In early 1997 I heard about a new road opening that connects northern
Quebec with Goose Bay, Labrador. I wrote for more information, and along with a
lot of promotional stuff about visiting Newfoundland and Labrador, there was a 3-page
brochure announcing the Trans-Labrador Highway, which had recently opened. It
described the final 180 miles into Goose Bay as "pit-run gravel." Another
section south of Labrador City was described as "under construction and
rough". It certainly sounded interesting. I was fairly sure there would be
no RVs or pick-up campers to cope with, and very few cars for that matter,
making it my kind of ride.
After decided to go, I thought maybe I should do it on a small
motorcycle like the 200cc that I once thought about riding to Alaska. This trip
would be much shorter than Alaska. I considered the Gold Wing, but I figured
180 miles of deep loose gravel was too much of what the Wing doesn't handle
well in, which could take some of the fun out of it. The 3300-mile roundtrip would
probably take between one and two weeks. I then thought of taking my old 1974
500cc Triumph Trophy Trail, which held together for six days in the Berkshire
woods two years earlier with several legendary New England dirt riders and six
European experts. The Triumph idea stuck for a while. I took the 23-year-old bike
out of the garage, cleaned up the carburetor and points, and got it running.
I mentioned my plan to a few close friends and learned that several
thought it was a great idea. Jake Herzog was the first to express serious
interest in joining me. He said he would restore one of his old 500cc Triumphs for
the trip. The next to express an interest was Emil Cocce of New Jersey, but he said
emphatically he would use his more up-to-date, 350cc dual-sport Suzuki. A few others
also expressed a desire to go, including Frank DeGray, on a 650cc Triumph TR6
that he had just restored.
Emil's sudden and tragic death while touring in Virginia began to thin
our ranks. The Triumph idea eventually fell apart when my old Trophy Trail
wouldn't cooperate on a few fairly long shakedown rides. A month before we were
scheduled to leave, I spotted a used 225cc Yamaha Serow that was for sale
locally. I quickly bought it with this trip in mind. Jake, in quick succession,
jumped at the chance to switch to his Kawasaki KLR650. When the day came to
leave, there was just Jake and myself headed for the Canadian border. Frank DeGray
was still a "maybe" for joining us the next day in Stratton, Maine.
Day 1 - I left Buchanan for
Jake's home on July 17, 1997, having ridden the Yamaha for a total of less than
a hundred miles. I soon learned that it was necessary to shift down on most steep
hills, even on the highways. The little engine sang soprano as it whirred
loudly in one of the lower gears over Storm King Mountain behind West Point.
While coming down the north side, it gave out a high-pitched whine as the speed
edged over 65 mph. I would swear it was saying, "Hang on old man, we're
going to Labrador."
I stopped briefly at Jim Moroney's shop in Newburgh where I had a few
close friends. I got some chuckles, and there were at least a few skeptics in
the group. Jim said as I was disappearing from their view, “He won’t make it to
Albany on that thing.” He added, "You may doubt his sanity, but never his
resolve." By the time I passed Phoenicia in the Catskills where people were
preparing to "tube the Esopus", I thought maybe I should keep the speed
below 55 because the speedometer had a red marking from 55 up. I didn't know
what that meant. No one seemed to know much about the actual redline for the
bike.
I arrived at Jake's in Slingerlands at 4:30, about a half hour earlier
than planned. I wanted to miss any late afternoon thunder-showers, and I wasn't
sure of the average daily travel time I could make with the bike, especially in
the Catskills. I traveled on a few wet roads, but there was no rain all day. It
was a beautiful day at Jake's, with a warm breeze and low humidity. Arlene
prepared a great lobster picnic outdoors by their pond in the back field. I
turned in at 9:30 while Jake was packing.
Day 2 - We were up before
first light, had coffee and croissants at Jake's, and were on the road by 6:00.
We rode mostly on superhighways to get around Albany, and we were soon on some
of Jake's familiar dirt roads northeast of Troy. We had breakfast at an old
country diner in Whitehall, NY, and then traveled on some rough back roads along
the state line as we gradually made our way into Vermont. We stopped at one
farm where we had to wait while the farmer led his herd of milking cows across
the road and through a gate. We went through a second farmyard where Jake
slowed down to let another cow cross. As the road cleared for Jake, and we
began to move, I turned my head to look at the cow as she sauntered through the
gate. When I turned back, I was horrified to see that Jake had suddenly stopped
for the farmer's wife, who was leading another cow across at a different spot,
less than a hundred feet up the road. There he was, fully stopped, and here I
was, closing the gap much too fast. I locked both brakes, but time ran out too quickly.
The next thing I knew I had rear-ended Jake, square in the middle. The little
Yamaha stood on its front wheel as the rear wheel raised more than an inch off
the road and dumped me soundly onto the gravel road. Jake was also knocked off
of his bike. I was sure the trip had ended right there. I envisioned the fork
and front wheel of the little Serow pushed back to the engine. I slowly picked
myself up while Jake picked up both bikes. It was soon evident that the damage to
the bikes was minor. The greatest loss was to my K1000 Pentax camera that was attached
to my belt with its huge zoom lens attached. I landed on it with all my weight.
We both sustained multiple bruises, and I had a few minor abrasions. But we restarted
the bikes and were soon on our way.
A short while later, Jake motioned for me to lead. It was where my route
sheet took over, but I thought he probably felt safer that way too. My planned route,
which we then followed, was over several rough, scenic back roads in Vermont,
New Hampshire and Maine. By the time we reached our overnight stopover in Stratton,
VT, we were thankful to be riding modern dual-sport bikes with good suspension,
rather than the vintage Triumphs. But I was still aching all over. We also realized
that if we had taken the big touring machines we probably would have incurred
major cosmetic damage and possibly disabled one or both of the big machines.
The temperature was in the high 80s when we got to Stratton after 380
miles. We celebrated with a few beers and a first-class dinner at a local
restaurant. Frank DeGray had said he would join us there, and we looked for him
all evening, but he never showed. Our room was hot that night with no air
conditioning. We slept with the door wide open, and a box fan set on high in
the doorway. The room finally cooled down around 3 AM, but neither of us slept well,
due mainly to the heat.
Day 3 - We were up at 4:45,
and I walked over to a 24-hour convenience store for coffee and donuts for the
two of us. The temperature was in the mid 60s. It was hazy with fog in some of
the valleys when we left Stratton. It never got above the 70s all day. The
roads approaching Quebec City were wet. I wore my rain suit, which became
standard for me for the rest of the trip; if not for the rain, then for the
cold up north. Jake wore his modern, high-tech, dual-sport outfit. We stopped
at a bank in Quebec City and exchanged currency.
We had a 15-minute ferry ride at Tadoussac, QC, which took us across a
scenic fjord. I was glad to be eastbound after seeing a mile-long queue waiting
for the westbound ferry. They probably had up to a two-hour wait. Our wait,
plus the crossing, was only about 30 minutes. We got to Baie Comeau around
4:30, having traveled 435 miles that day. We learned that Baie Comeau is
divided into two sectors. We chose a motel in the west sector before learning
that our morning route was five miles farther up the road in the east sector. Even
though we rode more miles that day than the first two, it was less tiring
because the roads were smoother and the pain from the bruises had eased by then.
My gas mileage dropped quite a bit, probably because of the higher speeds and
stronger headwinds. I held the speed fairly constant between 55 and 60. Sometimes
I could hold as much as 65 on level ground, which must have been well into the
redline. Occasionally I would reach 70 or more downhill. When we climbed the several
11% grades, the speed would drop below 40. I added oil to the bike at Baie
Comeau and watched the level carefully during the trip because the engine held
only a liter, total. Being down only a pint meant I was running at those speeds
on only two cups of oil.
Day 4 - I slept like a rock
for seven hours, after which we were on the road by 5:15. The electric power in
town failed around 5:00, so we left without breakfast - not even coffee. The
day started out with bright sunshine and temps in the mid 40s. The first 30 or
40 miles of QC Rte 389 was twisty blacktop through some scenic, hilly countryside.
We saw vacation homes around a few of the lakes. About an hour after we started
the day, the temperature dropped to around 40. But it then got overcast and
began to drizzle.
It was 130 miles to Manic 5, where we saw a hydroelectric power facility
with a huge dam and a power station. The Serow ran completely out of gas two
miles short of Manic 5. After refueling both bikes from our spare can, we rode
105 miles of gravel to Gagnon, QC. A very light rain kept the dust down. The
road was wide and relatively straight with a smooth hard-packed gravel surface.
Many of the shoulders were soft with ridges and a few stones. There were some stones
up to tennis-ball size in the middle of the road; although it was easy to stay
in the tire tracks. We topped off the gas at a small station 62 miles north of
Manic 5 in expectation of 165 miles with no gas at all.
Gagnon is a ghost town right out of "Twilight Zone." There was
divided pavement, concrete curbs with indentations for driveways, steel
storm-drains, and evidence that there were once streetlight stanchions, although
we saw no signs that buildings of any kind ever existed. No foundations or any
type of construction materials were visible anywhere. I learned later that it
was
once a mining town that was dissolved six years earlier, and taken completely apart, picked up,
and carried away. Today it exists in name only. There is 55 miles of smooth
blacktop road from there to a small town named Fire Lake. The improved blacktop
appears out of place as it crosses a high plateau, seemingly from nowhere to
nowhere with no traffic. We saw only two other vehicles in the entire 55 miles.
It was raining and chilly with temperatures in the low 40s. The landscape
consisted of thin northern balsams. A pale-green, lichen-like moss covered the
rocks and much of the ground.
The forty miles of gravel from Fire Lake to Mount Wright had some of the
worst surface we found anywhere on the trip. It would have been passable with
the Gold Wing, but there were millions of huge potholes and a lot of washboard
surface with many soft spots. It would be a challenge for any bike. The narrow,
low-maintenance dirt road, which the brochure refers to as "under
construction", meanders all over the countryside and crosses the railroad
tracks several times. The road connects Labrador with the seacoast town of
Sept-Iles, QC. I thought the surface was more in need of maintenance than "under
construction". We didn't see any construction equipment or work going on anywhere.
A heavier rain soon settled in and it got quite chilly.
The road ended near a huge iron mine in Mount Wright. Twenty-five miles
of fairly good road then took us past an access road to the town of Fermont, QC,
and eventually into Labrador City, NL, a town with nice accommodations and friendly
people who spoke English. We stayed at the Two Seasons Inn where the food was
good, although a little expensive. There was a wedding reception going on when
we arrived. Most of the entrees were priced in the mid $20. I saw Chateau
Briand for two at $52. I ordered salmon steak, one of the lower-priced entrees,
while Jake opted for Big Jim's Sirloin Steak. There were other restaurants
nearby but we were cold and tired, so we chose to stay put in the warmth of the
inn. Our first-floor room cost $72 (Canadian) with my Senior Citizen discount,
which was the same price we paid in Baie Comeau without a discount, so I
figured it wasn't bad.
Day 5 - When we left at 5:30
AM the temperature was 1° Celsius (34° F), with no rain. It didn't take long
for the rain to return and for the temperature to drop to around freezing. I
wore every bit of clothing I brought, including spare jeans and all of my spare
T-shirts. Luckily I brought heavy hi-tech underwear. My fingers felt very cold
through the lightweight felt-lined leather Harley mittens that I carried in the
bottom of my saddlebag. To justify the pain, we reminded each other jokingly
that this is what we came for. By the time we got 50 miles out, we were "cold
to the bone" and Jake was wet underneath his outer clothes.
The 150 miles of gravel road to Churchill Falls was in fair shape. It had
some washboard surface with a few soft ridges in the center, but for the most
part it was a standard Canadian gravel road with a little less maintenance than
most. The light rain served to keep the dust down. The scenery was fair,
although the road was generally straight and level. Neither of us would go out
of our way to come back to ride this piece of road again. There are certainly
many more interesting dirt roads closer to home. We made the average time
listed in the brochure, which was 3 hours.
Churchill Falls is a small, neat village, owned and operated by the
hydroelectric power company. The hydroelectric plant offers tours of the
facility when booked in advance. All standard services are available including
banking, shopping and a post office. We lingered over a late breakfast at the
inn before tackling the main object of our tour, the final 180-mile section of
the Trans-Labrador Highway into Happy Valley/Goose Bay. While we were in
Labrador City, we heard several comments about how bad it was from there to
Goose Bay. Very few people had anything good to say about it. Some mentioned
being stuck for hours while construction crews had the road blocked and torn
up. Others told us about up to five accidents in a week, and about cars or
pickups sliding off the slick surface into the ditches. Everyone we spoke with
in Labrador City seemed to be negative about it. In contrast, the people we
spoke with at Churchill Falls had very little negative to say. The conversation
there centered mostly on the average time to drive it, which was 6 to 8 hours. Some
said they made it in 5.
The
road started out narrow and fairly straight with only two tire tracks. Vehicles
from the opposite direction had to slow down and make room for each other on
the single-lane road. We saw no one traveling for the entire distance. One of
the first things I noticed was the lack of "pit-run gravel" that the
brochure alluded to. I would characterize it more as a narrow,
minimum-maintenance gravel road. It got more interesting about 50 miles out,
near the Metchin River, where it was twisty and scenic. The rain threatened to
wash away some of the surface. We were concerned that if the rain continued to
come down like it was, we might have difficulty returning. We even discussed
the possibility of having to take a ferry out of Goose Bay if the road got
completely washed out.
The road is actually a great ride for an adventurous dual-sport rider.
Of course it’s a long way to come just to ride 180 miles of dirt, which is one
of the reasons it's called "Adventure Touring," which had been my
thing since the late 1970s. It was certainly what we came for, and we enjoyed
it in spite of the rain and cold. The rain caused muddy ruts and a few washouts
along the edges, and sometimes a mild washout across the entire road. None are a
big deal for a dual-sport bike. It would have taken the Gold Wing longer to get
through than the time we made it in. I'm sure that weather conditions could
render it impassable for most vehicles. But I suppose in a couple of years it
will be greatly improved.
 |
Water covered the entire road at this spot
|
My failing eyesight was my greatest concern. Being practically blind in
one eye and the other being useless, whenever my face shield and glasses got
covered with rain, it didn't afford a very good view of anything. Several times,
I hit ruts and deep puddles that I didn’t see. My concern then would be to
regain control after hitting something. We made the 180 miles from Churchill
Falls to Goose Bay in six hours, which included a stop to refill my tank from
the spare can, oiling the chain at least once, and stopping for a few photos. I
was dry inside my rain suit although Jake was wet to the skin in a few places.
His high-tech riding gear wasn't designed for all day in steady rain with a
tiny windshield.
We had heard much about the construction on the eastern end, which began
about 70 miles from Goose Bay, although we saw only two or three pockets of
actual work. We came upon one spot where a bulldozer had the road completely torn
up. When the operator saw us coming, he quickly back-bladed a section for us to
ride across. The resulting fresh soft soil might have been difficult for a big touring
bike. Because of the extremely light traffic, the construction crews weren't
using flagmen, so we had to find our way through on our own and hope we didn't take
a wrong path.
 |
Arriving at Happy Valley / Goose Bay
|
We passed the old US Air Force Base at Goose Bay before locating our inn
at Happy Valley. We checked into the Labrador Inn, which was our most expensive
lodging of the trip. Being tired, cold and wet, we ate at the inn and forewent any
sightseeing. The air base was used by the Northeast Air Command (NEAC) for
defense and early warning during the Cold War in the 1950s, and later by our U2
reconnaissance planes. We assumed there was a coastal village nearby, but at
that point we weren't interested in anything other than warming up, taking a hot
shower, getting a meal, and getting some rest. We toasted Emil Cocce in
memorial at dinner and figured he was probably looking down on us with a big
smile. I walked to the convenience store after dinner for breakfast snacks because
we planned to leave before breakfast.
Day 6 - The temperature was
in the low 60's when we left the motel at 5:30. We were fully suited even
though it wasn’t raining. It was a good bet that it would start soon. It actually
started near the first construction activity about 30 miles out. A large piece
of machinery was cutting a swath through the trees with a huge cutting wheel
that threw chunks of bark and branches all over the place. I caught a piece of
something on the end of my toe, which was painful. Around 50 miles out, a huge
backhoe was digging on one side of the road and depositing bucket-loads on the
other side. We timed our passing in-between swings of the huge bucket.
About 20 miles past the construction, I thought I saw a deep washout
across the road in front of me. We were traveling about 40 mph. My clouded,
rain-covered face shield blurred my already poor vision. I didn't want to hit
the ditch at that speed, so I went for the brakes. Unfortunately I hit them a
little too hard, which threw the bike into an immediate broad-slide. It was fully
sideways when it hit the relatively minor washout, and it gave me a really ugly
departure from the bike, and I landed on my head. Jake said when the bike
landed, it hit first on one side and then did a complete somersault and landed
on the other side. It’s amazing how much that little machine can take, not to
mention my 72-year-old body. I bounced along the ground for a good distance and
heard my helmet hit the road three times before I finally stopped tumbling. As
Jake was picking me up, he said I was lucky I landed on my head; otherwise I
might have really gotten hurt.
The only damage to the bike from the spill was that the brake pedal got
bent, which Jake straightened while I sat on a big rock and tried to regain my
composure. I actually sustained a slight concussion. We had to stop a few times
to rest when I got dizzy and nauseated each time we took off. I picked up a
nail in the rear tire only a few miles up the road, which went flat quickly.
The flat gave my head the time it needed to clear. The tube had at least one
hole in the sidewall in addition to the hole on the face. We used Jake's spare
tube rather than trying to patch it. He stuffed the 450x17 tube into the narrow
18-inch tire and he used two of his CO2 cartridges to put about 15 pounds of
air in it. Jake did most of the work because I was still dizzy from the
concussion. The 15 lbs of air was plenty to get us the remaining 95 miles into
Churchill Falls where I got more air.
The 180 miles from Goose Bay took us about seven hours, which included my
accident and working on the tire. The rain was lighter than on our eastbound
trip, and the road surface was in better shape. The ride would have been a
blast had I not dampened the joy by crashing and getting the flat. We had lunch
at Churchill Falls and made the 150 miles into Labrador City in three hours. I
had a headache most of the way, and my ears rang for hours. I had pain in my
neck where I ruptured a disk a few years earlier in a more serious end-o crash
with the Gold Wing on an oil spill in the back roads near home. I haven't had
many accidents, but the few that I had were memorable. I stopped using the face
shield before we reached Labrador City, and decided to tolerate the cold and
rain on my face rather than risk another bad scene.
Day 7 - It was 40° and
raining when we left Labrador City, although the sky looked promising for a
change. I had breakfast in the room, having picked up a few cereal bars and
orange juice at the local convenience store the night before. Jake carried his
breakfast, and ate it about an hour later. It was cold for the first 100 miles,
especially on my bare face. Near the end of the rough 40-mile section, where we
crossed the railroad tracks several times, we saw an 18-wheel semi that
apparently went into a turn too fast and overturned in the ditch. The engine
was stone cold, so it had been there for a while. It would take a heavy-duty
hook to set it upright and haul it away. It appeared from the skid marks that someone
had already tried in vain to move it. We stopped briefly to look it over, and
Jake took a few photos.
We had a full breakfast at a truck-stop north of Manic 5. Being in
Quebec where so many people speak only French, they enlisted the assistance of
the only English-speaking woman in the place to wait on us. As we were getting
gas later, Jake suggested we catch an earlier ferry to the Gaspe Peninsula. My
original plan was to leave Godbout, QC on an 8 AM ferry the following morning
for Gaspe. I remembered seeing a 2:00 ferry listed on the schedule that left
from Baie Comeau rather than Godbout. We figured there was still time to make that
one if stepped up the pace. So we rode the next 125 miles of mostly twisty
macadam in only 2 hours. The Yamaha sang soprano all the way. It actually ran
better than it did a week earlier when I left home. But after getting there, we
found only a few maintenance workers painting lines in the queuing area. I
rechecked my schedule and saw that the 2:00 ferry ran only on Mondays and
Fridays.
We peeled off a few layers of clothes and decided to skip the Gaspe
Peninsula tour and head home the way we came, making it a much shorter trip. We
both had chores waiting, and we had already done what we came for, so after a
late lunch in Baie Comeau, we rode 140 miles to Tadoussac, making it a total of
almost 500 miles that day, a third of which was dirt. In my wildest dreams I
would never have believed I could accomplish that on a 225cc dirt bike a day
after landing on my head. It took its toll though, because I was beat, and I
still had a headache. It was also on this trip that I came down with dermatitis
herpetiformis, a form of Celiac Disease that causes painful blister-type sores
on the butt.
Day 8 - The temperature was
in the low 40s when we boarded the ferry across the fjord, which left at 5:30
AM. As we stood near the railing, we could see a water spout from a whale near
the mouth of the fjord in the St. Lawrence River. While we were on QC Rte 138,
which was a busy 2-lane highway, It was also a trucker's route. I would often
get bogged down as low as 30 mph climbing the steep 11% grades, during which
time any huge semis following me would have to do the same because of the
double yellow line. As soon as I would crest the hill and start down the other
side, my speed would return quickly to 65 or 70 with the truck close to my rear
fender, looking to pass. Once, while I was clocking nearly 70 on one of those
down-hills with a huge semi very close behind, looking for his chance to pass,
my main tank suddenly ran out. It was like I hit the brakes. The truck was only
a few feet behind me. The distance between us closed quickly to only inches, as
I could hear his air brakes and the screeching of tires as I reached for the
reserve gas valve. Jake, who was behind the truck, thought I was a goner. It
was like an eternity before the reserve gas began to flow. Meanwhile, the truck
driver was probably cursing me out. Jake also had a few choice words for me
afterward. We stopped for breakfast at a McDonald’s in Baie St. Paul, and we used
super-highways to bypass the expected morning traffic in Quebec City. Later, we
had lunch at an old restaurant in Jackman, Maine, and stopped for the night in
Gorham, NH after 420 miles that day.
Day 9 - The temperature was
in the 40s when we left Gorham. The final day included an excellent gravel road
over Jefferson Notch near Randolph, NH; a really nice series of twisty, scenic
roads through New Hampshire and Vermont; and an enjoyable ride on another
gravel road over Lincoln Gap, VT. We agreed that it's tough to beat a ride
through the picturesque New England countryside and its villages. The weather
was perfect for it. It made me wonder as I have many times in the past why we
travel thousands of miles in search of great scenery, when we have some of the
best, right here in our own back yard.
The Next chapter is: 14 AK7 - Robyn's Graduation
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