Cruising World - February 2016

THE WILDEST COAST

sheltered nook through a passage so narrow we could touch the

cliff s on each side with a boathook. It was only September —

still hot summer back home in Rhode Island — but we made

frequent use of the wood stove, not only for heat but to keep

things dry in the perpetual damp. It was a relief when we fi nally

made our splashy way into the pass between Cumberland and

Portage islands, as we knew that for at least a couple of days, the

wind and waves could do what they wanted without aff ecting

us. Ganymede chugged through quiet, silky brown water among

rocky, pinkish humps inhabited only by birds. Channels and pas-

sageways branched off in every direction, all calling out to be

explored.

“I could spend a whole summer just cruising between here

and Baie des Esquimaux,” I told Danielle, who was scoping for

eagles’ nests with the binoculars.

“You say that about everywhere we’ve been,” she pointed out.

“Yeah, but I could extra do it here, if only we could carry

enough food.”

“Maybe we’ll be able to come back someday. It’s not likely to

change too much.”

She was right about that. This coast had a permanent look

about it. Solid. Slow. Patient. It probably looked exactly the

same as it had when Jacques Cartier

fi rst poked around several hundred

years ago. That night we anchored in

serene quietness in a little unnamed

cove next to a thin, long inland pas-

sage called the Petit Rigolet, or “ Little

Ree-gullet,” as the locals say it. On

the pebbly beach ashore, as if to prove

that we weren’t the only people left on

Earth (though it felt that way, after days

of seeing not a soul), we found a porce-

lain teacup buried upside down at the

water’s edge. It remains to this day one

of my favorite souvenirs of our travels.

The biggest settlement on this

stretch of coast, La Tabatière, is home

to an enormous hydroelectric plant that

sends power not only to all the out-

ports, through wires strung on towers

high above the roadless tundra, but as far as Blanc-Sablon and

Labrador. We reached it after another windy obstacle-course

sail through steep, narrow gaps and bare, rounded islands. With

most of the fi shing boats being hauled out for the season, there

was room to tie up in a nook behind the giant ferry dock. A

two- minute walk up the hill revealed a view of a vast lake and a

crumbling weir no longer used for generating electricity.

As the epicenter of the Northeast Gulf outports, La Tabatière

boasts two grocery stores and one restaurant and bar that even

had a Wi-Fi connection. (My trapper friend in Rivière-Saint-Paul

had claimed he’d heard of the Internet, but wasn’t sure wheth-

er someone in town had one or not.) La Tabatière did not have a

much-needed laundromat, but the woman at the grocery store

was good enough to invite us to do laundry at her house. So on

the evening of our arrival, we enjoyed some true Canadian hos-

pitality in the house of a perfect stranger: hot baths, laundry and

even cartoons on a fl at-screen television for the kids while our

new friend, Janice Robertson, told us tales of growing up along

this wildest coast.

We would have loved to stay longer to hear more stories of

her grandfather, who delivered mail by schooner in summer and

dog sled in winter all along the northeastern coast of Quebec

and southern Labrador; of driving pickup trucks on solid sea

ice from Natashquan through Little Ree-gullet to visit family

in Rivière -Saint-Paul; of these remarkable people who live with

such aplomb in such a lonely, faraway place, and manage not on-

ly to survive but thrive. But our weather window came, and we

made tracks for Harrington, a tiny island with no roads or cars

— just wide boardwalks along which people drive four-wheelers.

Every house had a sled or two parked in front, and for want of a

Travelift, all the boats were hauled out on a huge wooden ramp

fi tted with winches at the top.

There was ice on the decks the next morning as we sailed away,

double-reefed, for Cape Whittle, the obstacle we’d been dread-

ing since putting Belle Isle behind us. Capes are notorious for

causing diffi culties — our worst times sailing have been trying

to round capes: Burica, Cape May, Cape Sable, Cape John — and

the weather station at Cape Whittle had been reporting winds

15 or so knots stronger than neighboring sites. It was a grand

sail down, however, and as we came near, the wind dropped to a

whisper, then fell fl at calm. Losing no time, we started the motor

and left the cape behind as quickly as possible. Taking advantage

of the quiet, we made our longest day-

time run ever — 70 miles — all the way

to Washicoutai Bay, an uninhabited, nar-

row curving arm that sheltered Gany-

mede through the raging storm that the

eerie calm had presaged.

We celebrated our safe rounding of

Cape Whittle by resting for a few days

while the weather collapsed in sheets

of rain and shrieking wind. We also

celebrated Emily’s 7th birthday, with

a fi re in the stove, a cake in the oven,

marshmallows from the tiny store on

Harrington Island, and an assortment of

small presents and balloons that had been

gathered here and there as we touched

civilized parts of Newfoundland.

It was one of the best birthdays ever,

but being on the equinox, it was also a re-

minder that our once-long northern days were fast becoming long

northern nights. There were still many hundreds of miles to sail

before November, and though we’d got around Cape Whittle and

would soon drop below 52 degrees of north latitude, the mighty

St. Lawrence River yawned ahead, full of shoals, ships and rip-

ping tides. Still, you can only sail one day at a time, and the very

next chance there was, we made for Natashquan. The highway

from Québec City ends there, and civilization begins: well-stocked

stores, cars, banks and reasonable gas prices — a palpable diff er-

ence from the Wildest Coast that we had just cruised.

We think of the northeastern coast of Quebec often, now

that we’re far away at home. We talk to the one or two cruisers

we know who’ve been there, and we keep in touch with Janice

Robertson. There’s no place quite as lonely, beautiful, wild and

dangerous, with adventure and discovery around every turn —

a most fi tting reward for any cruiser who would venture off the

beaten path.

The Zartman family is currently land-bound in Bristol, Rhode Island,

planning their next adventure.

65

FEBRUARY

2016

cruisingworld.com

Instead of a Travelift, Harrington Island has a wooden ramp with winches at the top (top left). Even though it was only Sep-
tember, we were in wool sweaters for most of our trip (top right). Petit Rigolet was a lovely place to anchor (bottom right);
MAP: SHANNON CAIN TUMINOcome winter, it will ice over. Most fi shing cottages we saw had no cars, driveways or roads to connect them (bottom left).