Saturday in Labrador

From: "Gardner, George" <g.gardner@northeastern.edu>
Date: September 23, 2017 at 9:44:06 PM GMT-2:30
To: Blogger Blog <Capegeorge1.george@blogger.com>
Subject: Fwd: Saturday in Labrador

From: Eric MacLeish <ericmacleish@gmail.com>
Date: September 23, 2017 at 9:02:43 PM GMT-2:30
To: George Gardner <g.gardner@northeastern.edu>
Subject: Blog

Arrived in Labrador yesterday via ferry. Heavy seas on the way over and I had to retreat to the stern deck to avoid seasickness. Strange experience for an old salt and someone who wants to take his wife and family on a sailing vacation. 

You technically arrive on your Labrador vacation in Quebec. A strange part of Quebec since there are only four towns to the left that are within this part of the province.  After that the road ends and it is 250 kms to the next town. But these four towns retain their Québécois identity,  both linguistically and culturally. If there signs in English they must be a fraction of the signs in French. 

Go to the right and you soon pass the provincial border to Labrador. 27,000 residents in the province and ATVs and skidoos are everywhere. We spent the night at the Northern Lights Inn. Unfortunately it is not cold enough for the aurora borealis so we missed that. We also missed riding our bikes today since we were treated to the remnants of Hurricane Jose. But George headed out to clearing weather for a walk

and I followed shortly. We didn't bump into each other. 

I made my way on a trail out to the head of St. Clair's Cove while made his way to the bubbling sands. See video. I'll let George speak about the bubbles.

I had a great walk along this dramatic sea trail. See other photos. On my way back, I stopped to meditate in a desolate area and was

interrupted five minutes later with a big "hello."

William was a native Labradorian with a masters in environmental sciences. He was also incredibly informative and friendly. He explained everything you could possibly want to know over the next 1.5 hours ranging from how to

pronounce "Newfoundland," which I had mangled (it rhymes with "understand") to Inuit  culture in the almost inaccessible Northern Labrador villages. 

We were later joined by another native named Gus who came up on his ATV. He just drove up on the trail and stopped his machine. At first I thought he knew William but that wasn't the case; he just stopped to be friendly. 

I learned a lot. Labrador was transformed in 1992 when the department of fisheries closed the province to cod fishing. It happened overnight and it has not been lifted.  Basically, the European and Canadian factory fishing boats perfected the art of catching cod and the fleet decimated the cod. By the way, cod is simply referred to as "the fish" up here. Striped bass, the prize of  Buzzards Bay, are considered an invasive species. 

The ban on cod fishing transformed these towns. But Labradorians are self reliant and many people are self sufficient, living on Moose, rabbits and vegetables like potatoes and carrots which are found in numerous gardens both on private land and in public areas like the side of the road. 

Our server just told us that she grew up in a town accessible only by water. It used to be the biggest cod town in Labrador. Population 3,000. Now it's deserted. 

The Inuits that populate the Northern have not fared well. Many were nomadic chasing the substantial caribou herd.  The government restricted the native population to certain areas destroying their hunter gatherer culture. 

I just tried the cod tongues for dinner. I first told George that it was probably one tongue from a giant 500 pound cod. Our server corrected me saying that the cod were 10 to 15 pounds and that the tongues on my plate were from five fish. I would probably not repeat the food order. The tongues taste just like what you might imagine a cod tongue to taste like. 

George has bonded well with the locals and he is filled with ideas about charitable foundations intertwined with technology that could help the struggling population. Apparently, the new hydro electric cable from Northern Labrador does not deliver power to local villages. George is concerned about this and has some ideas, that I advised him to keep to himself for the time being, on low cost solutions to capturing the current grid and transforming it to AC power. He explained a lot of this to me but I didn't understand most of it so forgive my primitive explanation. This is another example of George's commitment to the underserved with the use of cutting edge technology. 

Sent from Eric's iPhone