THE TRANS-LABRADOR HIGHWAY 2010

previous page | index | next page

Cartwright has one of the most inspiring settings of any town that I have ever visited. It was founded in 1775 by a British adventurer called George Cartwright whose brother, by the way, was the Edmund Cartwright who invented the powered weaving loom in the UK. Cartwright was well-connected with politicians and military gentlemen and after the military service that was almost compulsory for well-endowed young gentlemen of the time, followed in his father's footsteps, or, more correctly, in his father's wake across the Atlantic to Labrador.

Cartwright established several fishing and trading ports along the Labrador coast, including Paradise River just up the road from here, but effectively lost everything when they were plundered by American privateers during the War of American Independence.

All his possessions in North America were sold in 1815 and in 1873 the Hudson's Bay Company bought the town. They own it to this day, so I am informed

It's a weird thing for me though. Being a European, I learnt about the Hudson's Bay Company at school and the abiding image in my mind whenever that company is mentioned is of people paddling around in canoes carrying piles of animal skins that they trade for pemmican and a new musket. It's really difficult for me to cope with seeing a Hudson's Bay Company shop next to a Sears or a Home Depot and people turning up in SUVs to buy dishwashers and packets of crisps.

And so having waxed lyrical enough for one day - "thank you" ...ed - I made my way into town.

I have to say that this was much more of what I was expecting in Labrador. It's a straggly town with houses dotted around on odd parcels of land that are sometimes overgrown with a kind of wiry, straggly grass and with boats, old cars, bits of engine and so on dotted about all ovet the place.

Definitely my kind of town.

And you can see the dependence that the area has on the sea. There are small boats moored up everywhere.

As you come into the town there's a hotel, the Cartwright Hotel on the left and, thankfully, a petrol station on the right. So I can resolve my fuel issues here. But I'm pressing on into the town as I've been told that the motel is on the low road by the harbour.

So finding the Northside Motel, which is the building on the left-hand edge in this photograph, I banged on the door with enough force to awaken the dead, but it didn't seem to awaken anyone who might be within the motel. A young lad passing by on a bicycle reckoned that they had closed down for the season. Now that was bad news.

Back up to the Cartwright Motel, with the fuel gauge now flashing its orange warning light. And taking a deep breath, I enquired about a room. They were full up. Now that was even worse.

Mind you, the two ladies there were nothing if not resourceful.
"Leave it to me" said one of them. And about five telephone calls later I was told to return to the Motel and await the arrival of "someone". And someone did come down to the Northside Motel to let me in, which I thought was extremely nice of them

It was expensive though, $105 plus taxes but nevertheless it was nice of them to put me up at short notice. The room was comfortable and the internet worked pretty quickly too.

I was given the keys to the kitchen and told to help myself to whatever I liked as long as I washed and cleaned up after. I had a few tins of stuff in Casey ready for eventualities such as this but a couple of slices of bread went down quite well with my spaghetti and beans. And next morning I breakfasted on toast, jam, orange juice and coffee - all included in the price so it wasn't all that bad after all if you knock off the $20 that I saved on meals.

And this set me thinking - which I know is dangerous. Accommodation prices up here are horrendous and it really is a case of gritting my teeth and paying up as there isn't any other alternative. But I can save on my travel costs if I make my own arrangements for my evening meal instead of eating out.

Later that evening I went for a walk around the town before it went dark.

This is the Post Office at Cartwright and the one thing that you will notice straight away is that all of the signs are bilingual. But bilingual what, you may well ask. In fact, it's bilingual French and English, much to my surprise.

Now I haven't heard a French voice since I left Fermont the other day, and even then I had to "persuade" them to speak French to me. Since I crossed into Labrador I haven't heard a single peep in the French language.

However I am told that there are many First Nation communities around here and if you were with me up on the Upper Labrador plateau yesterday (blimey - was it only yesterday?) we saw signs written in English, French and two First Nation languages which may well have been Innu and Inuit.

So firstly - why do they have signs here in French if no-one around here speaks it (and it's no good saying to me that there may well be Francophone visitors here. because they also have Anglophone visitors in Montreal and no provision is made for them)?
and secondly - why are there no signs in any First Nation language when there are some native-speakers around here who could benefit from it?

There is little doubt that the Francophone community considered itself to be the victim of many injustices following the British take-over in the 18th Century and it is right that some kind of action was taken to address them. But sometimes, taking these issues to such extremes can bring a very laudable cause into considerable disrepute. "Nova Scotia" is a prime example of this and it always makes me laugh.

They say that unemployment amongst First Nation Canadians is well above the national average and that many of the First Nation languages are dying out. These problems could be solved at a stroke if
 i.... the Government and other public bodies actively recruited staff who could speak these languages
 ii... First Nation Canadians were encouraged to speak their own language when dealing with Government and other public bodies.

Perhaps it's just as well that I don't live in Cartwright. I would have a revolution going within a week. But then again, my friends all tell me often enough that I am quite revolting.

Next stop was the grocery shop to have a look round and buy what I might need for the next day or two. And I can see why the accommodation is so expensive. The costs of the basic necessities to sustain life up here are horrendous too. So much so that I felt guilty about the two slices of bread that I had eaten with my evening meal. When everything has to come here by sea then it's bound to be at quite a premium.

But one of life's little mysteries is solved. Remember when I was in Goose Bay and I was asked for a "looney" when what was required was One Dollar? I asked the girl at the cash desk here about that, and she says that the bird on the one dollar coin is a loon. Well, now I know. Now see if you can guess what a "tooney" is.

The grocery shop was also the place for the local adverts and I always like to have a browse at them. It seems that here in Cartwright there was something going on "at Fred Blogg's house", "Joe Soap" had his pickup for sale, and there was a garage sale "at A N Other's old house" where "everything must go as the place is being pulled down". Isn't this just like Virlet where I live? No-one uses addresses at all and everyone knows everyone else's business. They say that it's always best to live in a small village because if you dont have a clue about what you are doing, everyone else does.

From the village shop I had a wander along to the harbour. First place I encountered was the office of The Labrador Fishermen's Union Shrimp Company Limited. Well, I suppose that the local fishermen have to catch something since there is no longer any cod.

All of this reminds me of a story that I once heard about an inspector from the Canadian Fisheries Department having a furious row with the skipper of a trawler somewhere on the Labrador coast.
"Where do you think you are going in your trawler?" asked the inspector
"I'm going to catch me a whole mess of cod" replied the skipper
"Well, you can't" insisted the inspector."The cod stocks are quite exhausted"
"Like I care. I won't be without my cod"
"Out of the question. There's no longer any cod left to catch"
"Well I'm going to catch me some cod and there's nothing that man nor beast can do to stop me"
"Well, let me put it this way" said the inspector. "If I took the "S" out of "SKATE", what would I have?"
"Why, "KATE", of course."
"And if I took the "W" out of "WHALE", what would be left?"
"Why, there would just be the "HALE" left."
"And if I took the "F" out of "COD", what would be left?"
"But there's no "F" in "COD"!" exclaimed the exasperated skipper
"And isn't that just what I've been trying to tell you this last half-hour?" thundered the inspector.

I'll get my coat.

Cartwright is situated in Sandwich Bay, but in a part of Sandwich Bay that is protected by a spur of land rather like a bird's claw that connects it from the ravaging winds that blow off the North Atlantic

There are also several islands in the bay that acts as windbreaks too and a finer spot for a harbour you could never wish for. Mind you, there didn't seem to be much protection this evening. I was freezing in the cold wind, so much so that I wondered what it might be like stabding on an exposed headland somewhere. There were plenty of exposed headlands dotted about but I wasn't in any particular hurry to go and find out.

Until 2002 the only connection with the outside world was by the sea and there is still a regular boat service that calls here a couple of times per week. It's some kind of coastal hopper that starts at Goose Bay and then works its way down the coast, but after Cartwright it goes just as far as Black Tickle - and then stops.

When I first began to consider this journey in 2006, I would have had to drive up the coast from the south up to the end of the road, which was here, take that boat to Goose Bay, freighting the car in a container in the hold, in order to continue the trip.

There was also another boat service, from Goose Bay that stopped at Cartwright and then went on over to Lewisporte on Newfoundland. However a government announcement on 26th October 2010 stated
"Now that there is a highway link connecting the communities currently served by this run, the time has come to discontinue the passenger and freight service between Lewisporte, Cartwright and Happy Valley-Goose Bay"
In other words, the road that I have just travelled over has sunk the Sir Robert Bond

But - "Black Tickle" - I'd still love to now the reason behind the name of that place where the ferry stops. What's the story behind that? It is apparently a settlement, founded by a group of deserting mariners, on an island a little way off the coast.

If I had been planning to go over to Black Tickle at any time, it was too late, because I had quite literally missed the boat.

You'll know by now, if you have read much of what I have written about the relationship between the local communities and the Canadian Government, about how in the 1960s and 1970s the Canadian Government had a forced relocation of many of the outlying communities on the Coasts of Labrador.

This policy was roundly criticised and has led to a whole raft of apologies from the Canadian Government. But if you think that the policy has now stopped, then you need to think again, because it's now much more insidious, if not evil.

There might be no "forced removal" of the outlying community of Black Tickle, but what has happened in 2015 is that the Newfounland and Labrador has planned to withdraw the Community Health Services and the subsidy to the fuel supplier to provide fuel and winter heating oil to the community.

No health and no heat, and the island will be "voluntarily" cleared of its population half an hour after the first heavy snowfall.

So with there being docks and some kind of local freight service there would bound to be some interesting machinery down there, and that's always well-worth a wander.

First thing that we see is a huge Hyster tractor fork lift truck-type machine. This is quite useful for the lifting up of shipping containers that need to be loaded and unloaded from trucks and onto the ferry. I suppose that that is how your car would be loaded but my arrival here didn't coincide with a ship arrival so I don't know.

These are also quite impressive machines too - a couple of yard shunters made by a company called "Ottawa", a company that meant absolutely nothing to me. It's a company that specialised in dockside yard shunters and is now part of the Kalmar Group.

If you've been with me all the way around from Baie Comeau then you'll have seen a few artics up and down this road. These yard shunters would be for moving the semi-trailers around the docks and onto the ships.

We've also seen on our travels some huge earth-moving equipment fitted with some enormous tyres, and I bet you have been wondering what they do with the tyres when they are no longer fit for service.

Well, wonder no more. What they do with some of them anyway is to use them as wharfside fenders to prevent the larger ships damaging themselves on the concrete edges. I suppose that that is an environmentally-friendly way of using them rather than burning them or burying them.

There's always lots of other exciting artefacts to see on a quayside, especially in a remote area like this, and this old diesel (I think that it's a diesel engine) is certainly exciting. Maybe not as exciting as a diesel engine that I saw in New Mexico in 2002 but exciting just the same.

The configuration of the cylinders was interesting and so I looked for a maker's plate so that I could do some research. No plate though and later I asked Darren, my niece's husband and who lives in New Brunswick, about it. He told me what it was and I promptly forgot. So if you know what it might be.

As well as connections to the outside world by road and sea, there is also a connection by air. There's one of these rural airstrips not too far away from the town. I didn't actually get to see it but I don't for a minute think that it will handle anything all that much bigger than this.

And the presence of an airstrip, a friendly bunch of people and a useful motel with catering facilities and decent internet connection has given me all kinds of ideas for a winter retreat where I can write my memoirs.

The views across the bay from the harbour were certainly attractive and extremely relaxing too, even though I was freezing to death in this wicked wind that was blowing around.

And the bay was another reason why I was here in Cartwright. I remember very clearly years ago a report on British Television about how on the coast of Labrador the sea freezes regularly and polar bears come along the ice looking for food and end up scavenging in domestic waste bins.

And yes, I was right. It was indeed Cartwright where this took place and people actually remembered the report. It seems that polar bears are frequent visitors to Cartwright in the winter as this news report confirms. And having seen a porcupine on my first day on the trail, a mose on the second, a black bear today, it wouldn't surprise me in the least to be awoken by a polar bear in the morning.

A nice, quiet, sleepy kind of little town, you might be thinking. But it wasn't always like this and in 1932, it would have been absolutely deafening. Especially on 12th July of that year round about 17:50 when no less than 24 - and I did say 24 - Savoia-Marchettti S55X flying boats dropped in to say hello. I doubt if anyone would have heard them say hello though because I imagine that the racket from 48 Isotta-Francini 750 horse-power engines must have been deafening.

Yes, the Italian General Italo Balbo was on his way from Rome to Chicago with his fleet of 25 flying boats and although one of them dropped out early, all of the rest made it safely across the Atlantic, in what was an astonishing feat of aviation at the time, to make landfall at Cartwright.

And Balbo wasn't the only Transatlantic flyer to stop off at Cartwright on the way across the Atlantic. Just 12 days later, on 24th July, Charles Lindbergh and his wife dropped in on their way to Copenhagen in Denmark. This time, the "Flying Fool", a little older and a little wiser, was put off by the meteorological conditions and holed up here for a week until the weather improved.

And if that isn't enough to be going on with, in late August 1934 two intrepid adventurers, Richard Light, just 22 years of age, and Robert Wilson, in a tiny little Bellanca Skyrocket, stopped off at Cartwright on their 46,000-kilometre sightseeing tour of the world. That's another quite astonishing aviation feat given the era in which it took place, the size of the aeroplane, and the youth, inexperience and ambitions (and success) of its crew.

Next morning I was awake quite early, even though something had woken me up in the middle of the night. Was it a polar bear, I wondered, or the ghost of Balbo and his 24 flying boats? But no. Having seen the offices of The Labrador Fishermen's Union Shrimp Company Limited on my little walk, I formed the impression that the word must have gone around the town yesterday that
"Shrimp Boats are coming. There's dancing tonight"
and I bet you didn't even suspect that I had a musical bent, did you?

So after breakfast, included in the price, I set off for the petrol station, with the amber fuel light flashing, to fuel up for today's encounters. And $1:32.4 per litre as well. Pretty extortionate you might think, but when you consider that the only way the petrol can come here is on a ferry from God Knows Where or by fuel tanker over 400 kilometres of what passes for roads around here over the mountains, then what do you really expect? I'm starting to get used to the prices around here in Labrador and I'm just going to have to grit my teeth and pay up.

I'll suffer for it when I make it back home. Starvation rations I reckon, but I'm not going to be put off from accomplishing my lifetime ambition simply by a matter of unexpected expenses.

The guy at the petrol station was quite friendly and talkative, like most people around here. And I must admit that I do like the accent around here. It's a nice burr kind of drawly laid-back accent not really very much like a typical North American one. They say that a good many West Country mariners settled around here and you can believe that, listening to the local accent.

He told me that the road over the top from Goose Bay has only been open since Christmas, but what I wanted to know was who on earth came over the mountains at Christmas to test it out? He replied that the weather was really weird last winter. Normally it snows in Cartwright from November and stays well into April but this year, 2010, they had rain in February. I blame global warming myself.

A minor difficulty though was the fact that he had no airline, and Casey's front right tyre was looking quite spongy. Then again, this is what driving in the wilderness is all about.

And talking of lifetime ambitions, the reality suddenly hit me just about here that now I'm in almost at the point of achieving my lifetime ambition of travelling the Trans-Labrador Highway, what on earth am I going to plan for next? That particular thought was quite depressing.

And now I'm all fuelled up, and not having managed to convince anyone to take me out to the Wunderstrand, it was time to head back down the Metis Trail to the Labrador Coastal Drive.

In case you are interested, nothing much had changed down there along the trail in the 14 hours that I had been in Cartwright and so I haven't made any alterations or additions to that web page

back to top

next page