Genesis of the Maritime Canada Trip
The idea for this trip started with Debbie suggesting a trip to Nova Scotia or Prince Edward Island and really just getting to seeing some of the Canadian Maritime provinces. So I studied maps of the area and got the idea that it should include Newfoundland. I like the idea of getting further off the beaten path or doing something different. Research about Newfoundland led to Labrador and its rugged secluded coasts and vast untouched forests. Battle Harbour, hanging on the end of the continent, seemed like a great place to unwind in comfort and seclusion. Finally, reading about the Northern Ranger trip up the northern Labrador coast seemed like an adventure that suited me. Debbie would like almost anything involving the ocean, so she quickly warmed to the idea. The Trans-Labrador Highway meant the trip could be done as a loop so driving through the wilderness was going to be part of it. Throughout the planning the trip got focused on the more remote parts of the trip.
That was the idea, and now some thoughts of how it played out. The numbers are that we spent 22 days traveling and drove 3763 miles which took 75 hours. Additionally, we traveled 1473 miles by sea over 90 hours of sailing.
Other Road Trips
Before I get into specific comments about this trip, I want to make some comments about road trips in general. I did one to Florida with a friend back in the 1980s and none until 2007 when the family flew to Phoenix and we did a 2700 miles loop through California and back. The amount road trips for us has picked up considerably in the last couple of years. First, I went with my son Cameron to Oklahoma in 2016. That was my first road trip experience with just 2 people since the 1980s trip. It was great chance to travel with my son and we drove through 14 states and covered approximately 3400 miles.
Then Debbie and I went to Florida in April of 2017 driving another 3600 miles. We traveled closer to the coast on the way south and headed to the mountains going north.
That summer, we set off to see the full solar eclipse in Broken Bow Nebraska. That included a round trip journey, as far west as Yellowstone, that took us to national parks, the vast plains, mountains, cities, and other great experiences in 16 states during our 5800 miles of driving.
In summer 2018, we did the 21 day Maritime Canada trip with the 5236 miles by road and water.
I also did a shorter road trip to Nashville with my daughter Elissa in November, 2018, visiting 10 eastern state capitals but still driving 2600 miles over 6 days.
Ingredients of a Good Road Trip
During these five trips I covered over 20,500 miles and both Debbie and I have had some time to reflect on what makes a successful road trip. I’m really talking about trips with just a few people not a big family group. Those are more complicated. Success is an individual definition and a thing that I like is flexibility and spontaneity in exactly when and where I want to travel. This gets particularly useful on a driving trip when the weather, tiredness, a new idea, or an impromptu stop can influence how far or exactly where you want to travel. Hard reservations for transportation or lodging will limit that flexibility and may force you to travel faster than you might have otherwise wanted to do in the moment. Spontaneity seems an essential ingredient to us and being spontaneous means you have to be flexible about what kind of hotel you stay in and how much it costs. I have generally found those last minute bookings with Priceline Express Deals or Hotels Tonight result in significant savings, and if you book carefully the hotels are fine. I have always managed to find something although occasionally it might be overpriced. That last minute model doesn’t work as well if in a remote area and you have very limited options.
How This Applied to the Maritime Canada Trip
Before we left on the August 2018 trip, we had reservations on 3 ships, at Battle Harbour, and hotels in remote locations. We needed the hotel reservations in places like Churchill Falls or St. Barbe, Newfoundland because there was only one place in town. Many of those were later in the trip so we had to maintain a pace to arrive for those dates and times or risk losing a substantial amount of money on pre-paid items
The impact in this case was that we kind of whizzed through Prince Edward Island onto Nova Scotia and around Cape Breton to arrive for ship to Newfoundland. We got to St. John’s but couldn’t linger too long because we had a long drive across the island to eventually reach our hotel and ferry to Labrador. This really wasn’t unexpected as the total trip time was limited and we were covering a lot of ground. The pace slowed in Labrador as we had ample time to get to Battle Harbour, which was a very worthwhile destination. I would like to return there earlier in the season and spend 3 or 4 days and include an iceberg hunting side trip. Debbie would want a whale watching excursion (she says you can never see enough whales). We had enough time to get to Goose Bay and the Northern Ranger but not enough to look around Goose Bay. The trip up the coast was definitely not a cruise and had none of the usual amenities of that kind of ship. The communities you visit are not well-developed tourist destinations although I knew that when planning this trip. We didn’t go for to see tourist destinations in Nunatsiavut but instead went for the journey and the cultural experience. We were never bored on our 5 day trip up the coast and this was one of our favorite parts of the trip. The rugged scenery was always changing, even if it wasn’t the highest mountains – we still liked it. On a small ship like Northern Ranger you are intimate with water and environment and that is worthwhile to us.
The journey on the Trans-Labrador highway was an interesting experience. It is remote and undeveloped and a couple of good audio books and some good music really helped make the drive more pleasant when conversation was minimal. The coastal part of the TLH had more things to see but when you turned inland it was vast forests. I’m glad we passed through it but there isn’t a lot of things between towns to stop and visit. There were of course various scenic spots but also a lot of forest. We focused the trip on Labrador as it was the furthest and hardest to get there. When we whizzed through Cape Breton I thought it would be nice spend more time there. I’m sure it would be, but once in Newfoundland and heading across that I realized that would be the place to spend at least a week exploring its many coastal areas and another day or two in St. Johns. It has many arms of the island to explore with lots of quaint villages on the sea. We should return.
In spite of the too fast pace at times we had an interesting journey in 2018 and I’m ready for the next one. Our trip to visit our son Cameron in Anchorage Alaska is approaching and is going to be our most epic journey to date by air, sea, and land. I guess the road calls again. Until then, thanks for reading. — James