The weather wasn’t great except for Sunday and Tuesday, otherwise it was cold and rainy. I spent most of the day Friday (the day I arrived) recuperating. On Saturday we were supposed to go to Little Passage which is where my Dad and Brenda’s summer cabin is but it was far too windy to go by outboard. At the cabin in the summer when the tide is high the water is warm so you can jump off the rocks and swim with the jellyfish. Northern jellyfish don’t sting, they just float in and out with the tide I’m not really sure what they do exactly but regardless they are harmless to humans. There is also a spot where you can find gray clay which is mostly just fun to play with. Instead of going out there we drove into the mountains towards the hydro dam. My Dad’s winter cabin is out that way; you can drive to the lake and then take a row boat across. The winter cabin is great, you can literally drop a bucket off the bridge into the stream and drink straight out of the bucket, it’s the best tasting water I’ve ever had.
Hydro Dam
We saw a couple of men take a regular canoe with a motor on the back, load it up with buckets and things to go out to Lake Long to fish for trout. It was hilarious because the canoe was so tippy and here are three grown men crossing a lake, the top of the boat must have been an inch out of the water, it was a wonder they didn’t capsize.
My Dad lives a bit outside of Tabatiere in a very hilly area so you need a vehicle to get around. Unfortunately I don’t drive cars, trucks or jeeps but lucky me, my Dad had a four wheeler, and since the roads are not busy and there are no cops there I was able to drive around on that. On Saturday I went to Mutton Bay which is about 15km from Tabatiere. The drive is through the mountains so it is very turny and hilly often at the same time, but of course the scenery is breathtaking. The next day Sunday was absolutely beautiful, blue skies and sunshine so I took the ATV back to Mutton Bay stopping often along the way and then out past the beach in Tabatiere and up a new road which is being built. I basically drove around the town for 3 hours stopping often. Here are the fruits of my labors:
La Tabatiere Marina
Cove in Mutton Bay
On the road between Mutton Bay and La Tabatiere
Having spent some time here I feel more complete than ever. I will always carry this place with me no matter where I go, no matter what I’m doing, and no matter how long it’s been since I last visited. My heart has been so big since I first got off the boat and stood on the rocks watching the surf in Kegaska. When I was driving around on the 4 wheeler taking pictures I kept saying things like “Holy fuck” and “oh my” because the scenery took my breath away; I had no one to express my sentiments to but I also had no one to see me talking to myself to think that I was a crazy tourist. I felt incredibly alone and also incredibly free. Sometimes in Montreal I just want to take a walk and go sit somewhere by myself but it is so hard to find a place that is not only empty but also serene and inspiring unless you find under the bridge near the train tracks serene and inspiring. In Tabatiere I was out on open road and didn’t see another vehicle around for ages. I used to feel that I was always being watched wherever I went because it’s such a small town, everyone knows you; this is a good thing for several reasons but can also be quite pesky when you’re a teenager trying to be sneaky. However, you can easily find a place where not even google earth could track you down. In case you haven’t figured it out yet I like to be alone so after years of living in Montreal it was a welcome change, ultimately relaxing.
Pointe Aux Neiges
BLUE!!!!!
On Tuesday (my last day in La Tabatiere); it was a gorgeous day, I decided to try and find the old Robertson seal foundry. There didn’t appear to be anything left but as it turns out I went out to the wrong point. I should have gone to Spar Point but instead I went to what I think is Robertson Point. The way there is not marked even though it is listed as a tourist attraction, they should really get on that. I did see a dead animal skeleton which scared the crap out of me and then made me very sad so maybe that’s the reason for all the lamenting I did out on the point. According to my Dad the only thing that remains of the most important seal foundry on the LNS is an old boiling pot. The fact that I couldn’t even find the remains made me think about how this once vibrant industry has almost completely disappeared from the world except in memory. Many people have left the LNS but are not gone forever; they will always go back as long as they can still call this place home. I hate to think of the day when the LNS is just a memory, and maybe I won’t live to see it but I am alive now to see the population decline and the median age steadily increase so it is not a matter of “if” but of “when” but also, on who’s terms? How will we get home when there is no plane or passenger boat to service the villages, and no roof to house us while we visit friends and family? I haven’t been many places, but of all the places I have been and heard about, nothing compares to these remote coastal villages (including those in Nfld/Lab). My brother once told me that he could go anywhere in the world on vacation but when he gets time off the only place he wants to go is home. I think that sentiment is echoed through most people who come from the coast.
On Wednesday morning I listened to my Dad and a few other men discuss the weather and realized that I had been listening to people talk about the weather every day, multiple times a day since I arrived. I also realized that it wasn’t just idle talk. Everyone wants to find out if someone else knows something they don’t know about the forecast. So much here depends on the weather, it can be very unpredictable so you often have to wait and see. People talk about islander life or coastal life moving a lot slower than the lives of those in the cities, this is because often you just have to wait it out, there’s nothing to be done about it. Here in Montreal if we have a huge snowstorm employers will expect you to jump through hoops to get to work on time even if schools are shut down; honestly I’ve gotten in trouble for being 15 minutes late; on the LNS if there’s a storm you stay home and watch the skies.
I got a ride on a fishing boat from La Tabatiere to Harrington Harbour on Wednesday morning. It was overcast and cold but I hoped that it would not rain so that I would be able to sit out on deck for the entire 3 hour trip. The sea was pretty calm and it only sprinkled for a little while. While it rained I sat in the cabin however after about a half hour I started to feel pretty sick so I went back out on deck for the remainder of the journey. I had a lot of trouble standing up straight on the boat I had to grab on from one support to another to make my way around. On this 3 hour trip I believe that I may have found the cure for seasickness or motion sickness as a whole. I sat down in the fresh air with my ipod blasting death metal and punk music into my head. I believe the fast and hard music offset the continuous lolling of the boat and motion of the waves. Try it next time you get motion sicknss or the spins. On the 3 hour boat ride I got to see several flocks of birds, and luckily a herd of seals floating in the water. Unfortunately the seals were bobbing up and down in the water too much so I wasn’t able to get a good shot of them. I did not see any whales on the boat but I did get to see a whale circling the cove off of Pointe aux Neiges near my Dad’s. I also saw an iceberg off in the distance which one of the fishermen estimated was about 30 feet tall above the water which would mean that it was 210 feet under the surface. We passed by another iceberg that was much smaller but still quite beautiful. Seeing icebergs this late in the season is not uncommon but it was a testament to how cold it still was on the water. We saw a fog up ahead at one point and hoped that the wind wouldn’t shift so we could pass by it without the fog encasing the boat. As it was already a cold day it would have become even colder if the fog had come over us since it generally feels like you’re moving through ice. I was pretty frozen by this point despite wearing a shirt, sweater, my “winter” jacket and my Dad’s giant rain coat. I wish I had had some mitts and mukluks.
Leaving La Tabatiere
My camera at its zoom limit. 30 feet above, 210 feet below
This essentially wraps up my stay in La Tabatiere though I made many more observations, had many more thoughts and received a lot more information all of which will be shared with you throughout the lifetime of this blog. Next up, Harrington Harbour, my home town, more photos, more observations, reminiscing and stories.
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Coming into Harrington Harbour
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