Riding the Quebec North Shore & Labrador in Canada

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It's about 200 miles along the north shore of the St. Lawrence River from Quebec City to Sept Iles. The North Shore Quebec & Labrador railroad begins here and runs north through Labrador and on to Schefferville. This town sits in the heart of the Naskapi and Innu territory in northern Quebec. It was once famous for its iron ore mining operations but now bills itself as the caribou hunting capital of northern Quebec. After a day's drive, we spent the night in Sept Iles. The train left the station the next morning at 0800 and pulled into Schefferville at 2200. It was a 14 hour trip each way and the scenery was spectacular. The tracks run parallel to the Moisie River for much of the way so that one gets to see a lot of that fast moving river from the comfort of the train. The sunsets up in that part of the continent are extremely colorful and memorable. The train carries passengers, most of them native Americans (or First Nation as they are called in Canada), each way and it is only one of two ways to get to Schefferville, the other way being by air. The seats are old, but comfortable, and there is a snack bar on board where one can purchase sandwiches, candy, soft drinks, etc. There isn't much to Schefferville and we didn't get to see much because we went right to the bed & breakfast and crashed. We had to get up the next morning to catch the 0800 train back south. We didn't want to miss it and get stuck in that place any longer than we had to. On the way to our lodging, we passed through the center of town which consisted of another hotel, a convience store, and a cafe called the Blah Blah Restaurant. There was one thing we did miss. On the way back, we met some Jehovahs Witnesses who had been there for several days and they had taken photos of black bears scavenging for food out by the town dump.

On the way up, we met a tour group of retired people from Quebec who were getting off at Fermont which is somewhat south of Labrador City. We also met some young people from the states who were going on a six week kayaking trip once they reached Schefferville. It was an interesting trip to make but I don't think we would do it a second time.

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Comments

[Hotel le president]

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