Day 5 - Cartwright - L'Anse au Clair (Labrador)

Distance: 600 km (including side trips)

We arrived with the ferry earlier than expected at around 7am in Cartwright.














Cartwright is named after George Cartwright who established a trading company in Labrador which he later sold to the Hudson Bay Company (which was and still is one of the world's largest trading companies). Before starting our ride we had to find an open gas station, which turned out to be more complictated than we initially assumed.

After a bit more than 2 hrs we arrived in Charlottetown which is located 24 km off the Labrador Coastal Drive. Charlottetown is a nice shrimp fishing village and when we arrived there was a strong fish smell in the air as the day's catch was just loaded off and brought to the shrimp processing facility.


































































Next stop was Pinsent's Arm, a small village with a population of 55 and no facilities.

































The weather got gradually worse and it became more and more difficult to take pictures without getting the camera too wet (and my camera even has its own raincoat!!! - Thanks, Tom).



























The next couple of pictures are from a lookout (Fishermen's Point) in St. Lewis which is the oldest settlement in Labrador.




















Picture of a bakeapple berry (also known as cloudberry), which you can find all over Labrador and also New Foundland. You can make jam, but also tea out of it.



























Crab shell














































Isn't this gas station in St. Lewis cool?




















In Mary's Harbour the weather was already quite unpleasant so that we deciced not to leave the car anymore except for very good reasons.





















































After Mary's Harbour the scenary became increasingly interesting as taiga forest was replaced by tundra - just a small difference in elevation, that's all that's needed up here!

In Red Bay we visited the National Historic Site which tells the history of this small whaling village. Red Bay has a Basque history as whale fishers came between the 15th and the early 16th century for whale hunting. In 1978 a ship wreck of a Basque whaling boat was found in Red Bay which helped to reconstruct the life of the fishermen.

A Basque whaling boat














When a whale got caught it was sliced into chunks and the fat was melted to produce whale oil. The oil was used among others for lighting and soaps.










Barriques were used by the fishermen to ship the whale oil to Europe.




















Last stop before reaching our motel was L'Anse Amour where you can see the tallest lighthouse in Atlantic Canada.



























We stayed the night in the Norhtern Light in where we had a delicous seafood chowder and a caribou special for dinner.