The West Coast

The West Coast

June 20, 2013

Cow Head, Newfoundland

 

Alison's evening yoga studio!

 

There’s a lot of debate about which way to go around Newfoundland.  Due to a shortage of harbors, sailors tend to not like the West side too much. When we went around “The Rock” in 2009, our strategy was to use the more reliable south-west wind to get us up the west side and then harbor hop into those prevailing south westerlies down the east side.

 



Rocks near Codroy

 It worked out well and in the process we came to appreciate what the west has to offer. Viewed from the water the whole island is dramatic with waves throwing themselves against sheer cliffs that plunge to meet them.  On the west side you can add a few stretches of actual beach, some sea caves and cliff formations, and the unique geology around Gros Morne. 

We’ve sailed this stretch 5 times and find plenty to keep us interested and coming back . . .



 

Perched just around the south western corner of Newfoundland, Codroy was our second stop in 2009.  Arriving on the last day of school, our boat was soon hosting a group of local boys eager for what the summer had to offer.  The enclosed harbor was full of fishing boats unloading their catches of halibut and turbot.  Small skiffs arrived and departed with lobster traps.  Families strolled around the wharves and the fish plant was hopping.  The place was on the go.

 

Arriving this year the leaden sky seemed to foreshadow the current state of Codroy.  There was one small fishing boat tied up and just a few skiffs.  Chatting with folks told the tale.  Shrimp were getting scarce. Lobster prices were so low it wasn’t worth the fuel to get them.  Most of the local guys had sold their boats and licenses or just not bothered to put their boats in the last few years. The small general store closed a few months earlier. 

 

We were greeted from porches as we strolled around, chatted with kids at the playground and patronized the only commercial enterprise in town besides the fish plant, The Chip Wagon. Open just a few weeks it was enjoying a great business and the hamburger with fried onions was really good.  The view and chatting with its owner was priceless.

 We couldn't go the summer without a lobster roll!   Lobster from the fish plant and the rolls from the Chip Wagon.

 

And there's always complicated geology to keep you interested.  The dark brown is either a hard clay or a soft rock depending on how you see it.

Hard clay or soft rock?



Picking out lights on a night arrival in a strange harbor can be just a tad stressful.  Motoring into Rocky Harbour at 2am we were glad we’d been here before. Rocky Harbour, at the entrance to Bonne Bay, isn’t particularly rocky as in big pieces of stone but can be rocky from waves.  We found an old chart that called it Roche Harbour and I think over the years it got Anglicized to Rocky.  This very small town is surrounded by Gros Morne National Park so it has the feel of a town catering to tourists.  Gros Morne, a UNESCO world heritage site is home to the second highest peak in Newfoundland and geology that you can’t see anywhere else on earth.  You can hike across the earth’s mantle and view spectacular, land-locked fjords.

We were here to rendezvous with an ordered part and hopefully get some hiking in and knock off a few more of the ever present boat chores.  We’d had the part sent to the only place we could think of, Java Jack’s Restaurant. Java Jack’s is owned by Jackie, a sailor, and offers delectable fare in a great atmosphere featuring local artists’ work on the walls and the speakers. 

No part so boat chores!  The big break-through was Russ figuring out how to hook up our pactor modem. The pactor enables us to send & receive simple e-mails through our single side band radio. It’s not surfing the web but it is communicating!

 

Bakers Brooks Falls

 

 

Still no part so we managed our first epic hike of 2013.  Bakers Brooks Falls, a 9.5 km trail, ended up being around 14 miles roundtrip because we had to get to and from the trailhead!  The torrent of water cascading over the first waterfall was well worth it.  The other 3 waterfalls were bonuses! We passed another couple on their way out but otherwise had the trail to ourselves. 

 

The forest around Gros Morne is boreal pine but the non-native moose are changing that.  Wind and insects shape a boreal forest.  The insects weaken the trees and the wind knocks them down so seedlings can get a start. The moose interrupt this process by eating the seedlings.  Seems they like pine seedlings but not birch.  So the forests are changing over to birch forests.  This trail showed it in dramatic fashion.  We could just see a tall fence where they’re doing a test plot to see if they keep the moose out they can keep the pines.

 

After 3 days of missing wind in the right direction, we’d decided we had to go package or no.  A last breakfast at Java Jack’s and she dashed off to check her post office box.  It came!

 

We set off for Cow Head.  I think they call it cow head because of the shape of the island.  Since the roads came through, town has moved over the causeway to the road side.  We’ve been here before for the Lobster Festival featuring, you guessed it, lobster but also local music and entertainment. 

 

This time we decided to try the Gros Morne Theatre and caught a dinner theatre production of the SS Ethie.  Drama, humor and song tell the story of the coastal steamer Ethie.  Caught out in a December gale that was the worst anyone could remember she was in danger of being bashed on the rocks when her captain made the decision to purposefully beach her. It worked and all on board were saved. It was a great evening and we enjoyed talking with fellow travelers! 

 

Cow Head is also known for its geology and a walk out to the “point of the head” and the lighthouse shows it off. 

 

 

And we got to sit out a bit of a blow!

 

 

Last stop, Port Au Choix.  We weren’t here long this trip but did manage to find the showers and the large Foodland grocery store.  Previous stops we’ve walked out to the National Historic Site.  Hiking the trails takes you by archeological digs delving into the earliest people that camped along this shore.

 

 

 

 

 

 

From here we’ll hope for a clear day and cross over to Labrador. Clear because from here North there’s ice.  Ice reports say, “ one zero zero bergs” in the Straits of Belle Isle. That’s one hundred! 

 

Here's a map of our trip to date:

https://maps.google.ca/maps/ms?msid=209674061295196822166.0004e0396ee8a8998d365&msa=0&ll=48.516604,-56.085205&spn=3.726199,10.821533 

 

 

 

 

 

Stormy Weather

Stormy Weather

Port Manvers Run

August 15, 2011

(I just realized this didn't get posted from our 2011 trip and it's worth the read . . . I think.)

“Where are we going and when are we going to get there?” Even though we were laying to two anchors, Russ could be forgiven for asking that question. Sitting down to dinner, Andante was gyrating and pulsing like she was underway in rough seas. We’d been warned that come the middle of August, weather systems up here turn into their fall mode. The prophecies were being fulfilled.

The problem earlier in the summer north of Nain isn’t too much wind, it’s not enough. 

In anticipation of motoring, we filled up our diesel tanks, the usual four, 5 gallon jerry cans we keep in the cockpit and picked up 6 more 5.3 gallon (20 litre) jerry cans. Every port on the Labrador, fuel gets more expensive as you go north. Our final top off in Nain was $135 for 4 jerry cans (21.2 gallons which is roughly $6.37 CAN/gallon or $1.69/litre CAN. Current exchange rates have the Canadian dollar worth a bit more than the US dollar so it cost us a tad more than $6.37/gal US). (August 2011).

In general we’ve found that weather systems come through fast and speed up as the sailing season progresses. Earlier in the summer forecasts are filled with “winds light and variable, “ “wind 10-15” etc. A typical sailing scenario may look like this:

Wind! Get the main up and the jenny out. Turn engine off. Ahh! The sound of water rushing by the hull. Enjoy for 15 minutes. Wind goes light. Wind dies. Furl jib. Double reef main and tie it amidships to act as a steadying sail. Turn engine on. Motor for an hour. Wind comes up again. Get main & jenny up. Turn engine off. . . . repeat. Throw in a few wind shifts in there and you get the idea.

As mid-August approaches the systems march across faster and pack a punch with more forecasts saying 25+ knots gusting to 30-35.

Getting a weather forecast can be a tad difficult. Once we left Port Manvers Run, just north of Nain, we couldn’t get any VHF weather. Often, tucked up anywhere in Newfoundland or Labrador it can be impossible to get a VHF broadcast due to the mountains.

Canadian Coast Guard broadcasts weather on single side band (up here the fisherman call it “the big radio”) several times a day. Frequency 2598 at 0705, 1137, 1737 and 2237 northern Labrador time (this is a ½ hour behind Newfoundland/Labrador time or the same time as Halifax, Nova Scotia).

We also downloaded weather fax on Freq. 12748.1 at 1237 Labrador time. The ipad justified its place on board when Russ downloaded an app that translates weather faxes. It worked really well.

All the talk about motoring aside, we couldn’t let Debbie leave without a little weather event. A gale was forecast when we were in Okak and we scurried for cover.

Did I mention that when you do get a forecast it doesn’t necessarily play out as predicted? Well this gale didn’t. It was supposed to arrive overnight and be gone the next day. Andante leaned into a few gusts but nothing bad at all. Next day we headed out into some strong winds and they started shifting to the direction we wanted to go, a great sailing day.

Part of what’s challenging about sailing up here is a lack of good harbors. What can look like a snug anchorage on the chart turns out to be a mile wide. The scale is just hard to get your perspective around. The best looking spot around was Dawes Harbour on Kikiktaksoak Island. The Cruising Guide to Labrador has a lovely picture on the cover of people walking on shore, sun shining, with the placid harbor in the background. Beating with the wind shift to get in, we knew we were not in that place even though we were in the same location!

 

By the time we got there, waves were breaking on the ledges at the entrance and all of the water in the cove was heaving up and down. Tucked into a corner using 2 anchors to hold us in place kept us out of the worst of the swell. The heart stopping view out of our companionway filled with waves crashing against rocks behind us, and Hannah bucking along beside us.

 

For the first time on the trip we set anchor watches as the winds picked up. This was a good 24 hours after the gale was predicted to come through. No one got much sleep as the boats rocked around and we kept a keen eye on the rocks just off our stern and the rocks off our starboard side. It felt like we were anchored close enough to shore that a bear could’ve stepped on board.

 

Leaving was . . . interesting but we needed to get out before the wind shifted around and made this anchorage truly dangerous. Engine on and mainsail up we took aim at the clearer water between ledges. Green water hit rock with cataclysmic results as Andante bucked her way out. Hannah had been in there too and we talked about what it would’ve been like if during the night it’d piped up just a bit more, the water had risen over the entrance ledges to pour full force into the harbour and how we could’ve gotten out.

 

We’d been hoping to explore some new anchorages on the middle route to Nain but after no sleep, lumpy seas and motor sailing just to make a course, the protected waters of Port Manvers Run were looking awfully good. Unfortunately the entrance was not.

 

One of the hardest things to do in sailing is to pass up a safe harbor because the entrance is too dicey. You’re tired, calm waters beckon. It’s a siren song. Three weeks earlier we’d come out of this entrance on a calm day with not a worry. Now, Willis Rocks guarding the entrance were a maelstrom of waves. When water met rock, cascading rooster tails were thrown up. Approaching from the North there didn’t seem to be a safe way in.

 

Deciding to keep going we kept looking at the entrance. Once south of the rocks, a passage opened up. Staying close to the cliff on the southern side Russ steered us in. I’m glad my job was to keep an eye on the depth and chart plotter because I didn’t have much chance to look around. Debbie said it was quite impressive and I think it gave us all a few dreams that night.

 

We anchored at the first available spot and let our heart rates get back to normal.

It's Your Watch

Rocky Harbour, NFL

June 14, 2013

 

“Sweetie?”

“Babe?  It’s your watch.”

“Wha? Huh?  Wha’imesit?”

“It’s 3.”

“’Kay. . . . . . . .  I’ll get up.”

After our longest to date passage on our own boat (Cape May, NJ to Halifax, NS, Canada - 5 days, 10 hours ) we’ve had variations on this exchange countless times. 

At sea, Andante doesn’t stop.  She’s going ‘round the clock which means a part of the human crew has to make sure everything’s running smoothly.  We’ve gotten a routine that works for us based on 3 hour watches. We’ve found that 2 hours is too short a time for the off-watch to get sleep and 4 hours is too long for the on-watch person to stay awake!

We’re a little loose about keeping rigid times during the day but starting late afternoon, Russ will have a rest and I’ll fix dinner.  We eat together at our table with our handy little apple timer set for 10 minute intervals.  Every 10 minutes one of us gets up and has a good look around.  

Then it’s my turn from 9-12.  Russ from 12-3, etc.  Breakfast together and I go down for another nap.  Then we’re usually up together from lunchtime to late afternoon and then we go ‘round again. 

All of this can be interrupted by conditions.  If it’s rough, or a complicated sail change needs to happen, the off-watch person will get called up.  We also let the off-watch person know if we’re going forward of the cockpit.  So those hours of precious sleep can get interrupted.

So what do we do all day out there on the big sea?  Again, totally depends on conditions.  There are days Andante scoots along with never a sail change and it’s a smooth ride.  Then we can do boat chores, exercise, read, knit (that’s me) whatever floats our boat!  You have to take advantage of warm, idyllic days when they come ‘cause it probably won’t last.

And there are other days when you need both hands to hang on.  That’s when you’ll find us eating a one pot meal sitting on the floor at the bottom of the companionway steps because it’s the spot with the least motion!  About all you can do is make sure you eat and drink, and know it’ll soon end. You hope.

But always, we’re sailing the boat. That’s the job and it comes first. Russ is much better about tweaking the sails and playing with everything to get as much speed as possible.  I’m more of a set it and let it go type but working on getting better. After all it means we’ll get to wherever we’re going faster.

We’ve had people ask if we get bored.  Nope.  Fitted in around the sailing and other activities is the endless fascination of the sea.  From chaotic, gun-metal gray waves to deep blue rollers, it never fails to fascinate.  Add a few brilliant sunrises & sunsets, birds swooping & gliding inches off those wavetops, and you’ve got plenty of entertainment!  We haven't seen any whales on this trip but dolphins have accompanied us.

We had our first bird visitor on this last trip. I was sitting in our companionway (our sweet spot when we’re underway and it’s not nice out).  The dodger window was open and this little guy landed right in front of me.  A Canada Warbler, he was 30-50 miles from land and looked exhausted. 

 

A hop onto my shoulder and then he took up residence on Russ’ hat.  Head tucked under wing he took a short catnap, popped his head back out, looked around a bit and took off. We’re going to assume he made it somewhere!

Wishing you all fair winds and following seas!

 

 

 

 

 

The Leak That Launched a Thousand Jobs

June 6, 2013
St. Peter's Canal, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia

You see we had a little drip in one of our cabinets, in a cabinet that we’d like to have as a dry place.  Drip, drip, drip.  Leaks can be amazingly difficult to track down on a boat.  A drop of water gets inside and weaves its way ever downward usually through the most circuitous route imaginable all in an effort to make finding the origin point challenging.  Such was the case with this leak.  We’d think we found the source and bed it with silicone. Next rain, it’d reappear.  After eliminating all other possibilities, the only one remaining was the toerail. 

Andante’s toerail is a beautiful piece of teak that sits on top of the gunwale (that’s basically the top, outermost edge of the boat).  It’s original to the boat and after over 30 years of sanding and general abuse, the screws that hold it together had been exposed.  It was in rough shape. 

What the heck!  It’s fall we’ve got plenty of time to do this job, tackle the few items on our “to do” list and get the boat ready for our May 1 departure date.  First was figuring out how to do the job then removing all the hardware on the old toerail, pry them up, mould the new toerail which is actually 2 pieces of teak screwed together and then attach it to the boat with 5200 and screws.  Nerves stretched tight as we forced the teak to bend to Andante’s shape and used about 50, 3-way furniture clamps to hold it on. 

As long as we had some deck hardware off why not paint the hull?  Andante’s last paint job was 22 years ago just before we bought her.  The clear topcoat applied failed about 10 years ago and we’d been buffing it off in places to the point that up close she looked like a bad skin disease was taking over.  No shiny reflections of the water’s surface here.

A local company, Diversified Marine, agreed to let us do all the prep work and they’d do the actual application in their heated shed. Dan & Mike coached us along as we discovered all of the muscles and tendons of the human arm!  Four weeks of sanding through layers of paint, repairing imperfections inherent in a 35 year old boat and we were ready for the primer coat.  Sand some more and the first of 3 coats of Awlcraft was applied.  Our new color Jade Mist Green.  Our reaction - WOW!

While we were hauled out other projects were handled.  One area of concern was our bobstay.  This is a rod that holds up the bowsprit.  The bobstay goes from the bottom of the bowsprit and attaches to the hull and a wire stay goes from the top and attaches to the top of the mast.  Our worry was if something happened to that top stay the bobstay might not be strong enough to hold up the bowsprit on its own. An outside expert assured us it was plenty strong. 

Back in the water I was attaching that top stay to the outermost part of the bobstay and couldn’t quite get it so Russ stepped out to help.  I’m not sure if there was any sound as the bobstay simply collapsed but our splash into the December chilled water was memorable!  And we had the answer to the question of the bobstay’s strength. That bent piece is the old bobstay. It's supposed to be straight!

Russ did a lot of thinking and figuring and came up a hollow stainless tube.  It’s not as elegant as the original but it is strong!

This brought up the whole question of our standing rigging.  The standing rigging is all of the wire that holds up the mast and we’d been toying with upsizing from ¼” to 9/32.  Again, we’ve got all this hardware off, why not?

The other big conundrum was our anchoring system.  The original arrangement worked great when we were cruising in more benign areas with a combination of chain and rope. But where we’ve been cruising lately, and want to continue to cruise, we wanted all chain.  The trick is that all chain didn’t feed smoothly down into the lowest chain locker.  Someone had to go down, crawl under the bunk and pull it down.  Again not a big deal in most circumstances but if you’re trying to get out of an anchorage that’s suddenly become untenable like say the wind has piped up out of nowhere to 40 knots blowing you on shore, you need one person cranking the anchor and one person at the helm. 

So the idea was to move the anchor windlass back and put a tube through our bunk so the feed to the chain locker would be more vertical.  And we’d need to add in a bulkhead to support the weight of the windlass on deck.  I gotta say I wasn’t too keen on having a pole through our bunk but Russ convinced me that I’d be more likely to get a good night’s sleep if I though we were safely anchored and could get out of said anchorage in a hurry if we had to.  And yes we’ve heard lots of pole dancing jokes!

Again, lots of think time figuring out how to do this and then the actual doing of it.  It’s turned out well and the pole’s not so bad.

Throw in lots of other jobs that came up, some visiting with family and a wonderful last minute visit from my parents and sister (who instead of waving us off got put to work!)   OK 23 days but who’s counting!

and we a few weeks later than planned.

And we’ve proven the Boating Rule of 3’s ~ Every job will take three times as long and lead to three other jobs!

The reason we're trying to leave earlier is we hope to get further down the Labrador than we did in 2011.  We've made an offshore jump from Cape May to Halifax in 6 days and have just locked into the Bras D'or Lakes on Cape Breton. Next stop Port Aux Basques.

Ouch & Good-bye!

Nain, Labrador

August 23, 2011

Fog is laying over Nain and shrouding Mt. Sophie in its whiteness.  The locals say no planes will land or take off until you can see the mountaintop.  Debbie’s set to fly out this morning and we’ve been crossing fingers that the fog’ll lift and she can make her connections back to Maine. 

Tied up along the wharf we were down below enjoying our last few moments as a crew of 3.   Our chitchat was rudely interrupted by a sharp clank sound and a lurch.  Had we hit bottom on an out-going tide?  Somehow banged up against the wharf in a weird way?  All three of us clambered on deck to figure it out and it took a few minutes for our brains to process what our eyes were seeing.

Remember those derricks I mentioned in the “Fish Plant Etiquette” entry?  And remember how I mentioned that you should make sure you’re out of the way of said derrick?  Goes to show we should read our own blog more often.

This particular derrick wasn’t secured.  The boom arm that swings out was not restrained in any way from swinging out.  We’d been fine until the wind shifted causing the arm to swing out and the tide lowered so it was just under the spreader.  That sickening lurch was Andante rocking, on a boat wake probably, and the boom arm bashing the spreader up and leaving it with a strange bend when it should be straight. 

The spreaders are the cross pieces that come out from the mast.  Wire leads from the top of the mast, through the end of the spreaders and down to the deck.  Another set of wires leads from the top of the mast to the bowsprit and aft .  All are attached at the bottom with heavy plates.  The purpose of this web is to support the mast by tensioning it in place.  If say you’re sailing along and something happens to one of those wires the result could be your mast bends and falls into the ocean.  Not a comforting image.

First order of business was to move Andante so it wouldn’t get any worse.  We got re-tied at the same moment Debbie’s ride arrived.  The fog had lifted!  We met Brian, a resident of Nain through his blog and he’d offered to check on the flight status and give Debbie a ride to the airport.  Quick hugs and the sadness of parting was lost in what we were going to do about our mast. 

I admit my first thought was who can we call that can fix this!  Kind of strange since we’ve always done all of the work ourselves but I think I panicked a little.  It was getting late in the season and we really needed to be making tracks south.  Andante wasn’t going anywhere in her wounded state.

We did put a call into a local “guy that can fix anything” and I trooped off to do some internet business.  By the time I came back, Russ and Mick had it under control. After some debate they decided pounding wood wedges into the hollow spreader would serve the double purpose of straightening it and reinforcing it. We’d just leave the wedges in place and be on our way.  It worked! 

It’s the oldest of cruising lessons - necessity is the mother of invention.

Sailing into a postcard

North of Nain

August 2011

Mountains with the ocean lapping their mid-sections, tent circles maybe 50 years old, maybe 150 years old, the remains of a Moravian Mission building nestled among waving grasses . . . It’s often felt like we were sailing into a postcard.

All of the places we go, Bee asks me what it feels like. It’s made me tune in more or maybe there’s just more silence up here so I can tune in more. She’s right, each place, each postcard, does have it’s own “feel” - some happy, some sad, some waiting.

Our chart calls them The Kaumajet Mountains. Everyone around here calls them simply "The Mugfords." Totally unexpected, this felt like a postcard of Arizona’s mesas. Water gathered at the mesa’s top then plummeted over the edge. Along the way strands of water converged forming spectacular waterfalls. Hitting a ledge, water angled until the next opportunity to leap into space. I loved this area’s feel of wildness. For all its isolation, it was a welcoming wildness that seemed to say, “ Stay awhile. Explore, enjoy.”

Nanutak Island (White Bear Island) earned the nickname “Evil Island” as we passed on the way up. Peaks shrouded in glooming fog, it just looked menacing. We started calling it the lair of the evil Dr. No. A lunch stop on the way back deepened the feeling.

The first thing we saw on landing were bear prints, not the small prints of a black bear but dinner plate sized prints. We were on red alert scanning the rocks for bears. Venturing further we saw well trod critter paths weaving around the lake and up into the landscape. We didn’t stay long!

The Spanish Influenza Pandemic of 1918 spread through the Inuit communities of coastal Labrador like wildfire in a rainless forest. The Moravian Missionary’s ship Harmony and the mail boat were the carriers.

Two hundred and sixty six people lived in Okak and hundreds of dogs. The swiftness of the virus left people unable to tend the sick or feed the dogs. Crazed with hunger, the dogs devoured each other and then smashed into homes where small children fought them off. The fifty-nine survivors dug a mass grave by setting fires to thaw frozen ground, digging and repeating the process. Okak was abandoned shortly after the epidemic, no one having the heart to rebuild the once thriving community.

We strolled the beach, finding bits of pottery and signs of the old wharf. Wildflowers colored the hill and reeds whispered in a gentle breeze. A light melancholy seemed to seep from the ground, not a heavy burden just a waiting . . .

. . . and then, back on board, we saw this double rainbow.

Base Camp

St. Johns Harbour, Saglek Bay August 12, 2011

Seven days out of Nain and, except for Hannah and the caretaker at Hebron, we hadn’t seen another boat or heard any traffic on the VHF and that included getting the regular VHF weather forecast.

Turning into Saglek Fiord the last thing we expected to see was a cruise ship.

Clipper Adventure was carrying participants in the “Students on Ice” program. The organization takes 14-19 yr old students from around the world on eco trips to the high latitudes. This group had joined the ship in Iceland, made passage to Greenland and were stopping at The Torngat Mountains National Park (TMNP) before concluding their trip in Ungava Bay. It turned out to be great for us.

No sooner had our anchor dug into the mud and sand at the head of St. Johns Bay than a skiff came alongside offering us a ride into the beach. This tent city was the summer home of TMNP. Base camp as its known in the park, houses scientist, park staff, student interns and park visitors. If you’re visiting, you can set up your own tent or rent one of theirs. The tents range from regular pop up tents to yurt style abodes with heat.

Binky, a student intern from Nain, led us on a tour. Dust had barely settled on base camp’s first permanent structure housing the cafeteria, offices, and science labs. They were moving in as we toured.

An electric bear fence envelopes the compound and bear monitors are with anyone who goes outside of the perimeter. It had the feel of a lone outpost on an alien world. The fragile humans protected by technology and guns. During the daytime the fence was off and it was possible to move around a little more. At night, everything tucked inside the protective walls.

Shoreside was a beehive of activity. Students, trip leaders and chaperones from the ship and the dignitaries that’d come to greet them doubled base camp’s usual population. We were getting to tag along on a hike and the big cook out planned for that evening.

That's Debbie and I with John, an Inuit from Baffin Island who's with the Students on Ice program and was doing double duty as a bear guard.

Inuit elders were on hand to talk about this stunning place and their early years spent living and roaming amongst the Torngats. They were also cooking up a storm!

That evening we had arctic char - baked, fried, broiled, in a chowder, dried, and smoked as well as native breads including bannock, grilled vegetables, desserts and on and on. Our eyes piled our plates high and our stomachs tried valiantly to keep up. What a feast!

We dropped in at base camp on our return trip after having spent time sailing in the northern fiords. Our timing wasn’t so good this go ‘round and we missed a hike by ½ hour. They’d been plagued recently, including the night before, by a black bear. He made repeated attempts to get into camp. Escalating deterrents hadn’t worked until they got to rubber bullets. It was assumed he was still in the area and would be back. Figuring he could be around anywhere, they really didn’t want us wandering around without a bear monitor.

If you’re planning a visit, it’s worth understanding the rhythm of base camp. Most groups come in for a week. They may spend part of the time, or all of it, hiking out in the remote areas of the park or mix it up with time spent at base camp. Depending on what’s going on, you can usually tag along with base camp activities maybe a hike with a naturalist, a visit to Rose Island with an archeologist to learn about the Inuit tent rings and burial sites, or the little tour boat for a trip to Hebron. There’s also a helicopter that can be used. Activities are planned out the night before but if you’re in base camp around 8am you can figure out what’s going on and what you can join. It’s possible to pay for a bear monitor, boat ride, etc. Scheduling with the limited resources could make this problematic. Contact the park if you’re interested. Since Saturdays are transition days, base camp is busy shuttling visitors to the landing strip and all the bear monitors are keeping the bears off the runway!

The Friday we were there, a group from The Chewonki Foundation in Maine hiked for several days and spent time in base camp learning about the management of the park and learning from the Inuit student interns. Also a group of writers had been brought in to celebrate Parks Canada’s 100^th anniversary and put into words Torngat Mountains National Park. Friday was their chance to show us their stuff.

The Chewonki kids and interns put on a show with throat singing, drumming, and dancing. Very spirited performances by all the kids!

The writers were part of a project called Northwords. CBC commentator Shelagh Rogers was putting the event together in a radio show to be aired in October and a documentary for release in 2012. Gotta admit we were glad we weren’t there as part of the film crew. Many times we’ve been setting up shots, lining up interviews, recording sound during excursions like this and not able to just enjoy it!

As Shelagh put it, the writers were there to give us words beyond, “Awesome!” to describe this place. Writers Noah Richler, Alyssa York, Rabindranath Maharaj, Sara Leavitt, and Joseph Boyden did a stunning job of it. Their stories were poignant and funny and brought to life the feel of being here. It made me think about the difference easing into a place via a sailboat vs. being plunked down via plane has on you. We’ve witnessed the terrain changing, been able to look ahead and see peaks reaching to the sky. I think it makes it a more subtle but deeper experience and feel grateful that we’ve seen Labrador at five knots from the deck of a sailboat.

Here's an article that appeared in the Labradorian: "Every Canadian should see this."

Basecamp is not technically in the park. The boundary is the northern side of Saglek Bay. This side, and most of the lands we’d traveled in since Nain, is managed by the Nunatsiavut government. The park is only a few years old and is the first Canadian park run cooperatively with a first peoples government.

Parks Canada is looking at this as a model for how to make these high latitude parks more accessible. The hope is that by establishing a base camp some economies of scale will come to bear and it’ll make it less expensive to travel within the park. Still once you get to base camp, you have to hire either a boat or helicopter to take you somewhere within the park.

We stopped in the park office back in Nain to say thanks and learned Andante and Hannah were two of 7 boats to visit the park as of August 25.

Bear Count!

Torngat Mountains National Park

August 2011

OK. OK. Everyone wants to know about the polar bears. Did we see any? How close? Did one try to get on the boat?

In planning this trip we were hoping to make it as far north as The Torngat Mountains National Park. We were told it’s not a question of if you’ll see a bear there but how many. Still, we figured we’d be lucky to see one even if he wasn’t sipping a Coke.

The park has a Polar Bear Safety Video that does a good job of showing different bear behavior from merely curious to aggressive and some things you can do if you encounter a polar bear. Guns aren’t allowed in the park but bear “deterrents” are. They’re basically noise-makers you fire from a small starter gun and bear spray. The alternative is to hire a “bear monitor” to escort you. A bear monitor is an Inuit with a gun that knows polar bear behavior and how to use the gun. The practicalities of having a bear monitor on board weren’t possible on a small sailboat so we loaded up with deterrents and figured we’d be really, really careful.

After picking up my sister-in-law, Debbie, in Nain we headed out Port Manvers Run, a great inside passage. Debbie was glued to the binoculars hoping to see at least one bear. Well we saw 5 black bears before lunch!

Our next bear encounter was at Perry’s Gulch. Debbie and I were washing our hair in the stream when Russ and Bee showed us all of the bear prints. They were everywhere once you started looking. All appeared to be black bears.

This is the only tundra dwelling population of black bears and they’re reportedly a little more carnivorous than their berry-eating kin to the south. We weren’t too anxious to run into one of them either.

No more sightings, black or white, until Hebron. (More on Hebron in a later post.) Our first Polar Bear and we had to give him a name! “Eddie” for Eddie Haskell on “Leave it to Beaver” walked into the caretaker’s camp. He and his kids were in their speedboat chasing Eddie when we saw him.

We saw the bear’s white head in the water and then his powerful body leapt onto land. Shots fired in the air and he loped up the hill. I admit I found it a little sad . . . this huge creature, the largest land carnivore in the world, in his natural element, being chased. But a bear that becomes a nuisance usually gets himself shot so, better to scare him away now.

Knowing we were definitely in polar bear country our eyes scanned every nook and cranny straining for the site of a white blob. The scale of everything here is so huge, we weren’t sure how big a blob we were looking for. Entering Ramah Fiord, we had our answer. This mother and little cub agilely jogged through boulders big and small.

Further in, these 3 napped on a headland.

They slept on, only waking as we got closer. Mom, massive paws hanging limply in the air, spread out with her back resting against this huge rock. Someone later told us that maybe they’d had a long swim and were in rest mode from that.

The 3 came down to the anchorage that night and strolled the beach.

The fast northern twilight descended and still we watched from the safety of Andante. Bee, aboard Hannah, thought she saw the Mom limping so we called them Gimpy and the twins. They slept all the next day in sight of us and repeated the nighttime stroll & swim routine.

Russ and I kayaked a bit in Ramah. “Oh look at the caribou up on the ridge,” I said. “Uh, I’m looking at the bear chasing the caribou,” Russ. Well gee! We dubbed this one The Lion King. His massive body loped up the ridge’s knife edge moving with the speed and agility of a mountain goat. He still couldn’t get the faster caribou.

I did not go kayaking again. Sorry no picture of that one. We were too busy paddling!

Next sightings were in Nachvak Fiord. Anchoring in Schooner Cove I saw a polar bear in the boulder strewn slope. We called him Fatso! I’m totally happy to see a fat bear.

Next day, Russ went kayaking while we did a bear watch from Andante. Coast looks clear . . . all clear. “OK, there’s a bear on the point,” said Debbie (very calmly I thought). Russ was paddling towards the opposite point. I stood on the bow waving my jacket trying to get his attention. We didn’t want to make a noise that would make the bear take off swimming towards him. But Russ didn’t see me and started paddling towards the bear’s point so we tooted our air horn to get his attention.

With Russ safely aboard we sat back and enjoyed Yogi Bear. His massive body cruised along under the surface with only the crown of his head showing at times. He seemed to be looking under water for something and either feeding on kelp or on mussels attached to the kelp. When he found something, he’d do a handstand much like a kid in a pool on a hot summer day with his huge rear paws sticking up out of the water. “Look Mom!” Yogi looked our way every so often keenly aware that we were there but totally unconcerned that’d we bother him. He was right.

Drift to the beach completed, he strolled out. Flying beads of water captured sunlight as his massive body shook off the water, just like our dog used to do. Yogi rolled in the grass stretching his massive limbs, flipping onto his back

South of Saglek we’d see a black bear in almost every anchorage. They’d come wandering down to the beach as if on their evening stroll.

We started calling Bee on Hannah the “bear whisperer”. Glued to binoculars, Hannah saw around 18 polar bears. 3 of them were swimming around their boat, usually around 4am ish. They were probably around us too we just didn’t get up! They saw 2 swimming about 3 miles off shore and the crowning glory was this guy in Mugford Tickle. Kipping (that’s Brit for napping) on a rock, they got closer and he woke up a tad grumpy. They backed off. (Thanks for sharing the photo Bee!)

In total we saw 10 polar bears and 18 black bears. Watching them from the boat was incredible. They were just going about their business, doing their thing. It felt like we were on safari. Definitely an adrenalin rush and a highlight of the trip

Parks Canada is reviewing their gun policy in parks where wildlife may pose a threat to humans. It would extend the carrying of weapons to scientists in remote areas and beyond just Inuit bear monitors. It still wouldn’t cover us if we were to go ashore. There’s not a marine component to the park so you can have a weapon on board, just not take it ashore. They're taking comments through the end of the year. Here's an article: Parks Canada to Permit Guns

If you’re heading this way and want to learn about bears in the park and visiting, contact Torngat Mountains National Park. They're very helpful about bear information and the park in general. They have a packet of info they can e-mail including a cruising permit for the park.

If you’re shopping for bear deterrents, we were very happy with Margo Supplies. They’re a Canadian company that works with wildlife officials. The bear spray is considered a hazardous material and cannot be sent via air. There are also problems if you ship it from Canada to the States or try to bring in bear spray from the States. We had our order shipped to Baddeck Marine and they kindly held it for us.

In the end our biggest bear deterrent was not getting off the boat!

Will hopefully get some video uploaded when we have a faster connection!