Day 30 August 22, 2026 Relais-Gabriel Quebec to Labrador City Newfoundland and Labrador 174.9 miles
Starting out with partly cloudy once again. Thankfully no rain fell today. Sure makes traveling easier. Connie gets to see out her side of the windshield.
It appears that we were visited by a raccoon last night. There are lots of paw prints on the fenders and tool box. No obvious damage. Glad that they were not bear paw prints.
If we look out the window at the end of the hall we can see part of the Manicouagan Reservoir. This is a circular lake created when the Daniel-Johnson Dam was built. A large island sits in the middle of the lake so from the air it truly looks like a circle. Millions of years ago a meteor landed here. The reservoir is nicknamed the Eye of Quebec.
The road as we leave is once again asphalt. Much smoother than some parts. The young lady last night said she thought the road was worse than what we had just done. Not looking forward to that. She thought there were lots of frost heaves. There were some but not as many as we expected.
We still had lots of ups and downs but nothing extremely steep. Lots of forest. One area had burned several years ago because the new growth is well on its way.
Only one major construction stretch today. We had to follow a pilot car for maybe five miles. This is a Saturday and they were actively putting down new asphalt. Boy was that section smooth. The car got lots of looks, phones and thumbs up.
We came to what we thought was the huge iron mine located in the region. It may be part of it but not the main plant.
We ate lunch at one of the turnouts. A railroad crew was working on replacing some of the track. They were certainly loud. As we were stopped we could tell how many semis, tankers and corporate vehicles were on the road. More than we thought.
Then we came to the processing portion of the mine. Much more to this location. It’s also closer to the town of Fremont. The mining company built the town to encourage people to come live and work here. A long train of what was most likely ore cars was just leaving.
The first hotel we tried in Labrador City had one room left on the fourth floor and the elevator was broken. Back to another hotel which had a room on the first floor. Once again the car is a big hit. Rob has trouble getting away from all the people. He found out we could have been in another car show last week.
We observed that the signage is once again English and French with the French on the bottom and smaller. The province is called Newfoundland and Labrador. Newfoundland is an island and Labrador is on the mainland. They are the eastern most part of Canada. Newfoundland has their own unique English dialect. We can understand them much better that those who speak French.
Spoffords Travel 