Blogs from Red Bay, Newfoundland & Labrador, Canada, North America

Labrador The 5:00am wakeup call to catch an early ferry made us feel right at home. Hurry up and wait. The trip to the ferry was uneventful and the ferry was very similar to BC Ferries Salish class ships. The first difference we noticed was that the ramps at our ferry terminals drop down to the ferry from the dock whereas the ferry here had ramps on both ends that dropped down onto the ferry dock. The interiors were slightly different, but ferries are ferries, and we had a nice crossing back to the Canadian mainland. Landing at Blanc-Sablon in La Belle Provence, we headed north to our first destination, the lighthouse at Point Amour. Yes, another lighthouse. It’s amazing how many there are, and they all have something unique to offer. This one is the ... read more

We received an EXC tour update for our tour in Red Bay the next morning; and, it seems that they decided that we would need to be ready one hour earlier than we had planned. This meant that we would need to set the alarm; which, in turn meant that I would need to make sure that my phone had the correct local time. I hadn’t bothered to adjust my phone for the one-half hour that we lost in Newfoundland and Labrador required the same half-zone setting. Back in the day when this province had been separate countries from Canada they had used the sun to determine noon local time. This was needed to have a consistent and accurate time reference for train schedules. When they did become part of Canada there was no effort to ... read more

The men, dressed in woollen pants and goatskin jackets pulled on the oars as the two canvas sails billowed in the breeze. The traditional 8-meter long Basque whaleboat, a chalupa, and its now well-muscled occupants had just completed a 3,500 km journey from Quebec City to Red Bay on Labrador’s south coast. This was not a new scene for Red Bay, Basque whalers operated here in the sixteenth century, hunting whales for their highly valued oil. This reconstructed chalupa was based on a similar vessel excavated from the frigid waters of Red Bay. Excavations began in 1978 and took 6 years, followed by meticulous recording, preservation and reassembly. The seven occupants were commemorating a part of their rich history, even though in the sixteenth century they never actually travelled from Quebec City; and even if ... read more

Today we drove every kilometer of paved road in Labrador, and still had lots of time to eat, sleep and sightsee. One very obvious annoyance are the biting black flies and “Midgies” (tiny flying insect that also like to bite), they are everywhere and just waiting for fresh meat. We have our bug shirts with face/neck screens, and long pants, so off we go to hike the Battery Trail. This trail is not used a lot and it was like bushwhacking, so we cut our hike short and stop at a museum, Labrador Straits Museum. It provided a glimpse of local family life for the past 150 years, not an easy life. Red Bay, our destination, is also where the pavement runs out. Red Bay National Historic Site of Canada tells the story of the Basque ... read more