George River Solo 2018
Getting There
My buddy SluGG0 would be accompanying me to Labrador and would then drive my truck back to Toronto. He arrived as promised late on Monday July 9th, to find I was still doing my final packing and loading. It was after 3:00am when we were ready to leave, just as I was about to pull away I realized I had forgotten to load up my GPS with the maps and waypoints I had prepared! At 3:45am we finally set out for the long drive to Baie-Comeau. One positive about leaving at such a ridiculous hour was that a) we were ahead of the morning rush getting away from Toronto and b) we missed the morning rush passing through Montreal. The drive was uneventful other than taking a wrong turn in Quebec City which led to a short tour of the old city. Back on course we arrived at La Caravelle Hotel in Baie-Comeau at 7:00pm, just over 15 hours and 1260km. A quick check-in then off to A&W for burgers before returning to the hotel and passing out.
Wednesday morning (July 11th) we managed to get going at checkout time, a quick stop at Tim Hortons and then off to the local mall for some last minute groceries and gas. As we headed north on Hwy 389 my truck started making some noise, a few minutes later it became much more than “some noise”, fortunately it’s a problem in the exhaust system, with 590km of isolated highway the noise is not an issue, hopefully it’s something that can be dealt with in Labrador City. The quality pavement runs for 216km and comes to an end at the Manic-5 dam. If you have the time, tours of the dam and power station are available during July/August. For the next 176km the road is high quality gravel, our target for the night was a pull-off at km 288 that leads down to the shore of the Manicougan Reservoir, there is a reasonable camping spot here in the trees or depending on water levels some spots on the beach. We got our first taste of bugs here, arriving just in time for the last black flies and the start of the evening mosquito swarms.
Thursday July 12th, we were back on the road a bit before noon for the short drive north to Relais-Gabriel (Gas, restaurant, motel) for breakfast. The road continues to be scenic; you pass the ghost town of Gagnon and then a 90km stretch of road that is paved! Unfortunately the pavement ends and the worst part of the road begins, narrower, sandier, twisty with a multitude of active rail crossings (no signals) as you approach the mines at Fermont. The mine site is pretty impressive; they are literally removing “mountains” of ore! Just past the mine is the QC/NL border and the pavement returns. We planned to camp at Duley Lake Park but headed first into Labrador City for Canadian Tire, not good news there, the earliest they could look at the truck would be Monday! Out in the parking lot I crawled under the truck to see if I could determine exactly what the issue was, turned out a sensor which is bolted into the exhaust system had come loose (nuts gone) and fallen out of the hole, simply sticking it back in pretty much eliminated the noise. It looked like something I could do a temporary fix of some sort which was a relief. We stopped at the local Tim’s then headed to Duley Lake, it’s a “park” as in trailer park, just like being in Sunnyvale, Paul the owner showed us a spot right on the beach to camp, there was a reasonable breeze which kept the bugs to a moderate level.
Friday July 13th, we went into town for breakfast at Tim’s, then Canadian Tire, Wal-Mart, Dollar Store and the local NAPA store. Back at Duley Lake we cobbled together a temporary fix for the truck. I spent a bit of time organizing and double checking my gear. Friday night is party time at the park! Music blaring and fireworks but it all came to an end before Midnight.
Saturday July 14th, It had started to rain around 5:30am, at 10:30 it was only a very light drizzle so we packed up and headed into Lab City for breakfast and a final stop at Walmart and the Dollar Store for a few odds and ends before heading east on the Trans-Labrador Hwy. I was shocked to find that Hwy 500 is now actually paved! Although I have never driven the road before I had passed over it on the train to Schefferville in 2008 and 2010 and at that time it was still gravel (ed: Apparently the paving was started in 2011) this made for a very comfortable drive with virtually no traffic at all. As we drove towards the reservoir I began to think about strategic options, my original plan was to start paddling from the point where the highway crosses a bridge over the Ossokmanuan portion of the reservoir, because I was now 3 – 4 days late starting I decided to make a slight change, go past my original planned starting point and take the access road into the Smallwood portion. This would eliminate about 80km of flatwater paddling and also a portage of unknown length around the Gabbro Control Structure. The access via Esker Road was a bit rough but well used, it took about 2 hours to cover the 75km from the highway to the put-in on the reservoir. We arrived around 8:30pm just in time for the arrival of the mosquitos and the beginning of some light rain. We set up the Pod, made some dinner and settled in, I slept in the shelter while SluGG0 opted to sleep on the front seat of the truck, although a few bugs made it inside and pestered me I was apparently better off than SluGG0 who was constantly attacked inside the truck (one of my side windows doesn’t close properly!).
Sunday July 15th, neither of us had a good sleep, the morning was mostly cloudy with a bit of breeze. I packed up and did one final check of the truck to make sure nothing was left behind. At this point I usually have a nagging feeling that some “critical” item has been forgotten at home or worse something I remembered to bring will be left (I once left my mug with the shuttle driver) at the put-in. Tossed my pile of gear in the truck and backed down to the edge of the water. Getting all my stuff in the canoe was an adventure, I had a new and oddly shaped dry bag (MEC 110L Scully) plus an extra dry duffle that I had not previously attempted to load. Miraculously it all “fit” although the centre of gravity was higher than I liked, the trim seemed ok. It was 3:40pm by the time I was ready to set off, I left SluGG0 behind to make his way back to Southern Ontario as I paddled eastward to begin my adventure.
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