy Lark on the radio – and promptly fall asleep. It’s been a long day today.

and I’ve just written a new record of 3027 words too – so there!

Thursday 7th September 2017 – A COUPLE OF DAYS AGO …

… we went to visit the SS Kyle, the last of Reid’s famous “Alphabet ships” still in existence.

Today, we are going to visit another one of Reid’s Alphabet ships.

And if you are wondering how that might be possible seeing as I said that there’s only the SS Kyle left, then that’s the SS Ethie just there

Or, at least, all that remains of her, poor thing.

One bad night in 1919 she was running her usual route up and down the Strait of Belle Isle when she found herself in serious difficulty due to hurricane-force winds and ice build-up on the decks.

The weather was far too bad for launching lifeboats so the captain took a calculated risk of running her aground so that at least the passengers and crew might have a chance of saving themselves.

The captain’s decision doubtless saved the lives of many of the people on board, but it spelt the end of the SS Ethie

And here she sits, or rather, what’s left of her does.

98 years she’s been there, being looted and pillaged, tossed about on the waves and smashed to pieces on the rocks by the storms.

It won’t be long before there’s nothing left of her at all.

Part of the Newfoundland folklore has it that a brave dog risked his life to save several passengers from the ship, but that’s never ever been substantiated.

In fact it was not mentioned as part of the story at the time and no eyewitnesses to the rescue remember the dog. It seems to have been something that was tacked on several years later.

Consequently, historians tend to discount it as being nothing more than a journalistic embellishment.

Meanwhile, last night I went to bed fairly early and slept the Sleep Of The Dead.

Not quite so dead that I didn’t go off on one of my nocturnal rambles, but I don’t remember very much at all about it.

I was with some girl and we were waiting in a van in a street that was very narrow but which broadened out quite considerable further down. We were actually outside a dingy hotel which was displaying its price in some kind of illuminated scroll sign like an old bus route display. The price was 29 of whatever the currency was and we knew that it changed to 39 every so often but on this occasion the scroll broke and there was just the light. We knew what happened of course, and we decided to go in for some reason. The bar was crowded and we fought our way to a table but almost immediately decided not to stay so we fought our way out. I was carrying a few bags and knocking people with them and this led to some very sharp words. Outside, I’d lost my partner so I thought that I had better hurry back to the van, but I needed to visit the bathroom. But did I have time? Was it better to go to meet my companion first? Should we get in the van and drive away first?

Of course it was then that I awoke. And no surprises as to where I went.

surprisingly, I actually managed to beat the alarm by 30 seconds too, which was good news. I’m becoming quite lax in my old age.

While porridge was cooking I finished off a few things that needed attention and after breakfast went out to attack the long-promised tidying-up session that I had been promising myself.

But no such luck today. We were engulfed in a torrential downpour the like of which I haven’t seen for quite a while. And to add insult to injury, I left the slow cooker out on the porch last night and the box was just a soggy mass of cardboard.

That’s upset me.

In a brief dry spell, while the clouds had gone back to fetch more supplies, I nipped over to hand back the key.

The verdict on the Lush’s Cabins was that it was pretty expensive for one person, but a family of four, if they could have the same deal, would do well.

It’s old and tired, but everything works like it’s supposed to and that makes a change in a place like this.

You’d need to enjoy each other’s company though, because you aren’t actually spoiled for entertainment in the vicinity.

W’ve travelled down this road on several occasions so there aren’t going to be many photographs.

You’ll need to look for the entries for October 2010, September 2014 and September 2015 to see more of them.

But I didn manage to stop and take one or two, despite the lousy weather.

My route takes me northwards through the Gros Morne National Park, which is certainly one of the most spectacular places on the planet.

In the clouds and mist thought it looks quite unreal and mysterious like something out of one of these Gothic adventure films.

Hinging clouds are not a phenomenon that is unique to the Auvergne after all.

It was here though that I fellin with a yooungcouple whose footsteps were to dog me for most of the day.

I’d stopped here to take a photograph of the view up over the hill in the distance and so had they. And our paths crossed subsequently on several occasions.

But that didn’t explain the overwhelming smell of fish when I stepped out of Strider just here.

The road north hits the coast near the town of Rocky Harbour.

It’s quite a large town – or what passes for a large town around here, And it’s so surprising therefore that I’ve never actually visited it.

One day in the future I’ll have to spend a couple of weeks having a good explore all around the island.

As I was driving by St Paul’s, the beautiful scenery grabbed me … whole attention.

We’ve stopped here once before where I tok a couple of photos of the river and the bridge, but I can’t remember if I took anything of the mountains in the background.

So just in case, I poked the camera into the gloom of the torrential downpour that was still going on.

Just a few miles north at Daniel’s Harbour there are a couple of waterfalls that come cascading out of the mountains into the glaciated valley.

Having a play around with the depth-of-field on the new camera, now that I’ve found out how it works, I’ve managed to produce this photograph.

It’s come out just as I wanted it to and I’m quite pleased with this.

But what struck memore than anything else is the amount of gardening taking place.

When we’ve been around here before, we’ve seen the odd plot or two growing some sad speciments of plant life, but today, there are plots everywhere.

A great deal of fertiliser has been used by the looks of things, and the plant growth is certainly luxuriant

Just down there is the small town or village of Bellburns.

This was where I stopped forlunch – did a small amount of tidying up inside the cab of Strider and threw away my tomatoes by mistake so I had to go and rescue them.

It’s the kind of thing that I do when I’m not paying enough attention.

You probably noticed in the previous photograph the small river that ran through the edge of town.

Just here, there’s an excellent example of coastal drift in miniature.

The shingle beach is being carried northwards by the currents and winds and this has diverted the mouth of the river towards the north from its original course

Back on the road, I turn off the main road and head into Port Saunders.

First thing that I see is a ship repair yard so I call by to see if there is anything exciting happening.

There are a few people loitering around in the vicinity but nothing of any great importance seems to be happening today.

But from the previous photograph you can tell exactly what kind of town it is.

That’s right. You can’t move for fishing boats around here.

Like most places, fishing is the be-all and end-all of life on the coasts of Newfoundland and Labrador. And how these places were hit by the 1992 cod moratorium.

And so like most places, the fishermen who used to visit the Grand Banks have had to diversify.

What we have here are rowsand rows of lobster pots. And everywhere, in everyone’s garden in the vicinity, there were lobster pots far too numberous to count.

And that’s one thing that puzzles me. It must take loads of patience to train a lobster to go on one of those.

Outside the town on the way to Port-au-Choix (we’re looking back to Port Saunders right now) there were some really nice beaches if only the sun would shine.

And much to my surprise, considering that we have the Labrador Current flowing down here direct from the Arctic, the water was … errr … not too unpleasantly cold.

Too cold for me to go swimming, but then I’m nesh as we all know. Other people might be pleasantly surprised.

But Port-au-Choix is the place to be in this part of the world.

There’s a big “Foodland” supermarket on the edge of town, bigger than I’ve seen in many places

And not only that, there’s a Chinese restaurant here too, and isn’t that a novelty for North-East Newfoundland?

But then, maybe it isn’t so surprising.

In the controversial resettlement programmes under which people were “encouraged” to leave the outlying settlements and settle in approved “points of growth”, Port-au-Choix was one of the places that was approved.

Quite obviously, if you are selling the idea of “resetlement” to people on the grounds that there will be better facilities in these “points of growth”, then you need to make sure that the facilities are there.

One of the things that Port-au-Choix had going for it was a big natural, sheltered harbour.

That kind of thing is very important in a maritime community and so naturally there’s a busy port here and even a modern fish-processing plant.

No sense in encouraging “resettlement” if the people still have to travel a distance to take their fish to the processing plant. They may as well go to live there.

There was a rumour at one time that the MV Apollo – the ship that works the ferry between Newfoundland and Southern Labrador – would be replaced by a more modern ship (she is about 50 years old now) and that the new ferry service might sail out of here.

I duly went to the local Government Marine Patrol offices to find out what they knew, but they were … err … rather dismissive of my enquiry.

Wasting my time in fact.

But I can’t leave Port-au-Choix without drawing your attention to this oblect.

It’s some kind of barge or passenger ferry of some description, and by the looks of it, it’s been burnt out. And quite a while ago too, so it seems.

But I wonder what it was andhow it came to be here. And there was no-one around to ask.

I did think about asking the guy in the Marine Patrol office, but he had the air of having far more important things to attend to than to talk to me.

Going at full steam down the highway I overshot my motel and had to turn around. I upset everyone by going in the private entrance, which is always a good start.

My room looks like something out of the 1950s but the bathroom is modern and tidy. But first things first – before the shower I chuck some pasta, vegetable soup and tomato sauce in the slow cooker.

As for the internet – another night without it. You can’t expect too much here which is just as well, because that’s what I’m getting – not too much.

As long as the bed is comfortable, that’s all that I care about tonight.

Wednesday 6th September 2017 – THAT WAS SOMETHING …

… of a disturbed night last night. And I’ll tell you why in due course.

And it took the alarm to rouse me from my slumbers – and I was still there when Billy Cotton wailed out his reminder 15 minutes later.

Furthermore, I wasn’t in much of a state to do much when I awoke. Something of a difficult morning in fact.

Eventually I made it in for the inclusive breakfast. It wasn’t much of a breakfast either. It might have helped had I taken my soya milk in but I wasn’t thinking too much about that.

A little later I did manage to attack the blog and bring it up to date, as well as tidying up the room and making it look presentable. By 10:30 I was on my way.

Last night I’d made a little miscalculation. Grand Falls where I ended up was about 50 kms beyond where I wanted to me so I had to go all the way back.

I ended up back at Botwood – one of the towns that had been very high on my list of places in this part of the world, because it’s another place steeped in history of the kind that I appreciate.

The area was first officially visited in 1810 by an exploration party led by David Buchan

An early claim to fame is that it is the place of death of that last two known Beothuk natives.

had you come here even 50 years ago, the bay here would have been a hive of activity.

There were quays here and the railway brought wagon-loads of paper from the pulp mills at Grand Falls-Windsor and ore from the mines at Buchans.

But all of that has long-gone – the ore in 1984 and the paper in 2009. Nowadays they don’t have one ship per month in here.

And had you been here between 1937 and 1945 you wouldn’t have been able to move out there either.

For this was the raison d’etre of the town during this period.

It’s another one of these places that played a leading role in the development of Transatlantic flight, because the first commercial transatlantic passenger flights came into land right there.

The town, originally called Ship Cove and renamed Botwood after an early Minister, was originally tied to the sea as you might expect.

It developed a lumber business at the turn of the 20th Century and then, once the railway arrived, became a throving port.

But just after the First World War, the legendary airman Sidney Cotton – pioneer of modern aerial photography – chose Botwood as a base for his seaplane that he used for surveying and seal-spotting around the Newfoundland and Labrador coasts.

Charles Lindbergh, the “flying fool” was employed by Pan-American Airways to locate sites for the airline’s fledgling fleet of flying boats.

He and his wife flew into Botwood in 1933 having heard of Cotton’s base here. They surveyed the bay and approved its use as a base for flying boats.

As a result, Pan Am issued a contract with Boeing to develop a huge flying boat capable of flying the Atlantic, and the Boeing 314 “Clipper” was born.

In the meantime, BOAC had been doing research of its own into long-distance flight to link up the major cities of the Commonwealth. This led to the development of the “Short Empire” flying boat.

The two airlines co-operated in research for transatlantic flight, and in July 1937 the first several Transatlantic survey flights were made with the co-operation of both companies.

And in June 1939, the first regular commercial transatlantic passenger flights began. The route was Southampton – Foynes – Botwood and then either Montreal or New York.

During the Second World War, the “Empires” were requisitioned by the British military authorities and it was left to the “Clippers” and a few older Sikorsky S42 flying boats to continue the service.

In fact, somewhere out there in the area shown in one of the earlier photos, there’s a Sikorsky flying boat – a more modern VS44 named “Excalibur”.

On 3rd October 1942 she “bounced” on take-off and went under. 11 of the people on board were killed and, strange as it might be to mention it, the US military authorities are still even today searching for the bodies of the four people who are missing.

The area really came into its own during world War II.

This was when the concrete slipway was built (the big flying boats were loaded and unloaded by boat).

The British – and later the Canadian – government based a squadron of flying boats here that were used for anti-submarine defence around the north of the island.

That’s because the slow “Sydney Cape” or “SC” convoys used to assemble off Sydney and then sail up the Strait of Belle Isle and out around the north of the island.

German submarines were quite active in the area as you know from our previous discussions.

The port itself was protected by a couple of batteries of heavy artillery, of which the gunners passed what could only be a very boring war.

We actually have on display here a PBY flying boat – one of one of the types that was based here during the war.

This machine was taken out of service in the late 1980s and was donated by the Canadian Government to the town.

It’s official recognition as some kind of reminder or memorial to the role that the town played during the war in the fight against the submarines.

We talked about Excalibur a short while ago. Somewhere out there in the bay are twomore aircraft.

One of the military flying boats, a PBY Canso, crashed on landing in the bay on November 8, 1943 and seven people were killed.

A Hurricane, flying to Gander, ran out of fuel and attempted a landing on the ice. Unfortunately it broke throuh and sank, but the pilot was saved.

That out there was formerly an island. The “causeway” that links it to the mainland is an artificial causeway and dates from the Second World War.

The island itself is hollowed out and was used as a bunker or store for munitions and the like and there’s a whole series of entrances over there in the rock.

You might think that that’s enough wartime excitement for a small town like Botwood, but that’s far from the case

Probably the very first Act of War in North America took place here.

A German ore carrier, the Christoph V. Doornum was in dock here on the very day that War was declared, loading ore from Buchans to take back to Germany.

She was immediately seized by the local police, her crew arrested, and she was impressed into the British merchant fleet.

She didn’t last long though, being damaged beyond repair by a mine off Margate on 9th June 1940.

And so having “done” Botwood I drove back to Grand Falls for a look around. And there’s nothing that’s really any reminder of the importance of the town.

I did the final load of shopping (having to go into three shops before I could find a lettuce), fuelled up, and then hit the highway to drive non-stop to Deer Lake.

On my arrival I negotiated for myself another over-priced accommodation in a cabin – Lush’s cabins – in the mountains at Cormack, but not before I’d noticed another significant milestone.

Just down the road from my cabin, Strider passed over the 200,000 kilometres. So happy 200,000 kilometres, Strider.

The cabin that I’m in sleeps four and although it’s tired around the edges, it’s not too bad. Four people would have a really good time here I suppose.

All of the cooking gear is here and there’s a microwave too, so it’s potatoes, beans and bangers for tea tonight.

And then an early night because I’m whacked. In fact, I fell asleep speaking to someone on the internet.

At the start of tonight’s rubbish, I mentioned that I had had a disturbed night and that I would tell you why.

I went on a ramble last night – a ramble that lasted most of the night and I was out and about all over the place.

I started out in some kind of town – an old run-down type of place falling to pieces and I was looking for some documents for a driving test. Id been told where to go but I couldn’t remember so I accosted a local. He pointed out a few places but one was closed a few days ago and the other one had closed a few months ago. Everything was in such a derelict mess – just in fact rather like Calveley Airfield.
And then I came across a boy whom I knew who was trying to burn a load of papers – it was very important that all of these papers would be burnt. He’d put them in some kind of incinerator and closed the door but the conveyor belt wasn’t working. He was kicking a football against the door and all of a sudden there was a bang from inside the door – something like a paper bag bursting. We opened the door to see and saw the big box disappearing – the conveyor belt was now working – but there was still a load of paper, some bubble wrap and a few bits and pieces lying around. I told him that all of these needed to be removed as they had people’s addresses on them and they were visible, so he took some of the stuff and left the rest behind. The first thing that I noticed was a big file of mine about an insurance claim with my name and address clearly marked on it. I made him move it but he just took it out and dumped it on the side, which resulted in me having a huge “go” at him about this.
Round the corner was a public bar and I went in, and on the TV was England playing Norway at football. England conceded a goal after just 30 seconds. The goalkeeper for England was Viv Anderson – a full-back from the 1980s. Apparently the England goalkeeper had been injured in a previous match. This made me wonder why they didn’t have a reserve or anyone better than him because he was dreadful – running away from his goal after balls that he would never ever win. At the start of the second half Norway scored again straight away but for some reason it was disallowed. The Norway players were extremely unhappy about this. And by this time Anderson was playing like the full-back he was, rushing around over the pitch and leaving the goal empty and on a couple of occasions the other defenders had to dash back and kick balls off the line. Roy Hodgson was the England manager and he was giving vent to his feelings, but actually doing nothing about it.
By this time I was looking for somewhere to go for the toilet, but there was no toilet in this house where I was staying – just a bath and a sink. So I went out and about looking for one and couldn’t find one anywhere in the vicinity. I thought about nipping down a suitable dark alleyway but there people down there. There was a small park down the hill at the end of this football ground that might have done, but there were a couple of cars and people all around – so I just couldn’t get to go.
At this point, I awoke. and no surprises for guessing what I needed to do.

Back to bed – and who should appear in last night’s voyage but a girl whom I haven’t thought about in a long time and who is making her debut in my nocturnal rambles. Even when she was a young kid we all knew that she was going to be “something” and I can tell you a couple of stories about how we met up quite a few years later.

But going on from here, something came up that meant that I had to go to visit this house, and it was the home of her parents. I was rather embarrassed because it had been a good few years since I’d seen this girl and I was expecting her mother to make a few comments to me. But it seemed that she was suffering from dementia and was making quite a few comments to everyone. There were loads of people there, including her brother who was giving me the cold shoulder, and several people had bought their guitars with them. I was saying that it was a shame that I hadn’t come in my van because I would have had my bass with me. Then the girl appeared – blonde hair and thick-rimmed black glasses, nothing at all like she used to be and I had a hard time convincing myself that it was she (which it wasn’t of course).
From there I was back doing something with a guy I knew from Wandsworth who was now running a taxi company. He’d left a piece of paper on his desk about an old taxi run that he had done, giving the address of the street and which road to take to enter it – and “take a trailer”. A little later I was outside discussing this thing on the phone with someone else when he came on the tannoy that I was wasting my time as the job had been done last week (which I knew anyway and which wasn’t the point) and they had charged £54. I went off there to find out why the specific street to use had been mentioned, and found that the rest of the street was blocked off by a street party. I was in a bus and hordes of people climbed aboard just to chill out. When it was time o go I had to usher them all off – and do it two or three times too. And then we gathered up the waste into two large oil drums and started to burn it. They took off really well but one flared up and was in danger of setting alight some overhanging branches (we’d not been to careful) so we had to move it, flames and all. Another person tried to light a fire but was completely unsuccessful so we sent people off to look for more rubbish to add to his pile.

Tuesday 5th September 2017 – TIRED?

I’ll say!

I gave up at about 22:00 last night and fell straight asleep. And that was that until the alarm went off at 06:00 (or 06:30 in fact as Newfoundland is 30 minutes in advance). I remember nothing at all.

It’s not as if I had been doing anything either – there’s nothing that I can think of that had particularly worn me out.

Mind you, when I say that I remember nothing, that’s not entirely true. I do remember a couple of young girls who needed taking somewhere so I hd to organise them onto their bikes and make sure that they followed me closely. And anyone who knows anything about young girls will know that that is a pretty difficult task.
And later there I was on the top deck of a bus with a friend going up Middlewich Road past “the Rising Sun” and seeing an end-of-terrace house that I’d been hoping to buy but hadn’t, and thinking that it would make an ideal place from which to operate a taxi business. There were two other people on board the bus and we ended up talking about taxis. And as the bus took us down Coppice Road the guy I was with was explaining that there aren’t many taxis in the centre of town but each suburb and little village seemed to have its own little taxi business. One of the guys came over to us and in an intimate fashion started to speak to us about his friend who was rather simple and needed a great deal of guidance.

So having missed a good bit of the morning already, I started the porridge and had a shower. Put things in their proper order.

And when I came out of the shower the internet was down so that made me rather miserable.

Not only that, the place was deserted. No-one about, no-one in the car park, no-one in the restaurant etc. Just like the Marie Celeste in fact.

So I breakfasted off my own stocks of porridge (which as usual took ages to cook) and some coffee that I “liberated” from the public area (they had only given me one serving).

And pushed on with the blog entry anyway – that’ll teach me to have an early night.

By 10:30, all done and dusted, I hit the trail west.

First stop was on the Trans-Canada Highway on a stretch of road overlooking Clarenville.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we stayed there in 2010 where I arrived in the dark and then had a flat tyre to deal with, so we didn’t take much in the way of photos.

But you can see just how beautiful the place is, and there’s even a ship in port, although my fleet database insists that the port is empty.

I’ve been down this road before, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall and even wrote two pages about it – this one and this one – so I shan’t bore you with too many photos.

But there’s one here where I turned off the Trans-Canada Highway.

That’s Gander Lake down there and it is for the lake that the town of Gander is so named.

This was where I planned to have my lunch stop (it was that time already) but before I could stop and eat, I had important things to do.

You’ll notice up there on the crest the flags of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, the USA and the fourth one, representing the town of Gander.

Up there is the site of the worst ever air disaster to take place on Canadian soil, and dates from 12th December 1985.

A DC8 flying from Cairo to Kentucky stalled just after takeoff from the airport at Gander just across the main road and crashed to earth, killing all 256 people on board.

The 248 passengers were almost all members of the American 101st Airborne Division and were returning to base after having undergone a six-month tour of duty as part of the multi-national peacekeepers in Sinai.

They had stopped for fuel in Cologne and again in Gander, but despite the miserable weather and the time of year, the aeroplane was not de-iced on take-off.

Furthermore, its reported laden weight had been considerably under-declared.

Even today, the scar where the aeroplane came down is clearly visible and the intense heat of the fire (the plane was carrying a full load of fuel) means that little will grow in the area today.

And although the generally-accepted cause of the accident is the icing and overloading issue, there are as many controversial conspiracy theories as you like about the accident.

As for me, I left the site of the accident and went down to the lake in the gorgeous sunshine to read my book and eat my butties.

And to fight off a dog that had taken a fancy to my food – there was quite a crowd of people down here today.

But then again, why not? It really was pleasant and I found it difficult to heave myself out of my seat and hit the road.

And here’s a thing!

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that when I came by here 2010 I had a fierce argument with the people here about their Lockheed Hudson.

Their labelling stated quite clearly that Donald Bennett flew it from Gander to Aldergrove in Northern ireland – the first aeroplane to complete the “Atlantic Ferry”.

In his autobiography Pathfinder Bennett makes it perfectly clear that he didn’t fly the aeroplane but was in fact the navigator.

And also that his aeroplane wasn’t the first to arrive either.

And while the Museum is still vacillating over the “first” bit – they have in fact amended the plaque to show that he “captained” the plane.

So some progress is being made.

But as for the Karrier Bantam that was here, that has, unfortunately, bitten the dust. “Too bad to keep”, so I was told.

And they had even been offered another one – in even worse condition apparently – and turned that down!

I despair.

Having seen what has been “preserved” in Canada, and just how they preserve it, the Bantam should have been child’s play.

Next stop was Lewisporte up on the coast, and I came to yet another shuddering halt as I arrived on the edge of town.

The Lewisporte branch of the Newfoundland Railway was probably the most profitable, with the town being on of the island’s most major ports, and here is a collection of artefacts too remind us of its history.

At least locomotive 902 – one of the GM NF110 locomotives, is in marginally better condition here

I mentioned that Lewisporte was one of the busiest coastal ports on the island. In the old days, almost every ship destined for Labrador sailed from here.

That slowed down as the road network improved and came to a shuddering halt when the Sir Robert Bond was laid up once the road over the Mealy Mountains was opened in 2010

Today, only the Astron, a small freighter, leaves Lewisporte for the north, calling at Black Tickle and ports north of the Hamilton Inlet, and she won’t take passengers.

But in something of a forlorn hope I presented myself at the port offices to enquire about anything that might be going out, but as I suspected, I was disappointed.

But I was asked if I wanted to buy a car ferry of my own.

She was the Capt Earl W Winsor, built in 1972 and sailed for over 20 years as Prince Edward from Pictou to Prince Edward Island until the Confederation Bridge was built.

Then she came here, acquired her current name from a local politician, and sailed for nearly 20 years on the service to Fogo Island.

And when you think that she cost a mere $300,000 when the Newfoundland and Labrador Government had budgeted $12,000,000, that has to be the deal of the Century.

We discussed Apollo too. Everyone agrees that she is well past her sell-by date, but they reckoned that the Government has no money to replace her.

“There’s plenty of money when it comes to St John’s or Muskrat Falls” I interjected, to which they all concurred wholeheartedly.

On my way out of the port, I was distracted by these.

It’s 30 years or so since the railway on Newfoundland was abandoned but here on the docks you can still see rails embedded in the surface of the tarmac.

You can tell that it’s a narrow-gauge line too – just 3″6″. And that was one of the reasons for the downfall of the railway.

While it’s cheaper to construct and better in tight curves that you find on the mountain sections, it means that everything has to be trans-shipped at North Sydney or Channel-Port-aux-Basques, and that was just too much.

So now I’m off to my motel for tonight, the Westwood Inn at Grand falls. And it took some finding too.

“Come off at Exit 17 and it’s there” they said. And so I did. And after driving around for about 20 minutes and getting back onto the Trans-Canada Highway, I saw it way across the other side and had to do a naughty “U” turn to arrive.

It’s the most expensive place where I’ve stayed, although you wouldn’t think so. Holes in the bath carpet, internet that only works when it feels like it and a kettle that took three hours and still hadn’t boiled

And if I ever have a child I shall call it “Happy” after the receptionist, because I have never yet met anyone who couldn’t care less about her job, her establishment and her customers.

If I had been in charge, she would have been long down the road because her bad attitude is the kind that discourages anyone from coming to stay here again once they’ve had the pleasure of her company.

Monday 4th September 2017 – I’M NOT QUITE SURE …

… what happened during the night but for some reason or other I was tossing and turning quite considerably.

In fact, I was so wide-awake at 01:00 that I was giving serious thought to actually getting up and doing some work. But I abandoned that idea and went back to sleep and off on my travels.

I was back chauffering again in the main office – my first day back for years and I wasn’t sure of how everything workec – the post needed to be sorted for distribution and I wasn’t sure of how to do that and where it was supposed to go. But then there were all kinds of changes taking place on the very day, and our office was one of the ones that had been selected for revision so no sooner ha I settled down when all of the workmen suddenly appeared. I ended up outside wanting to go downstairs but there were issues with the lifts and we had to wait hours – and when a lift did arrive it was going in the wrong direction. Some girl missed her lift and ran round to the back of it (I’ve no idea why) to see if she could catch it there.

I was still up and about by 05:30 though and that gave me a good opportunity to attack some work on the laptop. And I made a major mistake too – the slow cooker certainly lives up to its name and if I want to have porridge for breakfast at anything like a reasonable hour I need to start it off as soon as I awake.

It wasn’t until about 10:30 that I was ready to hit the road. And I remembered to stop and take a photograph of the motel this time too.

And the verdict about last night’s motel?

I refuse to be drawn into an argument about “Value for Money” because motel prices in Canada this last couple of years have for some reason or other gone through the roof.

A few years ago I was recoiling in horror at the thought of paying $75 per night for accommodation. Today, getting away with double figures is something of a miracle.

First stop wasdown into the town of Carbonear itself.

It’s another former port and fishing station that at one time was one of the busiest along the coast but became a victim of the incessant growth in size of merchant shipping.

120 years ago you couldn’t move in the bay for schooners but now no commercial traffic comes in because the ships are too big for the depth of the bay.

But the town has undergone some kind of growth spurt in modern times, and that is due to the concentration of services here.

One of the big things that the town has going for it today is the regional hospital and residential care for the elderly, of which there are more than enough left behind in Newfoundland and Labrador as the younger generations dash off to Alberta to seek their fortunes in the oilfields.

But then, they aren’t likely to be making their fortunes with what remains here.

Take the railways for example.

he building of Newfoundland’s railway network at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th Century brought a new wave of prosperity to many places, including Carbonear.

But the entire system was brutally axed overnight in the 1980s in favour of road transport, and the roads here are disgraceful. They must have been appalling 30 years ago. Many places just fell back into the slumber from which they had been awoken

And regular readers of this rubbish will recall that my opinion about what passes for “preservation” in North America. And it’s shameful to admit that Canada is as bad at this as their cousins across the border.

This is one of the surviving diesel-electric locomotives from the Newfoundland Railway – A GM EMD G8. Built in 1958, she’s just dumped here outside the station and is slowly rotting away without even a pretence of preservation.

But then this is not time for me to go off on one of my rants. I have things to do.

Instead of leaving Carbonear by going up the hill and along the new road, I followed the coast for a while.

You’ve seen a few beautiful views of Newfoundand to date but all around here can certainly equal whatever the rest of Newfoundland has to offer.

I was told on several occasions that this is the most beautiful part of the island.

And they are certainly not wrong, are they?

There are a few beaches around here but they are mainly shingle. You can’t build a sand castle on there.

And I wouldn’t like to go swimming off there either. Beautiful though the water may be, the cold Labrador current comes right in and I bet that it’s freezing in there

And all of the tiny villages and communities out here too that are really picturesque.

Many of them were cleared away in the controversial resettlement programmes of the 1950s and 1960s but a few still cling on, and here just by Freshwater Cove is one of the most beautiful examples that I have seen.

It’srather a shame that I’m in something of a hurry otherwise I could prowl around here for weeks.

When I arrive at Victoria, I turn off onto Highway 74 that takes me across to the western side of the peninsula.

It’s quite a climb up but when you arrive at the tip it’s well-worth it because the views from up here are stunning and it’s a shame that the camera can’t do them justice.

But with a good bit of peering you can make out the sea just beyond that range of hills in the distance.

I try to make these tours something of an educational trip as you know, and so this is another reason why we have come across here to the small town of Heart’s Content.

This is notable for being the landing site of the 1858 transatlantic telegraph cable from Ireland and although it only lasted a few weeks until it ruptured, it proved that cable transmission between Europe and North America was perfectly possible and the world was brought into a new technological era.

Once the American Civil War had ended, they had another go at laying a cable from Valentia in Ireland.

They were much-better prepared and much better-equipped this time round and using the massive “Great Eastern”, which had by then been transformed into a cable-laying ship, they could bring a tougher cable ashore.

And right where we are standing is the spot where the cable was pulled ashore, and started 100 years of cable communication between North American and Europe, lasting until radio transmission took over completely.

The cable was so successful that several other cables were laid across the Atlantic.

We’ve already visited a few sites in North America which were transatlantic cable stations, but several more followed in the wake of the 1866 cable and came ashore right here.

The redbuilding over there opposite where Strider is parked was formerly the cable company receiving station but today it’s a museum.

I was tempted to go in for a look around but it’s one of these places where they ambush you with the admission charges and I’m going to have to watch my spending very carefully given how prices have gone through the roof over here.

There are loads of “Heart’s” along here. Heart’s Content and Heart’s Desire, but here weare in Heart’s Delight having a look over the Marina and across the bay around which I have just driven.

Landing fees aren’t so expensive here I noticed – $10 for a night and $115 for the season if you turn up in a small boat.

And so the way that prices are going in Canada right now, next time that Icome, I’ll be coming by sea. It makes much more sense to me.

We run out of “Heart’s” shortly afterwards and end up in the community of Islington.

There was formerly a railway branch line that ran along this side of the peninsula. Built as late as 1915, it only lasted until 1940 when it was all torn up.

Very little, if anything, remains these days of the railway but having a look at that embankment across the bay there, and I’d seen plenty of others in similar situations, then if anything had “railway” written on it, then that does.

But I doubt if I’ll be able to find anything to confirm it.

Meanwhile, my attention was diveted a little further out into the bay by that geological formation just there.

I’m not certain whether you would call it a rock or an island, but the fact that it has grass growing on it woould seem to indicate that it may well be more appropriate to call it the latter.

At least the seabirds call it “home” and it’s probably their droppings that have fertilised it to enable the grass to grow.

A few miles down the road Strawberry Moose persuades me to come to a sudden halt.

He has seen sign on the side of the road that has caught his interest.

I have to explain to him that it’s referring to a kind of seabird similar to a cormorant or some such – hence the “rock” – and so we leave the area with something of an air of diappointment.

But not so this town in Newfoundland.

This place is well-known throughout the whole world as being the favourite holiday destination of the female inhabitants of the Isle of Lesbos in Greece – it’s certainly all Greek to me, that’s for sure.

Who says that 16th Century explorers didn’t have a sense of humour?

And what do people buy when they come to Dildo?

Here’s a notice at the side of the road advertising certain items for sale. and for a town with a name like “Dildo”, then somehow they seemed to be quite appropriate.

It all adds to the flavour of the place, I suppose.

Leaving childish schoolboy humour behind for a moment, we have to go down and investigate the town.

And it’s a small Newfoundland coastal town like any other with nothing to distinguish itself apart from its name.

But have you noticed a change in the weather? We are now all grey and overcast and a terrific wind has sprung up. Look at the sea!

another thing that regular readers of this rubbish will remember is the situation that many Labradorians feel about the exploitation of their region by St John’s.

We have the Muskrat Falls hydro project that might bring some money to the community over there, but where is the power all going?

Not on the Coasts of Labrador, that’s for certain. A company called Valard is building the high-tension lines out of Muskrat falls, and there they are, building a high-tension line not to far from St John’s.

Work it out.

Feeling a desperate urge for a pit-stop I find myself back at the Tourist Information site o the Trans-Canada Highway where I started when I arrived on Newfoundland.

It was also quite late too and I was hungry, so I took this as being the appropriate place for a lunch stop. And shame as it is to admit it, I went away with the fairies for a while too.

After a while I awoke and, searching in the toursit guide, came across a motel that had a room at a price that wasn’t quite out in the realms of fantasy.

I’d planned a little trip around rhe Belle Vue Beach area because that was another place that was quite beautiful, but it just wasn’t my lucky day.

An hour or two ago, I had said that the weather was changing – and I was right. By now we were in the middle of something of quite a rainstorm.

Leaving the comfort and safety of Strider to admire the view was not going to be all that muchof a good idea.

But nevertheless, abandoning my drive around the bay due to the miserable weather, there’s a good view across the bay from the climb back up to the Trans Canada Highway.

It’s a shame that the weather has turned like this. The view looks so good in these conditions, so imagine what it must be like in glorious sunshine.

It’s quite disappointing.

One final place to visit on this journey, and that’s the little town of Come By Chance.

It’s here that an early explorer by the name of John Guy found a portage across the island and encountered a group of friendly Beothuk natives with whome he engaged in trade.

The site of their meeting is quite famous in Newfoundland lore but if anyone thinks that I’m stepping out of Strider in this, they are mistaken. It’s absolutely dreadful out there.

And so I make my way through the driving rain as far as the Trailside Motel.

It’s not as cheap as I was expecting it to be, and it’s crowded with a bar and café where bikers and people like that hang out. Not exactly my ideal but then again it’s the cheapest place on offer right now.

The room is reasonable and I rustle myself up a meal of pasta, mushrooms, bulghour and tomato sauce. Having learnt my lesson from the other day I set it up as soon as I arrive – this slow cooker lives up to its name.

The internet is pretty lousy too – it won’t hold a connection for more than five minutes. I try to talk to a few people but give it up after half an hour of constant interruption.

Searching the internet (when it lets me) I find a thesis from 1965 about the displacement of settlements in Labrador so I download it (on one of the slowest connections I have ever seen) to read at my leisure.

But for some reason I can’t keep going and I end up calling it a day.

At 22:00 too! I really am slipping!

Sunday 3rd September 2017 – THE HOLY GRAIL …

… of ship spotters everywhere, and here she is, in all that remains of her sad glory.

This is the Kyle and she is probably the most famous ship in the whole of North America.

As Labrador and the coasts of Newfoundland opened up at the turn of the 20th Century, someone by the name of Reid started a regular shuttle service along the coasts serving most of the isolated habitations.

You need to remember that the network of roads in Newfoundland and Labrador is a comparatively recent phenomenon.

He had a series of ships built in Scotland and on the Tyne and named them after places there, in alphabetic order, and these ships became known as the “Alphabet Fleet”.

The most famous of all of these ships was the Kyle. Built in 1913, she was not the biggest, but she was certainly one of the fastest. And she was certainly the strongest, being specially reinforced for fighting her way through the ice up the Labrador coast.

She was the longest-lasting too.

With modern shipping regulations, the abandonment (voluntary or otherwise) of many isolated communities, the start of the modern road network and marine disasters in the treacherous waters, the Alphabet Fleet diminished quite quickly, although Kyle survived and passed on to the whaling trade

At the end of her working life in the late 1960s she was moored up as discussions were taking place as to her future.

But one night in 1967 she broke free of her moorings and ran aground here at the head of the bay at Harbour Grace.

And here she sadly remains, and will remain here until the end of time, I imagine. It’s impossible to refloat her, as she’ll break her back and attempts to sell her for scrap have been met with the most vehement opposition by the inhabitants of Harbour Grace who see her as the symbol of a bygone age.

But The Kyle is not the only famous symbol of Harbour Grace – it’s quite a famous little place.

And its main claim to fame is the role that it played in Transatlantic air history.

You are reminded about that by the presence here of a Douglas C47 Skytrain, the freight version of the DC3 Dakota.

This is CF-QBI “Spirit of Harbour Grace”, built in 1943 and had an eventful 50 year working life firstly with the US Air Force in North Africa and then with a variety of small businesses, spending many hours in the air around Newfoundland and Labrador.

When she was finally laid up in 1993 she was donated to the town as a static memorial to the aeroplane heritage of the town.

And this is the reason for the claim to fame of Harbour Grace’s footprint in the history of Transatlantic Air History.

There were a great many attempts to fly the Atlantic in the period 1919 to 1939 – some of which succeeded and many of which didn’t.

And many of those attempts took place from the improvised, hastily constructed air strip here.

The sad thing about it all is that, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, we’ve visited many sites from where these early flights left, and there is nothing much left today

Here at harbour Grace though, it’s probably the best-preserved of all of the early Transatlantic airstrips and it was somehow very pleasant and satisfying to be walking in the footsteps of people like Amelia Earhart and Wiley Post.

But we were lucky though.

It’s clearly not an airfield up to modern standards, and a radio listening post was stuck on here during World War II.

After that, it was left to decay and would have been completely overwhelmed by nature had not a spirited campaign by local people not led to its recovery and restoration.

Last night I’d had a good night’s sleep at Donald’s – his sofa really is comfortable – and after breakfast we had another really length chat.

So comfortable had I been that I was even able to go off on another ramble, although it wasn’t a very pleasant one. I was in something of a panic. I’d arrived in Portsmouth (and Southampton) and I needed to be at the airport – presumably in London or somewhere like that. It was early morning and my flight wasn’t until about 13:30 but even though it seemed as if I had plenty of time, there just wasn’t the transport to take me there. For example, a train leaving at 06:45 didn’t arrive until 12:40 which was far too late. it was just totally bizarre for London (or Birmingham, or even Manchester) wasn’t anything like that far away.

While I was there I took advantage of Donald’s shower (which was beautiful) and he bunged my clothes in the washing machine which was really nice of him.

It goes without saying that I appreciated the hospitality.

Stocking up on fruit, veg and breadat the Dominion Superstore later, I noticed this handy device.

That’s the kind of thing that I need if ever I change Strider for a smaller car. It can sit in the rear of the car until I go off on my travels and everything can be dumped on there and chained down.

And so I made a mental note.

Having done the shopping, I left St John’s on the Trans-Canada Highway and headed off in the direction of Harbour Grace, the Kyle and the airfield, stopping to make myself a butty on the way

And having done what I needed to do, and booked a room at a motel in Carbonear, I set off through the town.

There’s a big port here – which used to be one of the bases for the Alphabet Fleet of course, but now it’s mainly fishing boats that tie up.

And that includes the massive 3600-tonne clam harvester Belle Carnell, based out of Halifax.

Built in 2004 she was previously the Norwegian Siddis Skipper.

he most famous of all of the Harbour Grace inhabitants must surely be the pirate Peter Easton.

That’s the Customs House from the 1870s there, but it’s said to be built on the site of Easton’t fortress.

he would think nothing of sailing out with his men to capture a Spanish treasure fleet, and his men became the richest pirates on the North American seaboard.

He himself retired in luxury to the south of France and ended up as Marquis of Savoy.

This however was not so pleasant.

It’s the Church of the Immaculate Conception and despite being a place of worship (and it’s a Sunday too) it was all closed up, the gates were chained and there was a “Private – No Trespassing” sign on the gate.

I shan’t go in to all of this because I’ve said it so many times before. You all know that it’s an attitude that totally dismays me.

Instead, we can admire the scenery.

The museum with the flight log of the airfield was, as you might expect, closed. But in the grounds was this sculpture to commemorate the Transatlantic flyers, particularly those who lost their lives in the attempt.

Europe, the destination of most of them, is right out there, 2000 miles away to Ireland with nothing in between.

But yesterday I mentioned just how beautiful Newfoundand was, and showed you a photo to prove it.

Today’s photo, looking right across Conception Bay here, merely underlines it.

I was lucky with the weather too because despite the wind it had turned out to be a beautiful day.

And so I shot off down the road to Carbonear and my motel for the night.

Tea was pasta, tinned vegetables and tinned soup all mixed up in the slow cooker – and delicious it was too. I’ll do that again.

And despite having so much to do, I’m so tired that I’m off for an early night.

See you in the morning.

Saturday 2nd September 2017 – I’VE HAD A COUPLE …

… of worse nights than I had last night I’m sure. But not many. Curled up on a reclining seat is not my idea of spending a night, and I ache in places that I didn’t even realise that I had places.

But that didn’t stop me going on a mega-ramble during the night. And I wasn’t on my own either. I started off with Alison but at some point I ended up with a young girl with very short ginger hair, and I’m not sure when the changeover took place. We were in a hotel somewhere in Italy and it had only taken us two and a half hours to get there too – the kind of thing that you can do on a nocturnal ramble even if the people out there were as surprised as they might have been in the real world. We went out for a walk and ended up along a sea coast but you couldn’t see thesea because of these rows of terraced single storey tenements all in a damp dark red brickwork. All very run-down and depressed. I explained to my partner that this was how Italian families lived – in a big room with a little add-on annex of toilet and cooking space. We walked through and found that all of these habitations were abandoned and there was domestic refuse and rubbish all over the place. By this point I had some kind of four-wheeled vehicle and I’d changed one of the front wheels for another that was of a better style. And in all of the rubbish lying around here – old cameras and all kinds of things – were piles of old motor bikes – the 50cc type of moped and a couple of them were worth recovering, including one in particular that would furnish the front wheel that I needed for my machine. Nevertheless, I wasn’t convinced that it was a good idea to liberate them even though they had the air of being long-abandoned.
A little later I was on my own with a few different people, one of whom was a girl and one of whom was a boy who was quite interested in her and, I suspected, she in him. He was asking all kinds of questions about things and I was replying in my usual cynical manner and it wasn’t until long afterwards that I realised that he was trying to ask specific questions about this girl and my replies would have been exactly the kind of replies that would have frightened him away and that wasn’t my intention at all.

So crawling off into the bathroom for the usual reasons, I then made my way onto the deck for my first glimpse of Newfoundland – and the huge storm that was just about to envelope all of us.

And here’s a weird thing.

Looking at the messages on my mobile phone there was one from my French network provider “Bienvenue au St Pierre et Miquelon” – the last French possession in North America.

Had we passed so close to there in the night?

And as we approached closer and closer to Newfoundland we could see that there was a major storm brewing along our way.

I’ve heard about these sudden Newfoundland storms before and I didn’t much like the look of this one.

I could picture all of the sailors dashing out to batten down the hatches and all of that, and casting all non-essential gear over the side.

So while the sailors were dashing outside, I went a-dashing inside out of the rain.

and here I collided with Mike Averill who was just setting up shop for another performance on his guitar. I stayed and listened to his performance and even bought a CD.

I must be mellowing in my old age – but I really did enjoy his music.

I told you that Atlantic Vision, in her previous existence as Superfast IX had been built to provide a ferry service in the Baltic on behalf of the Swedish Government

Here on the car deck are several signs that are clearly a relic of those days.

This one is written in English, German, Swedish and Estonian – a sad reminder of one of the shortest-lived ferry routes in the whole of history

Having been decanted out of Atlantic Vision onto the mainland I drove off round the headland to find a suitable spot to take a photograph.

Also sitting at the quayside is the extremely controversial freighter called Jana.

She limped into Halifax three years ago with a load of rails from Poland and a misfiring engine, and has been stranded in Canada ever since as no-one knows quite what to do with her.

The last time that I had been here was in a driving rainstorm and none of my photos had really worked.

But today, with the squall that we had had offshore having passed by so rapidly, I was able to catch up on what I had missed of the bay here.

It really does have an extraordinary beauty.

And so does the rest of Newfoundland really. Not quite as rugged or as grand as Labrador but beautiful all the same.

I could have taken 100 photographs to show you what I mean, but one will have to suffice.

It should give you a really good idea of just what I mean

So braving the Newfoundland roads, because they really are unbelievably shocking, I found the Trans-Canada Highway and headed for St John’s.

On the outskirts of town I found a Tim Hortons where I could have a coffee and use the internet, and also a Sobey’s where I could stock up with a few more bits and pieces of food. After all, in a week’s time we’ll be in Labrador.

Driving all the way through St John’s I headed for Signal Hill and the absolutely beautiful view of the town and its harbour.

It’s the ideal place for me to eat my lunchtime butty, for it’s one of the most stunning views in the world.

You can understand just why the early English and Portuguese seafarers of the 16th Century chose this spot as their favourite harbour in North America.

Having had a good look around and eaten my butty I headed back into town for Donald’s house.

He’d very kindly invited me round for the afternoon and seeing as how we had never actually met in person I reckoned that it might be a good idea to go and catch up.

So braving the potholes, the trenches and the other pitfalls in the road I headed off back through the city.

Donald lives on the edge of town in an upside-down house that backs onto the former Newfoundland Railway tracks, although he wasn’t there when the Newfie Bullet used to go puffing by.

We spent hour chatting about all kinds of things to do with Canada, Newfoundland and Labrador and North America in general, and then I invited him out for a meal.

We ended up in a Chinese restaurant where I had a stir fry of vegetables with rice. And trying to remember my chopstick-eating habits from 40 years ago, I ended up with more on the table than I did down inside my stomach.

They also gave me a fortune cookie. Apparently I am “very sociable and welcome the company of others”. It got my age wrong too.

Donald asked me if I would like to stay the night. And to be honest, his sofa did look rather large and comfortable. I didn’t even have to nip out to Strider for my sleeping bag as Donald rustled up some blankets and the like.

So here I am, in all luxury like a King and I shall be sleeping the Sleep of the Dead.

Good night.

Friday 1st September 2017 – STRANGELY ENOUGH …

… that was the cheapest place where I’ve spent the night so far. And funnily enough, it was the best night’s sleep that I have had since I’ve been back on the road.

But although it was a better night than just recently, it still wasn’t what I would call ideal. I was still tossing and turning in my bed, although not as much as the last couple of nights.

Liz and Terry came to join me though – or, rather, I went to join them. They were moving house and had a couple of boys to help them – and the had done so well that there was only a couple of things in the garage underneath that needed to go. And I reckoned that if we planned it properly we could fit everything into the two vans and do it in one trip. Just then, as we were sitting thinking about it, some English couple (because we were abroad) were push-starting a car – a white-coloured car something like an ADO16 – down the hill at the side. The woman behind the wheel couldn’t control it on the bed and it came round and collided with the side of Liz and Terry’s house, which was made of metal (well, quite!). This is the kind of thing that would happen just before the new owners were coming to take possession. So Liz went out to attend to them. I went off into town to do something and on the way back the town was thronging with school kids being kicked out of school. There was a loudspeaker announcement about the end-of-year results (hence them hanging around) and they started to announce the names of the pupils who had done exceptionally well and had earned a reward. Back at Liz and Terry’s, it seemed that Liz was disappointed about something. “I bet they’ll argue about the time” she said, presumably referring to the people who had collided with the house. “What time do you say that it happened,” she asked me. “16:15” I said confidently. “Well there you are” replied Liz. “At least you agree with me”.

The alarm went off at 06:00 as usual and so did I. in fact, I awoke again with quite a start at 06:11 and only just made it out of bed before Billy Cotton’s strident summons at 06:15.

I’d organised breakfast for 08:15 so that gave me a couple of hours to catch up with stuff that needed doing, and then off to rejoin the Land of the Living.

The people here – other guests as well as the landlady and her father – were very pleasant and we passed quite an agreeable hour or so chatting.

And I learnt something thing morning. According to the old guy who had worked out in Labrador, it was the berserk behaviour of the compasses of the aeroplanes of the Atlantic Ferry flying over Labrador and Upper Quebec that first alerted people to the presence of the iron ore deposits.

Breakfast was really nice – they respected my diet – and the home fries and fruit was superb. along with toast with vegan margarine (the landlady had some in stock). She even let me check the label on the container.

Orange juice and coffee too, and as soon as you had taken a coupe of sips out of your mug the old guy would totter by and fill it up.

After breakfast I had a shower and started to organise my stuff. I need a blanket and pillow for the boat and not much else so I could go through my rucksack and eliminate what won’t be needed until I dock.

That was my cue to hit the road and having safely and correctly negotiated the roundabout, I eventually arrived in North Sydney.

But I didn’t go very far, because regular readers of this rubbish will recall that amongst our projects that we undertake on our travels is to find the local football ground.

It’s not exactly what I would call a stadium, and I don’t think that a pair of wingers would be of any great advantage on this pitch, given how narrow it is, but it’s a football pitch all the same and that’s a rare thing to see in North America.

Ahhhh – so THAT’S what happened to Superfast IX.

Once upon a time, not so long ago, a company organised a ferry service from Rosyth in Scotland to Zeebrugge in Belgium.

It picked up two giant ships from the Baltic that had been part of a (failed) project launched by the Swedish government in the early years of the 21st Century to run a ferry across to Rostock.

The Rosyth-Zeebrugge ferry service didn’t last too long either and the ships were delared surprlus to requirements. I don’t know where one of them went to and I didn’t know about the second – Superfast IX – but I do now!

Here she is, in all her glory, back in service as Atlantic Vision and I’ll be travelling on her this afternoon to Argentia.

Fastest ferry on the North Sea she was in her day, and I hope that she lives up to her reputation across the Gulf of St Lawrence.

And while I was taking a photo of Atlantic Vision I was treated to something of a ballet just outside the port.

As the Blue Puttees was reversing out of her berth on her way with the lunchtime sailing to Channel Port aux Basques, Lief Ericson, the truckers’ ferry that runs between North Sydney and Channel Port aux Basques, was pulling in behind her.

I was lucky enough to be treated to a very rhythmical dance as the ferries manoeuvred around each other

As for Lief Ericson, what can I say about her?

We all know about her and probably many of us have travelled on her before in her previous existence as Stena Challenger.

Built in 1991, she was named for the lost Space Shuttle and spent the first 10 years of her life operating out of Dover to Calais and occasionally Dunkerque, with a little relief spell on the Holyhead-Ireland route.

As for Blue Puttees, she was one of the two ships that came here a couple of years ago to replace Caribou and Joseph and Clara Smallwood.

Built in 2006, she was formerly the Stena Trader and she and her sister (here as the Highlander) ran the short-lived ferry service from Hoek van Holland to Killingholme in the UK.

She takes her name from the nickname given to the Royal Newfoundland Regiment.

Another thing that regular readers of this rubbish will recall is the regret that I have for the decline of educational standards throughout the western world.

It’s not particularly important (but it’s still sad nevertheless) if Joe Public can’t speak English correctly.

But when a body like the North Sydney Historical Society and the North Sydney Town Council don’t understand the basics of English grammar then it really is something that depresses me enormously.

Mind you, having said that, poor English grammar is one thing. The North Sydney Historical Society’s rewriting of history is something else completely.

I don’t know who it is that they employ as a proof-reader but I wouldn’t pay them in washers because this isn’t the kind of error that would normally sneak by un-noticed.

I just wonder what was going through the minds of the people who wrote the text, the proof-readers who checked it and the printers who printed it.

Having been for a good walk around the town I went back and sorted out Strider. But not before I’d been accosted by a particularly aggressive beggar who became most upset when I told him to clear off.

Thanks to the laundry basket that I bought yesterday, all of the food is now assembled in one place. Everything else is filed away tidily thanks to the cargo net that I bought last year.

It was thus quite easy to locate my blanket (the one that I bought at Dysarts two years ago), my towel and my little pillow and they are now nicely stored in my rucksack ready for the sailing this afternoon. I intend to be as comfortable as I can.

And so I went back to where I’d met the beggar (and photographed the ships) with Strider to make my lunchtime butties and sit in the sun admiring the ships.

If you look at the photograph above which shows the dancing ships, that’s actually the site of the coal staithes and the dock in which the coal ships going out to Newfoundland and the outlying islands would have been moored.

A branch of the railway line came down here bringing the coal from a local mine. But unfortunately there’s not a single trace of anything from that period still remaining.

The interesting thing about it all is that it’s actually an artificial “island” – formed by the rocks brought as ballast by the ships that came here empty for the coal.

At the dock entrance we had a nightmare. I had found the tickets but I needed to produce my passport and my driving licence. And I couldn’t find them anywhere, despite stripping out Strider.

The last time that I had had them was yesterday when I handed them over to the girl who took my booking. And so the girl in the booth telephoned just about everyone to see if I had left them and they had been handed in.

But no such luck. I’m hopeless when it comes to finding things as you know, and so I have to discipline myself to have a proper place for anything. And when they aren’t there I’m cooked.

But luckily I still have my powers of persuasion and I was eventually allowed to join the queue of vehicles heading for the ferry.

In the ferry office I hustled them there but it was to no avail, and so back outside I started to strip out Strider properly. My driving licence I can at a push live without, but my passport is something else and it must be found.

And then after about 30 minutes of sheer panic, the light suddenly went on. The little bag that I wear around my neck where I keep my bank cards and my North American money. Sure enough, in my haste, I’d stuffed them in there, hadn’t I?

So everything is now back in its proper place where it ought to be. I really ought to be much better organised than I am if I’m going to have a seamless, trouble-free trip around the world.

We were ushered onto the ferry comparatively early and we were lucky, being one of the first aboard.

I left His Nibs in charge of Strider and composing modern-day sea-shanties for the 21st Century.

I suppose that he has to keep himself entertained until we reach Newfoundland – he’ll have plenty to occupy his mind once he’s there.

The lift was occupied so I had to stagger up several flights of stairs – and steep they were too.

But I managed to grab a good spec on board – right at the bow of the ship with a stunning view out over the ferry terminal.

And next to one of the very few working power points on the ship too. Routine maintenance doesn’t seem to be the strongpoint of Marine Atlantic.

Much to my surprise, because I’m from Europe, we started up bang on the dot of 17:30

We reversed out and this gave an opportunity to have a good view over the town. Not that there’s a great deal of the town to see are there are vacant plots of land all over the place.

This isn’t just an indictment of the collapse of the town’s industry with the end of the mining and railway operations here, but also of the three devastating fires that have destroyed the town.

And we missed the oportunity to have our own ballet just offshore because we hadn’t gone more than 5 minutes out of harbour before we saw Highlanders coming down the inlet.

We know all about her because we’ve sailed on her before. She’s formerly the Stena Traveller and was likewise on the short-lived Hoek van Holland-Killingholme service.

It’s nice to see Marine Atlantic spending money on upgrading the fleet, and with the F A Gauthier in Matane replacing Camille Marcoux, that only leaves poor Apollo as a relic of a bygone age still struggling across the Gulf of St Lawrence.

But there’s plenty of shipping in the Gulf of St Lawrence.

With the telephoto lens on the new camera I can take pictures miles away but photographing through a double-glazed marine window with a telephoto lens from a moving platform such as a ship means that it’s always going to come out blurred.

But never mind. We’ll have better luck later.

As darkness fell we were treated to a folk singer.

Mike Averill, his name was, and he entertained us for quite a while with his acoustic guitar, his songs and his semi-biographical stories particularly about his father Garry.

And it’s a good job too because catering facilities on this ship are … errr … minimal. There’s an a la carte restaurant and some kind of fast-food place that does hot dogs and sandwiches, but that’s your lot.

There’s nothing here for me to eat, and so I have a feeling that this is going to be a very long voyage for me.

As soon as this folk-singer finishes, I’m going off to look for the reclining seats and bed myself down for the night. But not until he finishes because I’m enjoying his music.

Thursday 31st August 2017 – AND IF YOU THOUGHT …

… that Tuesday night’s sleep was bad, you ain’t seen nuffink yet.

Because last night’s sleep beat just about everything. Wide awake at 01:30, tossing and turning and all of that. I really was having it all.

Nevertheless I did still manage to go off on my travels, but you won’t be interested in them, because such was the nature of my bad night that it will put you off your supper.

The torrential rainstorm that we had didn’t help matters much either. And it was so humid that the washing that I had hung up under the verandah seemed to be wetter than when I hung it out.

I wasn’t in the mood for breakfast, having had a good meal before going to bed (and don’t large packets of crisps go off with an enormous bang when you kneel on them by mistake in the dark?) and so I did some stuff on the internet;

Despite the pouring rain, I emptied out Strider and tried to sort out everything – but that was quite a maul and wasn’t the work of 5 minutes either, so I was quite exhausted afterwards.

Pausing only to take a shot of my cabin and the lake (which, due to the weather I was not able to enjoy) I went up to the office to hand in the key.

Free coffee was on offer there and seeing the expense that I had had to incur, I took full advantage. And quite rightly so.

And then I headed off into the doom and gloom.

The drive to North Sydney, beautiful though it is, is one that we have taken on many previous occasions so I didn’t stop to take any photographs.

And at the ferry terminal, my luck was in. There were still spaces free on Friday’s overnight long-distance sailing to Argentia. And so we are now booked aboard.

It might sound expensive to some (and it certainly did to me) but you need to look at it in perspective.

I would have to pay a ferry fee for the short (ie 9 hour) crossing anyway, and that’s not cheap
I would then have a drive 900 kms instead of 130 kms – and imagine how much extra fuel I would have to buy for a rather thirsty Strider.
I’d be looking for at least one, if not two nights in motels and you’ve seen what motel rates are right now.
I’d be whittling into the victuals along the way
I’d be quite worn out at the end of it all
And not least – this is a ferry crossing that i’ve been wanting to make for quite a while

All in all, it makes good financial and personal sense to travel this way.

Next thing to do was to organise accommodation for tonight.

I like the privacy of motels, but not at the price that they want to charge right now. So I phoned up the cheapest B&B in the book that I had picked up yesterday.
“Sorry, we’re full”
“That’s a shame. Do you know anyone else with a spare room?”
“No I don’t … ohh – wait a minute – if you just want a basic room with just a bed in it I can fix you up. Is $55 for cash with breakfast okay?”
Do bears have picnics in the woods?

Off I went to the shops.

As you all may remember from previous excursions, food in northern Newfoundland and Labrador is shockingly expensive, and if I’m going to be spending a week or two out there, I need to stock up.

The Atlantic Superstore, the Dollar Store and Walmart all did the business and for about $100 Strider is now full of tinned and packet goods to last a couple of weeks.

Bread will be an issue of course, but we have packets of crisps if we can’t find anything on the road.

But I made a startling discovery at the Atlantic Superstore. Their “own brand” od wine gums don’t have gelatine in them. There’s a few packets missing from their stocks right now.

I had a very late lunch on the car park by the ferry terminal, and then went for a coffee at Tim Hortons where, shame as it is to admit it, I fell asleep.

Rousing myself from a dangerous slumber I decided to head out for my digs. The address wasn’t on the SatNav but Josee’s mobile phone picked it up (that was a good move on her part to lend me that).

The street signs were confusing though and I ended up going three times round a roundabout before I fathomed it out.

The cheapest digs so far, and seem to be the nicest too. It seems that I have the room of a student who isn’t due back until tomorrow. So I’m not complaining.

I settled myself in and promptly crashed out again, only to be awoken by the aforementioned student who has returned unannounced a day early.

I would gladly have shared half my bed with her, but the landlady rather unfortunately rose to the situation by ushering her off to a spare bed put up hastily in the office, which rather disappointed me – but you can’t win a coconut every time.

So I’m going to have an early night and try to sleep the Sleep Of The Dead.

Heaven knows I need it.

EPIC HALL

The Poisoned Pen (or Poisoned Chalice, more like) – or my relentless struggle against reality

Monthly Archives: September 2017

Thursday 14th September 2017 – I’M NOT SLEEPING …

Wednesday 13th September 2017 – IN THE HAPPY VALLEY CEMETERY …

Tuesday 12th September 2017 – I’M IN GOOSE …

Monday 11th September 2017 – WHILE I WAS SITTING …

Sunday 10th September 2017 – HAVING FALLEN …

Saturday 9th September 2017 – I AWOKE WITH …

Friday 8th September 2017 – I HAD A …

Thursday 7th September 2017 – A COUPLE OF DAYS AGO …

Wednesday 6th September 2017 – THAT WAS SOMETHING …

Tuesday 5th September 2017 – TIRED?

Monday 4th September 2017 – I’M NOT QUITE SURE …

Sunday 3rd September 2017 – THE HOLY GRAIL …

Friday 1st September 2017 – STRANGELY ENOUGH …

Thursday 31st August 2017 – AND IF YOU THOUGHT …

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