Day 16 - Churchill Falls

Last night we ate well, rested well, and showered well. Ready for the next part of our journey on the Trans-Lab we climbed in the truck and set off. There are a lot of efforts going on to improve the highway. One of the reasons we wanted to do this trip when we did was so we could experience what it was like to drive this road, and access this area, prior to it being spoiled by a paved highway. Pavement, did I mention pavement? Oh yes, we are certain that in the next 10 years this whole road will be paved. As we left out of Goose Bay we enjoyed several miles of pavement, many more than the map from a year ago even showed. Before long this will be just a Sunday drive, rather than a strenuous trek through the wilderness.

Not far out of Goose Bay you hit Muskrat Falls. Not only is this significant for being a beautiful showing of nature’s power as the water rushes over the rocks, but it is also facing impending doom. Nalcor, the local hydro-electric energy company has plans to build a massive dam here in the pending years, destroying the beauty of the falls. We were happy to see it when we did.

Home-made signs for the hiking paths

Halfway between Goose Bay and Labrador City is Churchill Falls. This place is a bit of an anomaly. The town is a company town, whose sole existence is to support a hydro-electric plant, by the name of Churchill Falls. Churchill Falls, however, no longer exist. The river, which once drained several large basins on its trip out to the sea, featured an enormous drop that we could only imagine, since the water has now been diverted into an immense power plant that houses 11 turbines thousands of feet below the surface. The guidebooks say to inquire about a free tour at the town office, so we did. Apparently though, there is a vacancy for a tour guide here, as one tour guide was on vacation, and the other up and quit. While the extremely friendly attendant at the front desk was explaining the situation and giving us key chains, a supervisor piped up from behind and asked if we’d like to see the video. Basically we ended up with a private 1st half of the tour and question/answer session, along with directions to view the previous location of the falls and being instructed that we could drive practically anywhere on the property so long as there were no gates. This included the tops of the dikes, sweet! He even drew us a map to some key areas to check out.

A little ways outside of town we found the trail to the former falls. Though there are still a few streams feeding them, it is not even a fraction of the magnitude of water that previously flowed here. You could see the contours of the rocks, sculpted over the years by the power of the river that once flowed here. A shame really, but that’s progress, and as an engineer I have to respect what they were able to visualize and achieve, despite the loss of a great natural feature that we’ll never see again.

JD braves the metal bridge on the trail. 

Other than that the day was pretty uneventful. Leaving Churchill falls the road is under a lot of construction as they widen it in preparation for asphalt. It feels like you’re driving through a construction site at all times on this road. Imagine being able to drive I-95 before it was paved and opened, that’s about what we’ve been plowing through lately.

We knew there’d be camping in Lab City, but had no real idea what to expect. The only guidance we had was from 2003, so who knows what things were like 8 years ago. Pulling into the only campground in town, Duley Lake Family Park, we couldn’t quite comprehend what we’d stumbled upon. Imagine the Pikey camp from the movie ’Snatch’, and you’d get a pretty good idea. Still, it seemed like mostly a bunch of families living out of their trailers for the summer having fun, and we didn’t have much of a choice, so we nabbed a spot next to the lake and set up for a very wet, windy, night.