Highway map of Labrador Peninsula with cities

Labrador road map       

Along with the northern peninsula of Newfoundland, Labrador is  a must for history buffs. A world of towering mountains, massive rock  faces, huge lakes and rivers carved by eons of glacial action and  internal upheaval, Labrador has traces of the oldest civilizations in  Canada, from the Maritime Archaic Indians and Dorset Inuit, who tamed  Labrador's harsh wilderness as the glaciers receded, to the Norse, who  crossed the Atlantic to the New World 500 years before Cabot and  Columbus.              

Today, both Natives and settlers along Labrador's coast pursue  lifestyles determined by climate and ecology. Coastal boats call at  more than 40 communities during the summer shipping season, taking  passengers to otherwise inaccessible coastal regions.       

Churchill Falls [B3]       

Located where the Churchill River drops 300 m in a 32 km  stretch, Churchill Falls is built around one of the world's largest  hydroelectric generating stations. You can arrange to tour the facility,  much of which is located in an enormous man-made cavern.       

Forteau [D8] Famous for its August Bakeapple Festival, three  days of music, dance, food, and crafts, Forteau is also the site of the  Point Amour Lighthouse, at 33 m the second tallest in Canada. The  lighthouse began shining in 1858, guiding ships through the Strait of  Belle Isle, burning whale oil to power the light. Still in use, it is  now a maritime history interpretation center. S)Nearby L'Anse-Amour is  the site of a stone-covered Maritime Archaic Indian burial mound dating  back some 7,500 years.       

Happy Valley-Goose Bay [B6] Goose Bay grew up around an air  base built during Word War II, a staging point for planes on their way  to Europe. Today it is a training center for NATO pilots and the main  service town for central and northern Labrador. While remote, the  Northern Lights Military Museum and Labrador Heritage Museum offer  insight into the towns' military and fur-trapping past.       

Labrador City [C2] The Height of Land Heritage Centre reveals  the important role mining has played in the history of Labrador City,  home to the largest open-pit iron ore mine in the world. The mine and  its colossal works can be toured. There is skiing at the nearby  Wapusakatto Mountains, but many come for the spectacular northern lights.       

L'Anse aux meadows National Historic Site, Newfoundland [D8]   The only authentic Viking settlement in North America is now a UNESCO  World Heritage Site commemorating the first European settlers who  journeyed here more than a millennium ago. The entire sod hut village  Leif Eriksson and his Viking crew built in a.d. 1000 has been carefully  reconstructed down to the original iron rivets.       

Port au Choix, Newfoundland [E8]       

A national historic site unearths and preserves 4,000-year-old  burial sites of the "Red Paint People" (the Maritime Archaic Indians,  who lined their graves with red ochre), and the Dorset Inuit,  specialists in uniquely tiny tools.       

Red Bay [D8] In the early 1500s, Basque whalers rendered whale  oil for Europe in what was North America's first major industrial  complex. Parks Canada operates an interpretive center detailing the work  of archaeologists and their excavations of the old Basque settlement.  Winter enthusiasts will want to try the snowmobile trail from Red Bay to  Cartwright. Red Bay is the end of the road in Labrador; during the  summer, the only way to travel farther north is by coastal boat.       

St. Anthony, Newfoundland [D8]       

Grenfell House and Interpretation Centre tells the inspiring  story of Sir Wilfrid Grenfell, a medical missionary who devoted his  life's work to northern Newfoundland and Labrador. Catch the coast boats  for a 12-day cruise to Nain, tracing the legacy of Grenfell's work.       

LOCAL LORE       

Lighting the Way to Heaven       

The greatest natural light show on earth, the aurora borealis,  or northern lights, fill Labrador's night sky with undulating,  iridescent curtains of light an average of 243 nights per year. The  shimmering light is due to charged particles from the sun trapped in the  earth's magnetic field, yet many Native legends have a much more poetic  explanation. One Inuit belief held that the lights were sky people  playing ball. The Ojibway believed the shimmering lights to be torches  held by their dead elders, lighting the way along the path of souls for  those on their way to their final resting place. A similar Inuit belief  has the sky as a great hard dome arched over the earth, with a hole  through which the spirits pass to the true heavens. Only spirits of  those who have died a voluntary or violent death have been over this  pathway. The spirits who live there light torches to guide the feet of  new arrivals, thus creating the magical lights of the aurora.