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A short drive across the border from Labrador City, but a world away
culturally, the Quebec iron mining city of Fermont
is a strange but surprisingly pleasant experiment in town planning. Almost
all of the city's commercial establishments, including a hotel, stores,
and restaurants, plus a large apartment complex, are located in a single
kilometer-long building that serves as a windbreak for the attractively
laid-out suburban-style neighborhood on the other side. Despite their close
proximity in the middle of the wilderness, Fermont and Labrador City have
different languages and time zones.
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At the Quebec border, Labrador Route 500 (the Trans Labrador Highway)
becomes Quebec Route 389. Thanks to the constantly changing weather, we
saw a lot of rainbows on our trip, including
this one, which seemed to touch the highway (at the far left).
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Beyond Fermont, the paved highway that began in Labrador City ends
abruptly at the Mt. Wright iron mine, and Route 389 turns into a barely
passable dirt detour through the devastated landscape.
The scope of the environmental disaster here is truly mind-boggling: hills
gouged away, massive erosion, and drainage canals filled with bright red
runoff. We couldn't imagine how these trees managed to survive. |
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Approximately 40 miles later, at the abandoned Fire Lake mine, begins
a surprisingly good paved road (recently re-striped) to Gagnon, about 50
miles south, which housed the mine workers. Once a sizable community, Gagnon
no longer exists; all of its buildings, except for this rusting terminal
at the airport north of town, were removed after the mine closed. It was
almost dark when we got here, but I could make out the rusted hulks of
two cars and a bicycle in the wreckage. |
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We spent the night in a clearing off the road in Gagnon which is a
popular spot for fishermen and other travelers (including a Quebecois couple
in their camper nearby), and built a fire in
a makeshift fire pit left by previous visitors. Because of the rain and
the creepy atmosphere we decided not to pitch the tent and instead spent
a rather uncomfortable night sleeping in the car (note to potential Jeep
Cherokee buyers: the front seats don't recline well when the back seat
is folded!). |
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The town of Gagnon today: The mining company
did well by its employees when it built Gagnon at a lovely spot on a river.
Although the buildings are gone, the cleared site has become a semi-permanent
trailer community for anglers, and it's probably quite busy on summer weekends. |
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Sidewalks, curbs, and sewer grates are still
visible at Gagnon. In a more temperate climate the vegetation would almost
certainly have completely destroyed this infrastructure by now, but here
it is surprisingly intact.
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The pavement yields to gravel again just south of Gagnon, but it's
a good, high-speed surface. Soon the road climbs through beautiful hills,
including the lush Monts Groulx range. Logging trucks are common along
this stretch of the road. |
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This fanciful-looking sod-roofed building is part of Camp
Nomade I, at the Monts Groulx trailhead about 40 miles beyond Gagnon.
We couldn't figure out who is responsible for this very comprehensive little
camp, which features two sleeping cabins, a tenting area, and an ample
firewood supply. The trails looked wonderful, but we opted not to venture
up into the rain-soaked hills. A motel/gas/restaurant complex called Relais
Gabriel, which offers the first services south of Fermont, is about 12
miles farther south. It was 8:00 a.m. when we got there, but they didn't
seem to be open yet so we kept going.
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Sixty miles south of Relais Gabriel we saw the awesome Manic
Cinq (5) dam, which is the largest of several hydro plants along the
Manicouagan River and the largest dam of its type in the world. This complex
is a major tourist attraction, with an excellent visitor center and several
tours daily, all free. The tour was a far
cry from the intimate party of seven on our Churchill Falls tour: two school
buses full of sightseers! I know some French but could make out almost
none of the tour guide's rapid-fire Quebecois dialect. If you don't speak
French be sure to let them know; we were the only two English-speakers
there, but they showed us a special introductory video and the guide was
happy to make herself available for our questions. The staff at the nearby
Motel de L'Energie and its overpriced gas station (85.9 cents/liter) and
restaurant seemed rather less charmed by our linguistic shortcomings, however. |
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Beyond Manic Cinq Route 389 is a winding, paved road through mostly
uninhabited forests, ending 130 miles later at Baie Comeau, a big mill
town on the Saint Lawrence River where civilization resumes with a vengeance.
Once past the strip malls of Baie Comeau, though, the scenery and towns
along the river are pleasant enough. We spent the night at the campground
in the drop-dead gorgeous tourist town of Tadoussac,
at the mouth of the Saguenay River, a fjord marking the eastern boundary
of the Labrador peninsula. We didn't have time to take one of the whale-watching
tours that have made this place so popular, but we enjoyed strolling through
the village, and the view from the bustling campground was spectacular. |
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The coastal route between Tadoussac and Quebec is a delightfully scenic
drive featuring steep hills and charming resort villages. It was hard to
believe that we woke up in Gagnon the day before! We spent our last night
in Canada in the walled upper city of Quebec, where we danced until three
in the morning and took one last tourist photo on the boardwalk in front
of the Château Frontenac before heading
back to the U.S. |
Québec
