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Rough Driving the Labrador Coastal Road

Rough Driving the Labrador Coastal Road

  • Author: admin
  • Date Posted: Jul 15, 2015
  • Category:

We left Happy Valley Goose Bay after dinner and tried to drive through the night to get to the Newfoundland Ferry before afternoon the next day.

This area is still really cold, even in the summer.  There is ice in Lake Melville.  Some history: This is the place where Clarence Birdseye got his idea to flash-freeze food to keep its freshness, and it seemed like for every mile we drove on this gravel nightmare, we were getting flash-frozen.

I tried to catch some Z’s while Glenn proceeded into the short night.  I would wake up to the van rattling to pieces.  The potholes and washboards were horrendous.

Early in the morning, the sky was covered in clouds and the temps kept dropping.  It was in the 40’s and sporadic rain.

Then in the middle of nowhere, there is a sign explaining something called “Atlantic Time.”  Turns out they have an additional time zone that is 30 minutes earlier than Eastern Time.  Well that should be confusing.

As we got closer to the coast, the landscape really transforms into what it looks like on the North Slope of the Dalton Hwy or up near Tuktoyaktuk.

It’s really an alien landscape, and really cool.  I wouldn’t say it was worth the drive, but it was the highlight of the lead up to the coast.

Just to show you how cold it was at the coast, there were still patches of snow on the hills in July.  It was easily in the low 40’s and possibly in the high 30’s.

Onward to the Newfoundland Ferry.

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