I love Labrador. I love the flag.
Most of all I love the colour.
There are miles and miles of dark trees and light green trees and golden trees, with burgundy and bright red shrubs. In many places the rocks are a pale lime green, covered with lichen or moss.
It is home to Innu and Inuit, and occasionally along the highway we saw sleds parked, waiting for snow. The sleds look like they are constructed of pallets and plywood, with high density polyethylene screwed on to the runners.
Churchill Falls was, to our west coast eyes, very odd. A single building houses the high school, grocery store, rec center, restaurant and the hotel. As the hotel doesn’t take dogs, we were offered the use of the parking lot, which had 110 plug-ins for block heating, or a little dirt parking area with no 110. We decided to pass on either place. We drove around the town and went on.
When we finally got to the coast we were hit with the smell of saltwater and woodsmoke. It smelled like a west coast town. So good.
Time takes on a whole new dimension in southern Labrador. Unlike Vancouver Island, where the time is immutable, out here time is anything that someone thinks it ought to be. Labrador is on Atlantic time. But a small south western sector of Labrador is on Newfoundland time, which is 1/2 hour later. Not a problem except that small sector of Labrador is contiguous with the remote southwest part of Quebec, and Quebec is on Eastern time. And the ferry to Newfoundland leaves from Quebec but the ferry schedule is on Newfoundland time. To confuse us further, our phones switched from Eastern time to Newfoundland time as we slept. When we woke, we couldn’t tell if it was 6 :30 AM, 8:00 AM or 9:30 AM. If it was 9:30, we were late for the ferry check in. Thank goodness for Google. A few “what time is it?” queries got us straightened out. Nevertheless, we broke camp and got to the ferry terminal before 8. Or was it 9:30?
