Tuesday 8-1 saw us up early to get a jump on the drive of the day. The Trans-Labrador highway only runs 20 km or so out of Labrador City to the Quebec border where the road becomes Quebec 389. We knew there was a roughly 200 km stretch where the road was still gravel and not the newly, nicely paved road we drove across Labrador. Where the road was paved, it was poorly paved in most areas, rough road, potholes that can swallow a small car and heavy truck traffic from the mines and logging operations in eastern Quebec. The truck drivers regularly speed and take up a generous portion of the road when driving, especially around corners and on gravel stretches. You must be constantly aware of trucks using more than half of the road to avoid collisions and near-misses. The scenery on this stretch through Quebec was fabulous, the cloud formations on the tableau of the vast sky of the hinterlands of eastern Quebec was spectacular. There aren’t many towns along route 389, so the same rules as for Labrador apply, never pass a fuel station without filling up.
Fermont is the first town one encounters in Quebec along route 389. We filled up, bought sandwiches and water, and moved on. The first section of gravel road was only 50 km or so into Quebec and lasted for 40-50 km before the paved road resumed. There was a lot of construction going on along Rte. 389 that turned the 5–6-hour trip into a 7–8-hour trip. Several times we were held up by automated traffic signals controlling the traffic flow when the road was down to one-lane due to the bridge replacement construction and resurfacing. Blink and you’ll miss Mont Wright not far from Fermont, then there are no towns until Gagnon, roughly 150 km from Fermont and the end of the pavement for the next 175-200 km. And…let me add that the gravel roads were “washboard” the entire way. Mary did a phenomenal job driving while being bounced around along with the camper.
Our destination was Manic Cinq (Manic 5), a power generating station at the Daniel Johnson Dam on the Manicouagan River, and supposedly the end of the gravel road, which was an incorrect assumption. There are 5 Manics on the Manicouagan from the reservoir at Manic 5 to the St. Lawerence River where the Manicouagan joins the sea. The dam at Manic 5 is called the Daniel-Johnson Dam, an Arch and buttress dam, the largest in the world at 1.3km long, while Manic 5 refers to the power generating station there. We arrived at Manic 5 around 6:30pm and registered for a tour of the facility the next day at 9am. We went to the Manic Energie Motel for our overnight stay. The hotel, restaurant, gas station and every other building in sight is owned by Hydro-Quebec, a true company town. The ‘restaurant’ was a cafeteria-style set up with limited choices, but the food was good despite the misgivings the restaurant’s appearance gave us. Of course, now everyone and all signs were in French which made some things a challenge to understand.
Wednesday, we were up early again owing to the need to be at Manic 5 by 8:30 for pre-tour paperwork for the 9am tour. There was a crowd for the first tour of the day, about 14-16 people in total. We were able to go inside one of the arches and see the guts of the dam works. We also got to see the arch up close from the outside, the tour bringing us to the wall of the arch where we could walk around, see the spillway for water releases and the unique engineering of the dam where they have fused the native rock and the concrete and blended them together to form a seamless transition between the concrete and the living stone. Next, we were ferried up on top of the dam, where the road used to allow traffic to cross but has now been closed and traffic routed around the dam. We were able to walk on the top of the dam and see the entirety of the dam and power station complex and the terrain for miles in every direction. We finished up the tour, headed back to the Manic Energie Motel to get the camper and we were on our way by a bit after noon. The rest of the day we drove the 200 km to Baie Comeau. Again it was gorgeous and sometimes treacherous. We passed by Manic Trois (3) and Manic Deux (2). Apparently Manic Quatre (4) was combined with Manic 5. Manic Un (1) was in Baie Comeau. As expected by now, there was construction, traffic and gravel road in patches between Manic 5 and Baie Comeau, our destination and the end of the Labrador adventure.
We arrived in the Baie Comeau area around 7pm, to the Camping de la Mer campground out on Point Lebel, about 20km from Baie Comeau proper, and a stones-throw from the beach. We made camp for the evening and ate dinner without rain or bugs overwhelming us. We walked to the beach and along it for a couple kilometers out and back before returning and having a fire before retirement.
Thursday, we had a short walk in the morning before it started to rain on the walk and we turned back, getting to the camper as the rain’s intensity really ramped up, and spent most of the rest of the day and night confined to the camper as our old friend the rain followed us to Quebec and Point Lebel. We read, worked on the blog, played Mille Bournes, did laundry and ate reheated leftovers meals rather than cook in the camper. We couldn’t sit outside for a fire, it was too wet and the bugs presence increased in magnitudes after the rain and we were already over-bitten, so no outdoors tonight.
Friday was similar to Thursday in that we went to sleep with it raining and awoke with it raining, and the rain persisted all day, finally breaking up around 4-5pm. We made a resupply run into Baie Comeau and had a short walk between rainy periods. The break in the weather that evening allowed us to enjoy a fire, which was relatively bugless, a huge positive for us of late. The next day….on to Quebec City!
