Going "Down" the Upward Coast

July 26
Next morning at breakfast there is a huge iceberg right next to the ship—several stories high—and probably equal or more below the surface. I was able to watch it for a long time. We were eating breakfast with Betty the biologist and by the time I get up on deck I do not get many photos of it. Doug and Betty see it go by in the portholes by their table. Betty handed me a slip of paper with the entire common names and Latin names for a flower we’d discussed earlier.
At Pinset’s Arm it is not deep enough for the Ranger to get to a dock so all skids of groceries and supplies are taken ashore in a bout 5 trips with a dory (motorboat) with 2 fellows. A crane lowers the skids. The Ranger takes on skids of fish products of different kinds and we find out little the tour guide knows – disheartening, but we didn’t pay for her services anyway. One of the crew pulls out a conche/whelk? out of the cases being sent out to be processed to show the tourists what it looks like. Most villages have some type of “fish” plant-can be crab, shrimp, fish, fish eggs or other. The plants have huge tanks of fuel. The skids of supplies for Norman Bay also have to be unloaded this way to a few boats. One is a skid of crab pots. We see lots more Innu and/or Innuit and/or Metis people. A lot of them are weathered older men. At one point a snowmobile is hoisted to the wharf. There are skids of Frito Lay products for every village. Often things appear precarious but they know just what they can get away with. At Norman Bay a larger family, a little worn at the edges and with their curly black happy dog and many taped boxes in tow, go ashore by boat. At one point a box gets dropped by a young boy and there is the sound of shattering glass. The variety of and handling of the freight is so real and fascinating. The Northern Ranger draws a crowd of scrambling pick-up trucks, ATV’s, people on foot and bicycle, kids, old folks, relatives. Once some youths set up a table of pottery for sale. It is a tiny carnival every 12 days. Once there is a real hot dog stand of some sort. Fishing boats of different sizes going in and out.
The 2 dark-haired fellows from earlier turn out to be off-shore fishermen who work on a boat which returns to St. Anthony where they take the Ranger to their home in Black Tickle, where on of them will take a smaller boat to Goose Bay to get his wife at her job. The other lives with an aunt and he talks to Doug a while about 30 foot waves and rough seas preventing them from even drinking a cup of coffee.
At Indian Tickle we finally say goodbye to Nickie, the scruffy white dog and his big family who get off into small bobbing boats. It’s very dark and foreboding, thw water quite choppy and there is no village to be seen.
At Black Tickle I see a new pink flower—see sketch of 7/16. There are huge flat rounded boulders and no trees. They are working on adding to the fishplant.
We dock at Cartwright, but before we do we see a huge wonderful display of Northern lights—they even pulse and the curtain dances after a while. (see sketch)
There are tons of icebergs, most a distance away, but sometimes you can see 15 at a time. We sight several whales – their spouts—and once one is flipping and smacking its tail. Someone sights puffins.
Someone explains Canadian civics to us in the cafeteria but it is so baffling and complex we almost immediately forget. Another mid-older couple, tall, fit and greying, have a cool aeronautical map and tell me all their Labrador adventures and an ocean-going canoe. Later I notice (they’re active readers) they have dropped 2 bookmarks on the seats and in handing them to them I see the name Northern Books, George Luste—someone I was thinking of contacting for NF and LAB books since he was recommended by Gary Conover. I say this to this couple and he says, “I am George.”