2016/08 Newf'land trip - Blanc Sablon |
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Further along the highway we crossed the Pinware River, dark with tannin and boiling through its canyon. We camped at the provincial park of the same name, but the park was on the beach. The park ranger was eager to sell us an annual pass; odd, I thought, as this is the only provincial park in Labrador, but he assured me the pass was good for Newfoundland too. It turned out to be a really good deal, as it gave us camping discounts too. We camped just behind the sand dunes, looking out to sea
It had been a good day. After all the traveling we had finally arrived and we were looking forward to a couple of weeks of exploring Newfoundland.
Tuesday August 9th
It was a sunny and still morning, and I crossed the dunes and walked the beach, just me and the gulls, until I came to the large estuary of the Pinware River. In the other direction I had this view of the beach and the town of Pinware. The flowers decorating our campsite are fireweed.
We were planning on catching the afternoon ferry from Blanc Sablon, so we had the whole morning to explore the coast road. The road, blacktopped but heavily potholed, passes through a string of little villages.
We soon came to this very impressive headland, name unknown. Nearby was this waterfall crashing through the cliffs and into the sea. Both would be difficult to reach without a boat.
We took the side road into L’Anse Amour (Anse means cove) and then the track around the headland and up to the Point Amour lighthouse.
It’s the tallest lighthouse in Atlantic Canada and dates from the 1850s. The museum included a whole room of ancient maps of the area. Another had the history of the keepers; one family worked there for 84 years. We had to have a guide for our climb to the top of the tower; she 
had been trained to stop after each flight of stairs and rattle off a piece of history while her charges caught up with their breathing. There were 132 steep steps. That’s her next to the Fresnel lens at the top; originally the light would have come from whale oil, replaced by kerosene, and then by electricity. In the kitchen was some fireweed jelly for us to sample: excellent taste and colour-matched to the flowers.
We dropped off our borrowed satellite phone at the hotel in L’Anse St Clair and crossed back across the border into Quebec as the ferry terminal is a couple of miles inside the province. At the border was a large sign warning travelers that it is illegal to bring more than 1.14 litres of wine or spirits into Labrador. From Quebec? More on this later.
When I’d been researching this trip I’d found an article talking about how time zones complicated the ferry trip. It said that time goes backward one hour into Quebec where the ferry starts and then goes forward an hour and a half when you get off in Newfoundland. Whoever wrote it had obviously never been there as the locals have solved the problem by running these bits of Labrador and Quebec on Newfoundland time. No one has a problem except the few people who are traveling from Goose Bay.
We had no reservation as we didn’t know when we’d get there but the young lady said that wasn’t a problem mid-week. She is a Hancock, and said it was quite a common name in Newfoundland. Ranger Hancock had said the same on our 1989 trip. When she asked for less than $30 I had to ask if she was sure. The BC ferries fare for the same distance is nearly $100.