Day 35: Southern Labrador to Goose Bay-Happy Valley

Today we make the trek to Happy Valley-Goose Bay. Lots of driving and no gas stations.

Much of the history in this part of Canada has related to the early indigenous peoples and the arrival of the Europeans seeking its natural resources. Settlements were coastal and involved livelihoods such as fishing, whaling, logging and some mining.

As we have been driving through the charming villages still in existence along the southern coast of Labrador, you can’t help but ask yourself, “what do people still do around here to earn a living g?” By all counts, these villages are clean and prosperous. No one is living in poverty even after the economic fallout from the cod moratorium in 1992. Their only connection to the rest of Canada is by ferry, other maritime conveyance, some minimal air transportation, and the single road through here. I went on to the Southern Labrador website to find out.

Southern Labrador is nestled between the Quebec North Shore (St. Lawrence Rivet) and the Mealy Mountains of Central Labrador. Southern Labrador is a coastal region of wide open-spaces and  has nineteen small communities with a population of 8 to 600 people in each with 4400 people in total. It is in the Newfoundland time zone. They are traditional fishing villages with a growing tourism industry.

Schools (K-12), healthcare, retail, postal and banking services are available. Households and businesses have everything they need for normal daily life. There are no post-secondary institutions but courses can be done on line.

The economy of Southern Labrador is based on natural resources, primarily the fishery. The biggest employer in the region is the Labrador Fisherman’s Union Shrimp Company, which is owned by the fishermen and has processing plants throughout Southern Labrador. Tourism is important to the area and has helped to drive the growth of the service sector. The small business and service sector has also been growing due to the opportunities associated with the new road connection which connects Southern Labrador to Goose Bay, and the rest of Canada. The public sector is a major employer, especially in health and education. Some skilled trade workers are employed in Southern Labrador.

Today was a travel day from Red Bay to Goose Bay – Happy Valley. We stopped in at Port Hope-Simpson, the last place for gas for 250 miles. I had forgotten to fill up our drinking water containers and had to buy some before setting off. The drive was interesting, 5 hours with no habitations at all. We pulled off to the side of the road for a picnic lunch, something we haven’t done a lot of.

It’s bright and sunny yoday. It was 85F when we pulled into Happy Valley. There are no campgrounds. We are parked down near the river in view of a beautiful sand bar where we were told we could spend the night (no services, but we are self-contained). We have reservations (!) For dinner tonight in one of the nicer restaurants in town.

The insects are voracious!!! We sat in the park and chatted with one of townspeople who was walking his dog and came by to talk. Curious about occupations here, he said he worked as an electrician at the US Air Base here and then at the local hospital.

Time for a walk. We’ve been in the car all day.

Happy Valley-Goose Bay is located on the Churchill River in Central Labrador and was founded in 1942 in response to WW2. In the summer of 1941, Eric Fry, an employee of the Canadian Department of Mines and Resources on loan to the Royal Canadian Air Force, selected a large sandy plateau near the mouth of the Goose River to build the Goose Bay Air Force Base. The base was used by both Canadian and US military. Goose Air Base became a landing and refuelling stop for the Atlantic Ferry route. The Grenfell Mission operated the first medical facilities when it opened a nursing station in 1951.

Today the area has a population of about 8000 people.

A nice surprise after a long day on the road was a lovely 30 minute walk the boardwalk on the river where we hope to Boondock tonight. Our choices for spending the night were: the parking lot of the tourist information center, the parking lot of the YMCA, a campground with no services that is still under construction, or boondocking at the boardwalk if we can get away with it. We chose the latter, black flies and all.

Dinner tonight was delightful, the best restaurant since we left home, run by the local indigenous people. It’s called the Mamatuck. I felt like we were dining in NYC! at half the price.

With both Thermocells lit, we are sitting by the river after dinner.

And the rest of the evening disintegrated pretty rapidly after that.

During dinner, we received a phone call from our local police at home. The alarm panel in the house, which is not even activated, was sending out burglary and fire alarms. Apparently we had both police and fire trucks at the house ready to break and enter. We had to assure the police that the system was faulty. This has happened before and always when we are away. And then the security system we use started harassing us with phone calls. This went on for about 5 hours. We finally told the security system to stop calling us.

But the biggest problem now is the forest fires in our path. When we came back from dinner, we noticed a long line up of cars at the gas station. We learned later that Labrador City, on our westerly and ONLY route to Quebec through here, has been evacuated to Happy Valley-Goose Bay, where we are right now. So, that is forcing us to retrace our steps back to Blanc Sablon. We didn’t get gas on our way into town, and we don’t have enough to get back to Port Hope-Simpson. We pulled up stakes around 10 pm. to go find a gas station that still had gas. Fortunately, we did.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/wabush-labrador-city-fire-threat-1.7261579

Now to get ferries booked that we hadn’t originally planned. We won’t be the only ones needing to change plans. We put the Starlink back out at 11 pm. and spent the next hour booking reservations on ferries back to Newfoundland and then back to Nova Scotia. The next ferry available from Blanc Sablon to St.Barbe is Tuesday! The second one we need is the ferry from Port aux Basques to Nova Scotia, booked for overnight on Thursday. After that, we just drive straight through Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Quebec to our daughter in Montreal.