… 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.
