A Tale from the Labrador Highway.

Our last evening in Tadoussac was tainted with anticipation of the road ahead. All knew that the genteel comforts of the Hotel Georges were to be swapped for the more rugged journey up to Baie Comeau and onwards into the dark and mysterious Labrador territory.

But our first ride was a gentle cruise up the Gulf of St Lawrence where beautiful vistas of sea and tall hills lay around every bend. Baie Comeau itself is a large town, but one which serves as a busy industrial junction between the continuing gulf-side road, which eventually peters out into a dirt road a hundred miles or so further on, and the infamous Route 389 to the north. We chose the latter and rode past huge yellow signs which are lit when the Trans Labrador Highway is closed. Other signs proclaimed the start of the ‘TLH’ and we knew we were on our way.

The road immediately deteriorated into well worn and rutted tarmac, which wound its way upwards through stunning mountain and forest scenery, the road gaining altitude at every turn as it climbs its way to the higher glacial ‘plateau’ which is Labrador itself. The pace quickened as climbing turns were replaced with the roller coaster ride across high ridges in the land which marks the route through this remote place, before we arrived at the end of the tarmac and our stop for the day: Manic 5.

Manic Cinq is a huge truck stop and motel which serves the crews who maintain and service the important Manicougan Dam. This vast hydro facility serves much of Quebec and draws its water from a vast and flooded ancient meteorite strike, which has left a crater covering several hundred square miles. The amount of water we are talking about here must be truly astronomical.

Manic 5 also serves as a natural stop on the route to Labrador City and beyond, both for the heavy semi-trailer units and also for the increasing number of overland travellers.

Food was served in the ‘canteen’, a basic but well stocked restaurant, with basic but hearty fare and portions to sustain even the largest of the truckers and contractors who eat there. Our evening was spent in idle discussion and watching the movements of huge vehicles in and out of the facility and swapping tall tales with our fellow guests at this surprisingly comfortable motel.

The following day was our first on the dirt. A short tarmac ride to the dam, up a steep winding hill and that was it – the dirt and gravel stretched out ahead, the surface which has been our companion for the last four days.

But first an easy 60 miles to Relais Gabriel and coffee at the quirky little café. Then through deeper gravel to the ghost town of Gagnon, where all that remains of an old mining settlement is the layout of roads and pavements. Some chose to stop for a ‘brew up’ while the rest of us pushed ahead and onto a 50 mile stretch of old tarmac to Fire Lake, another long -disappeared settlement. This asphalt respite led us through a breath-taking landscape of high forested plateaus with darker ridges of land marching off to the east and north. The ubiquitous Jackpine forest was now somewhat stunted in height due to the ferocious winters which afflict the Labrador.

After this, the challenge really started. The piste from Fire Lake is both rutted and sandy with lots of sand and loose gravel to catch out the unwary. It also twists and turns across one of the iron ore railway lines. All found it to be a tricky challenge and pushed ahead with care, hoping for a straighter track and a more even surface.

Towards the end of the section, the landscape, which until now had been a mixture of rising and falling terrain, with the road winding around small hills, opened out to reveal a scene of environmental destruction as iron ore is extracted on a mega industrial scale at the settlement of Fermont (quite literally named ‘ferrous mountain’. Mont Wright itself is slowly vanishing as iron is extracted and the ‘spoil’ piled up in vast smooth blankets of poisoned ground. A nearby lake and adjacent rivers all ran red with iron pollution, all life dead within reach of the vile flow.

The group quickly traversed the route through this dismaying scene, before encountering tarmac for the final miles to the border of the province of Newfoundland and Labrador.

We stayed at the Two Seasons Hotel (the two seasons being winter and August!) grateful to be back in English speaking territory, but miffed at losing another hour as we crossed east into another time zone. We learned that the Trans Labrador is now undergoing a huge construction programme, with the aim of tarmacking the entire route between Labrador City and Goose Bay by 2014. The rate of work means that this could be last year where the majority of this section is still dirt. Tarmac will certainly help to open the area to people and business, but not all welcome this proposed taming of one of the world’s last great wildernesses.

We set off the following morning towards Churchill Falls, a company town which serves another hydro facility, this time one which lies deep underground, with vast turbines powering much of lower Canada and parts of New York State. 60 miles of new tarmac certainly added a fresh perspective to the TLH and the smooth road (now called Highway 510) allows the rider to better appreciate the dark beauty and latent menace of the Labrador, but somehow, something seemed to be missing from the overall challenge of the paved stretch.

But we were soon to be back into dirt. Good quality dirt road and light gravel which took us to Churchill Falls, the occasional encounter with road works and the more frequent activities of graders, which ground up the surface and created gravel ‘berms’, to keep us on our toes.

Then the ride to Goose Bay. An easier ride than during our research trip in 2009, it seems that most of the deep gravel which had slowed our progress so much before has now been ‘graded’ away. We speculated that this was to help the numerous surveying crews to determine what the hard surface of the piste is like as they prepare plans for the tarmacking crews. In any case, the lack of gravel along large sections of the route allowed for great progress to be made and for some the exciting ride of their lives.

Goose Bay is where we are currently enjoying a day off the bikes, with the group exploring what this ‘frontier’ town has to offer. Developed around the RAF base in the late 1930s, Goose Bay and its partner town Happy Valley, is a vibrant community with plenty to see and do in the immediate area. Fierce winters means that most buildings look like cargo containers or warehouses from the outside, but inside are often small shopping centres or well stocked shops and other civic amenities.

Tomorrow, we depart for Port Hope Simpson, which is a stone’s throw from the Atlantic coast. We will be riding the Trans Labrador III, the new gravel highway which finally linked the whole Trans Labrador route when it was opened last year. Anticipation of this fresh and exciting part of the journey is high among the group, as is anticipation of seeing the ocean for the first time since Vancouver.