From: "Evelyn" ewoudenberg@roadrunner.nf.net To: NFLD-LAB-L@rootsweb.com Sent: Wednesday, September 10, 2003 2:34 PM Subject: TIDBITS INFO. "LABRADOR" > Tidbits of info. about names of Towns, Villages, it's location and history > of beautiful "Labrador", Mainland portion of our Province, "Newfoundland & > Labrador". > > > ENJOY! > > > > Labrador Coastal Drive > From L'Anse-au-Clair to Cartwright > > The coast of Labrador is a wilderness filled with rugged seacoast, fast > running rivers and breathtaking mountain ranges. Here the ancestors of the > aboriginal Inuit and Innu lived for thousands of years before Europeans > arrived. And it is here that the descendants of European settlers pursue a > unique rural coastal lifestyle learned from the native peoples. Change comes > slowly here, but change is coming. A road now connects L'Anse-au-Clair on > the Strait of Belle Isle with Cartwright 400 km north on Sandwich Bay. > > The ocean here is called Iceberg Alley. Every spring and summer thousands of > bergs, ranging in size from bergy bits the size of a car to mountains of ice > weighing millions of tonnes, traverse these waters before melting in warmer > waters southeast of Newfoundland. > > > Visitors travelling to coastal Labrador will visit old settlements and enjoy > rugged coastal scenery. Massive icebergs are a very common sight on this > journey. Here you will find a series of small, isolated communities where > you can see how European settlers adapted to a life based mainly on fishing > and, later, forestry. About a thousand years ago a Viking travelling to > Greenland from Iceland was blown off course and sighted, but did not land, > in what we now call Labrador. Later Viking explorers sailed along this > coast, noting the stands of timber and a long beach north of present-day > Cartwright they called the Wonderstrands. > > Labrador is just across the Strait of Belle Isle from Newfoundland's Great > Northern Peninsula. On a clear day it is visible across the 17.6 km-wide > channel that funnels the icy Labrador current into the Gulf of St. Lawrence. > Southern Labrador is the traditional home of the summer fishermen who first > travelled from the Island of Newfoundland to the lucrative fishing grounds > off its coast centuries ago. Today this area is inhabited by the descendants > of those first summer fishermen. This tour will introduce you to this > community of friendly, independent spirits and to a region that offers a > wilderness experience that you will never forget. > > > This Labrador tour begins on Newfoundland's Great Northern Peninsula, at the > Viking Trail community of St. Barbe, where you can take a 90-minute ferry > ride across the Strait of Belle Isle to the Labrador-Quebec boundary. During > the late spring and early summer, icebergs and floes drift southward to melt > in the warmer waters of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. These mountains of > floating ice originate in the high Arctic and Greenland and offer > spectacular photo opportunities as they drift past Newfoundland and > Labrador. > > Departing Blanc Sablon (Quebec), the western terminus of the ferry, take > Route 510 along the 80-km stretch of paved highway that connects the > communities along the southeastern coast of Labrador. The first community > you'll come to in Labrador is L'Anse-au-Clair, just 5 km from Blanc Sablon. > It was founded by the French in the early 1700s. While you are visiting this > scenic fishing outport, you can check out the local craft store. There's > also a restored early 20th century church which now serves as the regional > Visitor Information Centre. > > > Along the Forteau and Pinware Rivers during the months of July and August, > trout and salmon anglers should be prepared to meet their match on the many > pools, steadies and rattles. Trout anglers venturing on the far reaches of > the Forteau River, and indeed on any of the excellent angling areas in > Labrador, should bring a reliable insect repellent to discourage unwanted > company. A small provincial park at Pinware River is an ideal base for > exploring the entire area. > > At nearby L'Anse-Amour is a National Historic Site where archaeologists have > uncovered a burial mound that is the oldest known funeral monument in North > America. The Maritime Archaic people buried a 12-year-old boy here 7,500 > years ago. Aboriginal people lived here as early as 9,000 years ago when it > was on the edge of the retreating glaciers. A series of small campsites and > burial grounds is all that remains of these early relatives of Paleo-Indian > caribou hunters of northeastern North America. The descendants of these > early inhabitants of Southern Labrador later fished and hunted whales in the > Strait of Belle Isle. The numerous species of fish and seabirds along the > coast also supported later bands of Inuit (Eskimos) and even Newfoundland's > Beothuck Indians who made their homes here. > > > At Point Amour you'll find a 109-foot lighthouse, the second tallest in > Canada. Built in 1854-58 to aid navigation through the Strait of Belle Isle, > the interior has recently been refurbished, and exhibits and an > interpretation centre added. > > The first European settlers in the Straits came from England, the island of > Jersey, and Newfoundland, and in the mid-nineteenth century most arrivals > were from Dorset, Devon and Somerset. After that, settlers tended to be > Newfoundlanders moving north. > > L'Anse-au-Loup, Captstan Island and West St. Modeste are communities whose > ancestors first came as `livyers' (meaning, `I live here') from the Island > of Newfoundland to permanently settle in what were at first only temporary > summer fishing stations along the coast. > > > During the month of August, Forteau is the home of the annual Labrador > Straits Bakeapple Folk Festival. The event is named for the golden-coloured > berries, also called cloudberries, that grow in abundance along this coast. > They are considered by the locals to be a great delicacy. The four-day > festival has lots of berry picking, but the fun also includes baking > contests, traditional music, dance, song and storytelling. A variety of > distinct craft items are sold during the festival. They range from caribou > skin mittens and rug work to tapestries, carvings and colourful embroidered > clothing. > > At the end of the paved section of Route 510 is Red Bay, where the site of > one of the earliest industrial complexes in the New World - a Basque whaling > station - has been declared a National Historic Site. Archaeologists have > discovered several shipwrecks from the period of 1550- 1600 when this was > the world whaling capital, supplying Europe with oil for lamps and soap. > > > Archaeologists have uncovered an astounding number of tools and personal > effects that confirm European habitation of this coast during the 16th and > 17th centuries. Many of these are now conserved in the Interpretation > Centre. Self-guided tours of nearby Saddle Island, where the main station > was located, are available during the summer months. > > From Red Bay you can now drive north to Mary's Harbour, Port Hope Simpson, > Charlottetown and Cartwright, which is 323 km north of Red Bay. > > People who live in communities and were linked to the outside world only by > coastal boat, aircraft, snowmobile or ATV are now getting used to driving to > larger centres to shop, and are seeing more visitors, explorers who want to > see what is essentially virgin tourist territory. > > Battle Harbour was a fishing port as early as the 1750s, and was one of the > first European settlements along the coast. In the 19th and 20th centuries > it was a major centre for the floater fishery from Newfoundland, and in 1893 > Dr. Wilfred Grenfell had established his first Labrador hospital here. > > > Many of Battle Harbour's old commercial and public buildings survived the > fire, and in the 1990s a major restoration program helped preserve what is > the most intact fishery outport in the province. The modernization that > swept Newfoundland and Labrador in the decades after Confederation in 1949 > bypassed Battle Harbour and so left a priceless built heritage virtually > intact. You can reach Battle Harbour by boat from Mary's Harbour in summer, > and there are accommodations and tours available. > > Port Hope Simpson, a logging community and one of the newest towns in the > province, was founded only in 1934 when a sawmill was constructed to cut pit > props in the extensive forests near the town. People have fished near here > since the mid-1800s. Charlotteotwn evolved into a permanent settlement from > a collection of smaller coastal villages that had depended on fishing and > trapping. Around 1949 the current location was chosen because it had lots of > timber, fresh water and flat land for a future airstrip. The man who named > the town, Ben Powell, wanted it to become the capital of St. Michael's Bay > in the same way that Charlottetown became the capital of Prince Edward > Island. > > > You can also reach the Strait of Belle Isle area on the Quebec coastal > freighter that serves ports along the north shore of the St. Lawrence River > between Natashquan at the end of Quebec Route 138 and Blanc Sablon. This > boat calls at nine ports over a two-day period. > > Despite their isolation, most of these communities were settled two > centuries ago by fishermen from Newfoundland and Europe. Lodge Bay, for > instance, became a winter station for the fishermen of nearby Cape St. > Charles in the 18th century. Just up the coast is Mary's Harbour, which has > grown to a major centre this century. > > > Nearby Battle Harbour has been fished since at least 1759 and is one of the > oldest European settlements on the Labrador coast. In the nineteenth and > twentieth centuries it was a major centre for `floater' fishermen from > Newfoundland who sailed to Labrador to catch and salt cod in the summer. In > 1893 Dr. Wilfred Grenfell established his first hospital here to serve > people on the coast, and in 1905 the first lighthouse in Labrador was > constructed on nearby Double Island. The community declined following a > major fire in 1930 and was resettled in 1966 to nearby Mary's Harbour. Now a > summer fishing station, Battle Harbour has been restored to its 1800s form. > Some of the old buildings, such as an 1850s church, still stand, and summer > accommodations are available for travellers. > > Just north of Mary's Harbour the main road swings inland away from the coast > and through the wilderness, while a new road connecting St. Lewis, Route > 513. stretches 30 km to the east. Route 510 meets the coast again at Port > Hope Simpson, one of the newer communities in this area, in 2001. The town > was established by John Hope Simpson, who started a logging business here in > the 1930s. > > > Another new settlement founded because of vast timber stands in the area is > Charlottetown, which dates from the middle of this century. You can reach it > via route 514 from Route 510. The coastal scenery here is beautiful. This > heavily wooded area contrasts sharply with northern Labrador where tundra > dominates the landscape. Offshore is the Gannet Islands Ecological Reserve, > the largest razorbill colony in North America and a major breeding colony > for murres, puffins, and black-legged kittiwakes. > > The new road ends at Cartwright, although there are plans to build another > road from here to Happy Valley-Goose Bay over the next decade. For the time > being, the connection between the two will be a ferry. A separate coastal > boat (no cars) will connect tiny communities between Cartwright and Pinsent > Arm. > > Cartwright was named for Capt. George Cartwright, a merchant adventurer who > lived along the coast for about a decade in the late 1700s. Cartwright had > better relations with the Inuit than his contemporaries. Cartwright was the > subject of a 1990s novel called The Afterlife of George Cartwright, which > was nominated for a Governor-General's Award for Canadian fiction. The > community which bears his name is a major service centre for the coast. > > > A great adventure along this part of the coast is a trip on the groomed > snowmobile trails that connect the communities of southeast Labrador in the > winter. > > The ferry from Cartwright to Happy Valley-Goose Bay traverses the narrow > waterway of Hamilton Inlet that connects the ocean to Lake Melville. It was > probably here that Norse rovers Thorvald Eiriksson and Thorfinn Karlsefni > landed on their journey westward to undiscovered lands. Some people believe > that the Lake Melville area was the Markland - the Land of Forests - of the > Viking sagas. > To be continued: >