Blog English – Arminius-on-tour

The landscape looks like Christmas. A thick snow coat covers everything; there is still heavy snow flurry. But better snow in May than mosquitoes in June.

Take care of the big trucks! They tear along the gravel highway with sometimes 150 km/h and don’t care for potholes or other obstacles. Fortunately there are not so many moose like in Newfoundland. Truckers stay in the middle of the road. However, dodging could be a problem with that speed. The only option is to slow down and keep right as much as you can.

Did I write the road to Happy Valley – Goose Bay was finished? That was an error. The track WILL be finished. Imagine, you drive on a bad gravel road full of potholes, and you suddenly read a funny sign: „Rough road for 50 km“. We are not amused for very long time. There is only the substructure of the track, nothing else. Big rocks, sometimes sticky loam with huge holes full of water. We go through construction zones, through brooks and over temporary bridges. 41 km in two and a half hours, partially at walking pace. This section is not suitable to regular cars and motorhomes with insufficient clearance at the moment.

I officially apologize to the lady of the last gas station. If you take the road to Happy Valley – Goose Bay by car voluntarily you should get your brain checked or you are really an alien. I confess: We come from another planet. Its name is Europe and we have asphalt roads. At least we’ve got the right rig for that kind of venture and stay cool. Labrador’s interior is a land for adventurers nothing for softies.

Since days we have incessant precipitation, the country is deeply snow-covered. The snow is partially – without industrial air-pollution – so clean that it’s shimmering blue.  After six and a half hours and 275 km we hit the road from Happy Valley – Goose Bay to Labrador City. It is, oh wonder, asphalted for a couple of kilometres. The double-city has more than 7.500 inhabitants and is a real big city here.

Some kilometres further, in Sheshatshiu, we want to visit Mélina and her group. She’s the manager of the local Katimavik project that offers young people to work for a while in a voluntary social service. They work in different fields like climate research, children’s day-care, garbage collection and as teachers’ assistants. Since we do not know exactly where to find Melina’s house we stop at the Royal Canadian Mounted Police’s building and ask there. The very friendly Mounties are keen on helping us, after all something interesting happens on this dreary day. They jump hurriedly in their car and guide us personally the 500 m to the right building. There some turmoil arises due to the police force. As they run into the rubbish bin while driving backwards the show is perfect.

This entry was posted on Samstag, Mai 15th, 2010 at 22:57 and is filed under Canada. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.