LABRADOR (PART 2)

TENNESSEE WARBLER

EASTERN CANADA JOURNEY OF DISCOVERY

LABRADOR (PART 2)

JUNE 26-28

We went a birdin’ the following morning and without any real sense of the area, our game plan was a crapshoot,  After several false starts, we found Grove Point Resource Road, a small dirt track that wandered through the mixed forest.  There were tons of birds singing, including Northern Waterthrush, Black-throated Green, Yellow-rumped, Blackpoll, Tennessee Warblers, Least Flycatcher, Swainson’s Thrush and even a Mourning Warbler, well north of its normal range.  A close inspection of the range maps in Sibley’s Field Guide to Eastern Birds shows a tiny pocket of neo-tropic migrants that breed in the Churchill River Valley, due to its slightly more temperate climate and resultant variety in habitat.

We continued to explore the Happy Valley/Goose Bay region and drove 20 miles northeast to the villages of North West River and Sheshatshin.  Many native Inuit and Innu people live here and the excellent Labrador Interpretive Centre chronicles both the ancient and modern history of these peoples, commemorating their culture and traditions.  From its high vantage point, it’s also the best place in the area to view Lake Melville and Grand Lake, with a distant look at the snow-covered Mealy Mountains to the southeast.  In the afternoon, we played a quick 9 holes at Amaruk Golf Club in Goose Bay, where the greens were as shaggy as deep pile carpet.  A croquet mallet was more appropriate than a putter.  When their power cart had a flat, two young golfers decided to walk - but couldn't abandon their large cooler of beer.  Rather than play "dry", one grabbed a pull cart and strapped on the cooler while shouldering his clubs.  That's a northern dude who takes his beer drinking seriously.

BLACK-BACKED WOODPECKER FEEDING CHICK

FEMALE BLACK-BACKED DRUMMING

With a full tank of gas, we turned our sights west toward Churchill Falls, about 200 miles down the friendly dirt and gravel Route 500.  While still on the even more friendly pavement near town, a Black-backed Woodpecker flew across the road.  I quickly did a U-turn and found the bird sticking its yellow-crowned head out of a nest hole!  We spent a delightful hour watching the male and female flying back and forth to the nest, bringing a mouth-watering array of grubs and other insects to stuff sideways into the protruding little beaks.  Each time an adult approached, a whirring crescendo echoed from the hole.  When an attending parent desired the other to switch positions, it flew to the top of the dead snag in which the nest was located and drummed out a message, “Come home.  I need to get away from the kids.”  A trio of Boreal Chickadees, nattily dressed in brown and gray, toured the site, whistling their wheezy “chick-a-dee” song for added entertainment.

BRUNO THE BEAR

We continued to drive slowly, looking for wildlife and were soon rewarded by black bear number six for the trip.  Bruno was feeding on some fresh willow catkins in a low area near the road, using its massive clawed paws to pull the tender shoots toward a heavily toothed mouth.  We sat in the car, windows down, watching the nearby show.  Then the bear decided it was bored and would like to reverse roles with a thorough investigation of us.  Windows up, as Bruno came up the embankment and approached the SUV.  It disappeared in front and I suspected it was licking the front grill’s ample supply of battered bugs.  I was in the passenger seat as the bear came around, stood up and put its paws and wet nose on the window.  I never felt threatened, or that the bear was anything but curious.  Gale was in the driver’s seat and began laughing loudly when she looked in the rear view mirror and the bear was spread-eagled on the rear window with a hapless look on its face.  “How do I get into this thing”, it seemed to be thinking.  “These people look harmless and they must have some good stuff to eat in there.”  Moments later, Gale got the face-to-face treatment, as the bear stood up at her window and longingly gazed in as it slobbered all over the glass.  By now, I was laughing so hard I barely managed to take a picture.  Finally, its curiosity satisfied, Bruno ambled off and we cautiously proceeded.

I tried my hand at fly-casting one last time, as it turned out, in a lovely roadside stream that burbled and gushed between boulders, through pockets and eddies and beneath alder overhangs.  How could a giant trout not be here, waiting for my perfectly presented offering?  One six-incher with a Napoleonic complex agreed, but that was it.  After it started raining, I jumped off a rock, went in over my boot tops, filling them with ice water and decided to call it a day.  The black flies and mosquitoes greatly appreciated my exposition of bare skin as I poured out my boots and stripped down for dry clothes.

CHURCHILL FALLS AND GORGE

Churchill Falls was a strange place.  Built as the company town to support the largest underground hydro-electric plant in the world, it resembles an upscale military base.  All the buildings basically look the same, except the Town Centre, which has a hotel, Midway Travel Inn, (www.midwaylabrador.ca), restaurant, grocery store and meeting areas.  Nearby is the hydro plant, which offers free tours to its giant underground generators and turbines.  Water to run the plant is diverted from the nearby Churchill River, which formerly was a raging torrent with a massive 245 foot high waterfall.  The riverbed has been more-or-less empty and the falls a trickle of spring run-off since 1971, when the plant opened.  We crossed the Brinko Bridge and hiked a path that follows the edge of the river’s massive gorge.  The views of the former falls were amazing, but sad.  I felt like I was looking at the skeleton of a former body-builder.  We continued along and had to stop for a construction site.  All of the road crew were wearing net hats and gloves for protection against the insects, which seemed to now be reaching full force.  

HARLEQUIN DUCKS

Over the entire route, and especially as we drive past endless lakes, ponds, rivers and streams, I am amazed at the scarcity of birds, especially waterfowl.  In other regions I have traveled in the north, every pond has at least one pair of breeding ducks or loons.  Here, there are virtually none except for a handful scattered widely across the vast terrain.  On one large river, just downstream from the bridge, a pair of Harlequin Ducks slept peacefully on the rocks, safe from all predators.  Perhaps we are not far enough north to reach their breeding grounds?  Too far east?  One memorable sighting was a pair of Lincoln’s Sparrows, first described for science by John James Audubon on his 1832 visit to Labrador.  

FERMONT IRON ORE MINE

Our next destination was Labrador City, which at 9,000 folk is the largest and fastest growing town in Labrador.  The heart and soul of the city is iron ore mining, without which the city would not exist.  Founded in 1961 by what is now the Iron Ore Company of Canada, the mines here are the largest open pit iron ore sites in the world and they are rapidly increasing capacity at present.  Keeping the large view in mind, remember that we are in some of the most pristine sub-arctic wilderness in the world.  In the middle of it is this humongous array of open pit mines, running 24/7 for the last 50 years, tearing down mountains, ripping open the earth, spilling cubic miles of tailings in every direction, turning the local waters red with runoff.  I know we need our vehicles, refrigerators and everything else with metal in it, but it is difficult to see the price the earth has been forced to pay for our necessities and conveniences.  Everyone likes to eat meat, but who wants to visit the slaughterhouse?  Lab City, as it is known, is expanding so fast and bringing in so many workers that there is simply no place to put them.  Temporary housing is everywhere.  Workers live in tents and the backs of unused semi trailers.  Houses rent for up to $6,000/month.  Small home prices are in excess of $300,000.  We stayed in a rustic cabin 25 miles outside of town for $100/night and that was only because a birding friend had persuaded the owner to let us use it.  

PORCUPINE

Meanwhile, the town was celebrating its 50th anniversary while we were there and we attended the festivities at the Arts and Cultural Centre, a beautiful concert hall.  We heard short speeches, songs by a local school teacher, and watched an entertaining and insightful film by a local producer focusing on the “pioneers” - people who had lived in Lab City for 50 years.  Our local birding guide, Gordon Parsons (gordon_parsons@hotmail.com), was also the publisher of the town newspaper for many years and knows everyone and everything about the area, so he was a fount of information.  After the party, Gord took us out to do some birding on the “reclaimed” tailings from the Wabush mine.  We learned that the iron ore is extracted from the earth after the “overburden” (the land on top - perhaps the most euphemistic euphemism I have ever heard), is removed and piled up somewhere else, usually on top of a nearby forest.  After the extraction, the ore-bearing rock is crushed and the iron ore magnetically separated to be railroaded away for processing.  The remainder of the rock is then crushed into fine particulate matter, mixed with water to form a slurry and pumped out over nearby lands like a forced lava flow, burying everything in its path up to 300 feet deep.  This goes on for miles around, forming a vast wasteland that looks like it’s on the moon, except not so pretty.  In one large area we visited, the company had planted the tailings with non-native grasses and a few trees in an effort to make it seem “natural”.  Nothing lives on this “prairie” as it is an absolutely sterile terrain.  Perhaps something can be done with it, but like the West Virginia and Kentucky coal strip mines, government will likely have to force the miners to make any real reclamation possible.  In the failing evening light as we returned to our cabin, I spotted a porcupine waddling down below the elevated roadway.  I jumped out and ran after it into the forest.  The porcupine immediately turned its back to me and raised all it quills.  As I approached closer, I said to myself, “They can’t really shoot their quills, can they?”  It scrambled up a tree and I scrambled back out to the road before the mosquitoes completely drained the life out of me.

NORTHERN SHRIKE (JUV)

BLACKPOLL WARBLER

NORTHERN WATERTHRUSH

We spent the next morning birding around Lab City with Gord.  A friend’s feeders attracted Common Redpolls, Purple Finch, Pine Siskin, White-crowned Sparrow, Dark-eyed Junco, and even a far northern Mourning Dove.  At John Day Park, we found a pair of just-fledged Northern Shrikes with their parents.  Gale and I walked a one-mile trail around the lake and found singing Blackpolls and Northern Waterthrush.  We stopped at the local co-op for supplies and then hit the dusty road again, this time traveling due south on Route 389, the only road between Lab City and the southern portion of Canada.  South of town we encountered another set of mines just over the Quebec border in Fermont.  The road passes for miles between the mines and the tailings fields and is a somewhat overwhelming encounter with the gigantic machinery that moves everything, from trucks that are 30 feet tall with ten foot tires to the pipelines and conveyors that move the raw material.  Route 389 is very different from the roads we encountered in Labrador.  Older and narrower, in relatively poor condition where it’s paved, it follows the railroad that is the economic connection to the rest of the world.  Once you leave the pavement and the road returns to dirt and gravel, danger becomes a factor as numerous semis fly by, throwing rocks and dust in every direction as the road curves and winds through the hills.  Mining company pickups carrying crew also travel at relatively high speed, forcing us to frequently pull over to get out of their way.  Despite this, the landscape away from the mines remains beautiful.  

To be continued...

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