Mary's Harbour

I’m proud to call myself a Canadian but OMG it is so cold. We must be getting soft in our old age or getting acclimatized to the warmer weather. Waking up to -2 degree C and a wind chill making it much lower is nasty. Our trip today being cancelled puts us ahead of schedule by a day. We left at 7:45 because there was nothing to hang around for.

Leaving Cartwright we noted all the wooden sleighs left in the fields. The story goes like this. They use them to gather wood in the winter time and instead of taking them home they leave the sleighs were they stopped cutting. Out here no one will steal it. If you did the whole town would know.

Wood sleigh left in the field

Two more left upside down with some recent repairs done

Further down the road we saw a pretty elaborate man-made dam. I suspect it is for fish since a Department of Fisheries truck was across the road.

Elaborate fish dam

The road from Cartwright back to the main road was fantastic. Once we hit the 510 again it turned into the worst roads ever. Our average speed was 20 km/h and we had to go 87 km. You can do the math.

Lots of potholes and mud

How bad was the road? I drove right by a bear on the shoulder and didn’t even see it because I was concentrating so hard on trying to miss the potholes. Susan saw it. This is close to where I almost lost the rig over the side. I hit a really bad pothole that threw the rig into the soft shoulder. The shoulder gave way and the passenger side tires on the rig were over the edge. Precious pulled the rig out but that was scary. No damage just kept going. 

More of the same...soft shoulders

What makes this place so beautiful even when the roads are bad and the weather is ugly, is the sheer beauty.

Beautiful when the sun shines

We arrived at Port Hope Simpson which is ¾’s the way to our next stop. I got diesel then pushed on because the roads are soooooo bad. It’s taken us almost 3 hours to drive 80 km. I wanted to see Moulder of Dreams Pottery Shop but it was closing for good due to lack of business. I was told they had very little merchandise left anyway. So onward we go.
We finally made the turn into Mary’s Harbour, almost losing the rig and truck in all the  potholes. We are parking at the community center for 2 nights. I’m not sure where everyone is going to fit but I’m tucked in behind the building out of the wind as if that is going to make a difference.

Mary’s Harbour is surrounded by the beauty of the St. Mary’s River, which was the site of a salmon fishery in the 1780’s. Since the cod moratorium the community now thrives on the crab fishery. The town population today is a whopping 450.

A very dirty Precious

...not new anymore!

Susan and I got all settled in and I wanted to take a nice hot shower. NOPE! No showering for a few days until we get to a campground with facilities.

Our usual travel meeting and social was held in the restaurant prior to supper. The restaurant was easy to find it's the only one in town. I ordered the cod and Susan had the T-bone steak. The meal was fantastic.

Travel meeting

Travel meeting over let's eat

Appetizer...dough covered with molasses
NO THANKS

Susan's supper...T-bone steak

My supper...cod

Dessert...partridge berry crumble

After supper we all disbanded to our rigs for a relaxing night after a tough days drive. Remember there are no TV stations up here so we spent another evening reading, which is fine with me.