April 5th – La Malbaie, Quebec
Apr 8th, 2018 by rallyadmin
Last night, it was clear, cold and windy. Pretty good (but pricey) dinner at the Two Seasons Inn where we are staying. An early night.
I was up at 4 AM and checked the weather which was forecasted to be snowy, cold and windy, the remnants of the storm that has pounded Ontario and Quebec. No snow yet.
Up at six and the snow has finally arrived. We’re planning to do the last 350 miles of the Trans Labrador Highway today and we’ll be driving north of the low that is bringing the snow and conditions should improve as we head west and then south.
Breakfast at the next door McDonald’s and on the road. Well, almost. We stop for the obligatory pictures of the “Welcome to Labrador City” sign. Getty on the roof of Rabbit 2.0, of course. (It’s only a matter of time until he slips off that roof. It sure looks slippery when he climbs up there and even more so when he gets down. I wouldn’t even attempt it. I heal too slowly these days.)
It overcast and the wind is blowing the snow causing occasional visibility problems. And the gusts are blowing the vehicles around pretty well, too. But there’s no traffic, a truck or car once an hour.
The first 35 kms are paved and then the road turns to gravel for the next 75 kms. The road isn’t as bad as the first section of the TLH but it is bumpy and rutted from the ore and supply trucks for the iron mines. The iron mines are the reason that Labrador City exists at all.
The iron ore is mined by the Iron Ore Company of Canada, which in turn is majority owned by Rio Tinto. The ore is processed here in Labrador City and then shipped by rail to Sept Iles on the Gulf of St Lawrence where it is exported from Canada. It’s the main employer in the area, far ahead of the companies constructing the Muskrat Falls hydroelectric dam south of Happy Valley/Goose Bay.
The road turns back to pavement and we start making some good time. By the time we get to Manic 5 (Manic Cinq), the winds are still with us but the sky is clearing. We are part of a group of three vehicles doing about 125 kph down the long strainghts. The snow is still swirling about and the turns at the ends of the straights slow us down a bit until we come to a railroad crossing where we are stopped by an ore train.
We wait about 10 minutes for the train to lumber by, each hopper car loaded with tones of gray rock headed for the processing plants near Labrador City. Some of the cars have “DO NOT HUMP” stenciled on the side of the car. Not knowing why “humping a hopper car” is prohibited, we brainstorm for an answer. Fortunately, the train passes, the crossing barriers go up and we’re on out way again. The road has been gravel again but turns back to pavement at Manic-5.
We eventually come to the Manic-5 hydro-generating station. It is one of the largest in the Hydro-Quebec system. The Daniel-Johnson Dam, 702 feet tall and 4,311 feet long, blocks the Manicouagan river. It’s an enormous structure and the 18° descent down the side of the canyon below the dam get’s your attention. And it’s impossible not to stop at the bottom of the dam to take pictures. Getty on the roof of Rabbit 2.0 with a concrete wall behind him.
The road below the dam turns twisty. No more fast straightaways, just turn after turn, dips and rises and narrow bridges. The wind has dropped a lot of snow on the road and a couple of times the truck tries to step out in the middle of a sharp turn. But the 4wd system handles it well. (Good thing. We’re still at the end of a long tow if anything goes badly.)
After about 6 hours of this fun and games we reach the end of the Trans Labrador Highway in Baie-Comeau. That’s Comeau Bay in English. But we’re in Quebec now and, unlike the other provinces that use bi-lingual signs, the Quebeqoui don’t feel any need to put English in their road signs. But there are exceptions, apparently. They do count money in English.
It’s been an amazing ride over the Trans Labrador Highway. Barbara and I did the road in July of last year and it was a fun drive with no dramas. This drive in the winter was much more exciting and the stranding in Happy Valley/Goose Bay certainly added to the adventure.
We stop to empty our extra fuel from the jerry cans into the tanks and continue on. The road is a standard highway along the St. Lawrence. It goes from two lane to three lane and back. We speed up in the open areas and then slow to 50 kph for the little towns along the way.
There’s one last ferry. We arrive at the landing just as the ferry leaves for the other side. Maybe 15 minutes later we board and make thew short crossing. The wind is blowing down the channel and buffeting the ferry around. It’s really amazing how they can Manuela these boats in winds like these.
Finally, we come into La Malbaie. A dinner at Mike’s and then we find a hotel just down the road. It’s been a long day, between 40 and 500 miles, but it feels much longer. Tomorrow we start the trek home.
Obi-wan