46 km, 4 h 5 min ride time – Deadman’s Cove to L’Anse-au-Loup
Today was definitely a slog, as the hills between Deadman’s Cove and St.Barbe (where the ferry is) provided to be just a warm up for the hills in Labrador. We are glad that we caught the morning ferry rather than the afternoon one, as it took us more than 3 hours to go the 30 km from Blanc-Sablon to L’Anse-au-Loup. The 100km day yesterday likely didn’t help, since we started tired, but these are definitely our biggest hills to date.
We are staying at Mary Barney’s B&B for a couple of nights, while we rest up and prepare for the bit of pavement (50km) to Red Bay and then the 350+ km of dirt road that will take us to Cartwright.
We ran into Shawn and Kara from Kirkland Lake partway through our ride, and again at the B&B. They have done a loop through the Maritimes, and are heading back through Labrador and Quebec, which seems like a lot of fun. They certainly had an easier time of the hills than we did (but they did add a hike to make up for it)! Kara has been a teacher in Northern Ontario for a number of years, and it was interesting to get her perspectives on schooling for natives – both on-reserve and off-reserve. She still keeps in touch with some of her first students, in elementary school a decade ago, and even the best of them have gotten mired in addiction and pregnancy in their teens… It’s a difficult problem.
Kara also spent a year in South East Asia a few years ago, so we’ve added her to our list of people to talk to in detail before we get there.