Trans Labrador Highway Part 1

In February I bought a dual-sport motorcycle, a BMW F650 GS Dakar, with the intent on taking it on a big adventure. I wasn't planning anything in the near future, but as spring came I started riding, and as the odometer clicked steadily higher I became more comfortable with the thought of riding off to some remote part of the world. I decided that in August I would ride north to Labrador and Newfoundland to ride the Trans-Labrador Highway and visit the remote Taiga of Northeastern Canada.

The Trans-Labrador Highway is a well-known, but remote motorcycle trip that is close enough to Vermont that it could be ridden in the two short weeks I could get off from work. The TLH starts in Labrador City in Southwestern Labrador, and is the only road that crosses the province all the way to the coast, about 700 miles, several hundred of which are sketchy, loose gravel. Along the way are endless Taiga forests, bears, moose, iron mines, hydroelectric dams, and only 6 towns. It is one of the most desolate roads in eastern North America.

My plan was to ride north from Vermont to Quebec City and follow the northern coastline of the Saint Lawrence Seaway to Baie-Comeau, where I would turn onto Route 389, the only road to Labrador City, and in some ways more remote and wild than the Trans Labrador Highway. From Lab City I planned to follow the TLH past Churchill Falls and Goose Bay to Blanc Sablon, where the road ends just after the provincial line with Quebec, and hop on the ferry to Newfoundland. After exploring the island coastline for several days I planned to take the eight hour ferry to Nova Scotia, and from there ride home to Vermont for a total of almost 3,000 miles.

Friday

After staying up way too late the night before, taking turns drinking beer out of a two liter boot, I frantically tried to finish packing everything onto my bike. At 10 am, four hours late, everything had finally been loaded and strapped down. I fired up the single cylinder Rotax engine and almost dropped the bike on the way out of my sandy driveway. All this extra weight would take some getting used to. As I wound through the twists and turns of Route 100 the reality of the upcoming adventure finally started to sink in. I rolled on the throttle and pointed it towards Canada.

As I accelerated out of the border crossing in Stanstead the endorphins started pouring through my veins, I was out of the US on my way to the Canadian wilderness. But before it gets better, it gets worse. The green mountains and curvy roads of Vermont turn into the suburbs and three lane freeways of southern Quebec. My excitement subsided and the monotony of highway riding set in. After a few hours I made it to Quebec City and only got lost in the city traffic once before I found my way onto the road that parallels the Saint Lawrence Seaway all the way to Baie-Comeau. Gradually the road got smaller and mountains began to sprout up, and the chaos of the city and day-to-day life began to fade away.

I had originally planned on riding all the way to Baie Comeau, but by the time the sun started to set I was still three hours away. I saw a big sign for camping (Fortunately one of the few words that is spelled the same in French and English), and pulled over into the small oceanside town of Saint Simeon. The teenage kid staffing the campground spoke about as much English as I do French, so it took some improvised sign language to figure out the camping situation. Eventually we worked it out and I made my way to a beautiful, but expensive tent site right above the ocean.

Saturday

After breakfast and a beautiful sunrise on the beach I hopped on the bike and started a long day of riding. I had no plan for where I would stop at the end of the day, but hoped it would be pretty close to Labrador City. As the miles ticked by and Baie Comeau got closer the sky began to darken. By the time I got into town the sky had opened up, so I found my way to Route 389 and pinned it, hoping that the rain would let up farther north. From there on out it was essentially one long road all the way to Newfoundland. As soon as I was out of town my surroundings became a full-on wilderness. The road wove over and around rolling hills making for some great riding, only held back by the driving rain and slippery roads. As I rolled northward the downpour eased into scattered showers and soon my only company on the road was tractor trailers headed to the iron mines in Fermont and Labrador City.

A few hundred kilometers after leaving Baie Comeau I stopped at Manic Five, the first town on 389. And by town I mean two gas pumps, a tiny hotel and convenience store, and one big-ass hydroelectric dam. Seriously, this thing was huge, bigger than the Hoover Dam huge. The best part about it was that as soon as I rode up and over the dam the road changed from pavement to gravel! The next few hours consisted of more rolling hills and a windy road that was probably the most fun ride of the trip. About one hundred kilometers later the pavement reappeared in a town called Relais Gabriel, which is no more than a bunkhouse with a couple of gas pumps out front. I grabbed a couple of Coffee Crisp bars to snack on and filled up with some really expensive gas, and kept riding towards Labrador City a few hundred kilometers further north. The riding and scenery were incredible. As the road travels north you can see the forest change to a conifer dominated boreal forest with huge swaths burnt out by forest fires, and small lakes and rivers scattered around everywhere. At the Fire Lake iron mine the road switches back to gravel and starts to get wild. The road zig-zags across a railroad and around big lakes, making for excellent riding. Every now and then the trains carrying iron ore would force you to stop and wait at a crossing for the two mile long rolling thunder to pass by.

At this point it was getting late and I knew that hotels in Lab City liked to charge outrageous prices, so fifty kilometers before I got to town I started looking for places to camp. Along this stretch of road there are tons of little off-shoots that run down to old gravel pits or hunting and fishing camps. After a while I found an abandoned one that looked like it hadn't seen traffic in several years. I followed it down a hundred yards and hopped off to set up my tent. The ground there is tundra-like, and covered in mosses and lichen that make it feel like you’re walking on a sponge. My campsite was right above a big lake, so I walked down at last light to watch the sun set and listen to the loons call. Walking back to my tent I felt like all of the eyes in the forest were watching me. We all know that black bears are usually friendly and all my food was sealed in bags and locked in the cases on my bike, but it doesn't take much to keep you up at night when you’re alone in the middle of nowhere…