SOUTH OF SAGLEK: A NUNATSIAVUT ADVENTURE

Photo Credit: Des Sullivan

There is a belief, perhaps commonly held, that Labrador, especially its northern domain, is “the Land God Gave to Cain”.  It is an ascription which Jacques Cartier gave the entire north shore of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Ostensibly, he was alluding to Genesis 4:11–16 which tells us that, as punishment for having killed his brother Abel, Cain is condemned to survive a barren land.

Cartier may have known scripture, but it seems he gave little assessment to the place he perceived only as bleak and desolate. He may have been right about Cain’s reward all the same. It just seems that he had such a limited expectation of a deity he might have thought a merciful God.  

Just possibly, the allusion to “barren” elicits an excess of subjectivity anyway. Indeed, who would argue that destiny’s plan for the biblical Cain might have been not just to survive but to thrive. 

Could there be a better place to embolden and to renew the human spirit than this arctic oasis?

Did the land not testify to an ancient and gifted human occupation — where two great contemporary aboriginal cultures, the Innu and the Inuit — have endured?

A REEL LABRADOR TALE

An osprey vacated Park Lake, the distinct angle of flight confirming its’ signature.  A pair of bald eagles returned to take possession of their domain. A party of loons, moved a safe distance but proceeded to dive for prey displaying, as they always do, their characteristic grace and determination.  

The sky was slightly overcast; the Lake flowed inexorably where it joined the Eagle River before spilling into the Atlantic, touching Cartwright, at the finish. A series of rapids whose names marked their relationship to the Lake: Muskrat, The Honey Hole and Eagle, each confirmed a legacy of challenge understood and enlarged by successive, but not always successful, salmon fishermen; latterly fisherwomen, too.    

Slowly, the fishing guide headed the nearly flat bottomed Gander River Boat cautiously in a north easterly direction, ever mindful that the slowly flowing landscape also comprised an array of boulder reefs and shoals.  They presented a continuing challenge, if not a threat to the output of the engine’s 8 HP. The guide’s name was Ron.