Inside Labrador Fall 2021

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Haunted Tales of Point Amour Lighthouse

How things have changed

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Published by Downhome Inc. 43 James Lane, St. John’s, NL, A1E 3H3 1-888-588-6353 • www.insidelabrador.ca

Editor-in-chief Janice Stuckless

Marketing Director Tiffany Boone

Assistant Editor Nicola Ryan

Publisher and CEO Grant Young

Art Director Vince Marsh

President and Associate Publisher Todd Goodyear

Distribution and Subscription Representative Marlena Grant

General Manager and Assistant Publisher Tina Bromley

Advertising Sales Account Manager Barbara Young

To subscribe, renew or change address use the contact information above.

Canada Post Canadian Publications Mail Sales Product Agreement #40062919 The advertiser agrees that the publisher shall not be liable for damages arising out of errors in advertisements beyond the amount paid for the space actually occupied by the portion of the advertisement in which the error occurred, whether such error is due to the negligence of the servants or otherwise, and there shall be no liability beyond the amount of such advertisement. Pen names and anonymous letters will not be published. The publisher reserves the right to edit, revise, classify, or reject any advertisement or letter. © 2021 Downhome Inc. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without permission of the publisher.

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62 table of contents 6 Editor’s Note 8 Adapting to Change New tech keeping communities safe

16 Labrador Life 18 Fishing on the Labrador

50 Haunting Tales of Point Amour Lighthouse 54 Set in Labrador A recommended reading list

56 Good Things Growing Gaining ground in food security

How things have changed in Makkovik

24 Residential School Reflections A new memoir sheds light

62 Mighty Churchill Falls 64 Photo Finish

30 Space Gun For Hire Space tourism in Cartwright

36 The LORAN Sceret A secret WWII base on the Labrador Coast

44 Wild Times in the Big Land 46 Labrador Large & Wild

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A summer on the Ossokmanuan Cover Image: Holly Andersen

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Fall has come around again, and winter’s on the horizon.

In parts of Labrador, the ground has already turned from golden brown to frosty white. The season’s harvest is bottled, dried, smoked or frozen, ready to be enjoyed over the winter months. The snow and ice will transform the landscape and create new paths to follow as winter pursuits begin.

When the day’s work is done, I hope you find time to settle in for some good reading by the fire. This issue takes a look at issues facing the region, such as climate change and food security, and how leading-edge technologies are being tested as solutions. And still with science, we find out what’s happening with the Space Cannon project in Cartwright. We’re also honoured to have an interview with Inuk Elder Dr. Nellie Winters about her memoir, Reflections from Them Days. Plus we have a fishery story from Makkovik, ghost stories from Point Amour and throwbacks to mining and the military.

It’s the Big Land, impossible to cover in one issue. What would you like to see in the next edition of Inside Labrador?

If you have a story from Labrador, I want to hear from you.

Thanks for reading, Janice Stuckless Editor-in-chief janice@downhomelife.com

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Everyone has a tale to tell.

And we want to see your stories about Labrador. Maybe it’s a recollection of the way things used to be, or a historical piece, or a story about somebody doing great things in your community.

Maybe it’s a travel story about a trip somewhere in the Big Land. Whatever your story, in verse or in prose, our readers would love to see it and so would we.

If you’re better with a camera than a keyboard, you’re in luck, too - we’re also looking for photos of Labrador. From snapshots while berry picking to compositional studies of the landscape and everything in between, we love looking at your images.

Published submissions will receive $20 in Downhome certificates to spend in our stores and online at www.shopdownhome.com.

Send your photos and stories to editorial@downhomelife.com or upload them to our website at downhomelife.com/submit.

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Using innovative technology and traditional knowledge, SmartICE is helping Northern communities stay safe and adapt to a changing climate.

BY LINDA BROWNE

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Sea ice has long played a critically

important role in the lives of those residing in Canada’s northern regions – from connecting communities to providing a passageway to traditional harvesting grounds, cabins and seasonal camps. It is inextricably linked with the livelihoods, culture and heritage of a people whose hearts beat in tune with nature.

While sea ice is dynamic – its quality and characteristics vary across the seasons and years – its patterns have been predictable over time, with this crucial information being handed down through the generations. However, like so many other things, climate change has thrown nature’s delicate balance off kilter, meaning this traditional knowledge isn’t as reliable as sea ice becomes less predictable.

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This is something that Rex Holwell of Nain knows all too well.

“When I was a young person, I can remember we were out in the harbour on a snowmobile sometimes as early as the end of November... Last year was the latest that I really felt safe to travel on the sea ice, and it wasn’t until close to the end of January that people, with way more experience than I did, felt that it was safe enough... We’re seeing that the ice isn’t freezing as early as it used to. If it does, then we get the wind storms up from the south that would just blow the ice away, then we have to wait for it to cool down and refreeze again,” he says.

“Conversely in the spring, when it warms up, people are even more unsure, because they know the ice season isn’t as long as it was, it didn’t have a chance to really thicken up safely… the ability to travel on the sea ice to our traditional hunting and fishing grounds, people aren’t doing it... people aren’t travelling over the sea ice to get their wood to offset the high cost of stove oil here in Nain. So it’s affecting everything,” he adds.

“Food insecurity is a huge thing already. So not being able to go to the fishing grounds to get your char or to get partridges or seals, that just adds to the cost of living in [the] North.”

According to the 2019 report “Canada’s Changing Climate,” led by Environment and Climate Change Canada, temperatures across the Arctic have warmed at about twice the rate of the rest of the planet, with Canadian areas of the Arctic and Atlantic oceans experiencing “longer and more widespread sea ice-free conditions.” The report also states, “Between 1968 and 2016, sea ice area, 10

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Rex Holwell can see how the ice has changed in Labrador over the years, arriving later and leaving earlier.

Hamlin Lampe photo

averaged over the summer period, has decreased significantly in almost every region of the Canadian Arctic, by up to 20 per cent per decade in some regions, e.g., the Hudson Strait and Labrador Sea.” There’s no doubt that the landscape is changing swiftly – and with dire consequences. In 2010, those living in Canada’s North experienced an unseasonably warm winter, with rain falling for most of February in Nunatsiavut (where -20°C temperatures are the norm around that time of year). This led the Nunatsiavut Government to survey the community, which revealed that one in 12 people had fallen through ice, twothirds feared travel on the ice, and half said they couldn’t use their traditional hunting routes.

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Rex Holwell and a SmartICE youth graduate deploy a SmartBUOY in Nain this past winter (2021). Hamlin Lampe photos

North. But by pairing traditional knowledge with technology, and relying on good old-fashioned resilience, people are rising to the challenge.

A Smart Solution Since it was founded in 2016, SmartICE has been making a splash, and for good reason. Developed by Dr. Trevor Bell, a geography professor at Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador, and a team of sea-ice specialists, in consultation with the Nunatsiavut Government, SmartICE is an innovative social enterprise and

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Supplementing the SmartBUOY is the SmartKAMUTIK, a sensor on a sled that is pulled along over sea ice to gather information in real time. Rex Holwell photo

climate change adaptation tool that works in partnership with Indigenous communities, who are feeling the effects of climate change the most.

Working in tandem with traditional Inuit knowledge, SmartICE uses a variety of sensors to monitor and report sea ice conditions to help keep residents safe.

One of these monitors is the SmartBUOY, which is “essentially a ninefoot-long thermometer” explains Holwell, who is the Nunatsiavut operations lead for SmartICE and oversees the Northern Production Centre in Nain. These stationary devices are placed in the ice and transmit important data such as temperature, ice thickness and snow depth. They are made by Inuit youth in Nain and distributed to wherever they’re needed in northern Canada. In addition to providing them with valuable work experience, SmartICE also helps empower local youth by giving them skills (everything from resume/cover letter writing and interview skills, to First Aid and hazard recognition) that they can apply elsewhere.

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Supplementing the SmartBUOY is the SmartKAMUTIK, a mobile sensor that’s placed atop a kamutik (ice sled) and towed behind a snowmobile.

“As we’re travelling along, the SmartKAMUTIK sensor will tell the operator, [who] will have a seven-inch tablet on the handlebars of their snowmobile, in real time how thick the ice is. And you can go for a half an hour ride with it, or you can go the whole day, covering 300-400 kms in a day,” Holwell explains.

Once the SmartBUOY and SmartKAMUTIK devices come back to the office, the data gets uploaded to SIKU (an online platform and mobile app created by and for Inuit that provides tools for ice safety, weather and language preservation), where people can get an idea of the hazards on the ice.

It’s tools like these, says Dr. Lynn Moorman, that are key to “enabling resilience to climate change.” And now, a new project from SmartICE is providing another lens on the ice while helping tell the story of changing conditions in the North.

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Dr. Lynn Moorman (centre) and participants in the Sikumik Qaujimajjuti project practise ground-truthing radar imagery by comparing images to ice features and conditions. Taken on the sea ice north of Pond Inlet, Nunavut. SmartICE photo

Charting a Safe Course Moorman is the lead of the Sikumik Qaujimajjuti project, which roughly translates to “tool to know how the ice is.” It’s another vital item in the SmartICE toolkit that combines SmartBUOY and SmartKAMUTIK data with radar satellite imagery to create ice travel safety maps through-

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out the seasons, from freeze-up to break-up, that are printed and posted throughout northern communities and shared online.

“We want to get that information out to everybody, as best as we can,” Holwell says.

Ice maps have been created before, Moorman adds, but with shipping

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Dr. Lynn Moorman photo

Participants learn interpretation strategies for radar imagery through hands-on exercises.

rather than travel in mind. “The focus is different because you’re looking for where the ice is thinnest [in shipping]… We’re the exact opposite. We want to find that thick, stable ice [that’s] easy to travel on. So that’s why there was a real need for this project.”

These maps and technologies complement traditional knowledge, rather than trying to replace it – something paramount to the success of SmartICE. “We’ve heard a lot of youth wanting to know more from the elders about the terrain and the ice conditions and the ice behaviour, and this is another means of actually translating some of that information as well,” Moorman says.

The Sikumik Qaujimajjuti project is piloting in Nain, as well as Pond Inlet and Gjoa Haven in Nunavut, with plans to expand to SmartICE serviced communities across Inuit Nunangat.

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Fund (a charity in the US that supports women, youth and Indigenous peoples in creating and sharing their own climate resilience solutions) is kicking in US$500,000 over three years to help develop the project.

Currently, the project is in the curriculum development stage, with Holwell and several others participating in mapmaking workshops and developing highly specialized skills. More operators will be coming on board to take the training in subsequent phases. Eventually, these skills will be passed along to Inuit youth, who will produce the ice travel safety maps for their communities. In addition to learning about ice characteristics, behaviour and dynamics, the project also incorporates local language and terminology, which is crucial as the names of different ice features vary across regions. What’s called a “rattle” (an area of open water surrounded by ice) in Nain, for instance, is called a FALL 2021

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polynya in another area. “(There’s) no point in using, you know, my terms or a term from Pond Inlet in Nain; it doesn’t make sense. So that’s a really important piece and that really speaks to why we need people in the communities to do the mapping... you have a different eye when it’s your own place, and you have knowledge that you bring to the interpretation,” Moorman says.

Regardless of their location, one thing that all SmartICE trainers, operators and participants have in common is an enormous sense of pride in their work. The project has been enlightening for participants in other ways as well, giving them the chance to learn from each other and see

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things with a different perspective.

And when it comes to building resilience against climate change, the only way forward is together.

“I’ve learned our ice conditions here in Nain are a lot different than up in Andrew’s community of Pond Inlet [Andrew Arreak, regional operations lead for SmartICE in Pond Inlet]. So for me, that was eye-opening itself... learning about the other ways, in other communities, how their land is so different than ours, but yet there are so many similarities,” Holwell says.

“But at the end of it, we’re doing this to help keep the people in our communities safe. And that’s what really draws us together.”

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Labrador Life

Boys’ Wonder

Twins Kaiden and Karter share the berries they’ve picked.

DAVID BUDGELL Happy Valley-Goose Bay, NL

Living Her Best Life

Lyla Elliott, 7, loves to be outside, boating, fishing and going on new adventures.

KAYLA DECKER Labrador West, NL

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Bakeapples A-Plenty

“My seven-year-old son Simon had a great time picking bakeapples back home in Labrador!”

AMY DROVER Spaniard’s Bay, NL

End of a Good Day

Cliff Russell splits fish on the deck of his longliner, Northern Swan. He returns to his resettled hometown of William’s Harbour every year to make a living fishing for crab, whelk, scallops and cod.

MALLORY HARRIGAN William’s Harbour, NL

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How things have changed, according to a prominent Makkovik resident.

BY KIM PLOUGHMAN

Holly Andersen photo

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Imagine a fish plant

in Newfoundland and Labrador never having known the cultural and economic blessings of processing the iconic cod fish. That’s the case for at least one plant in Labrador.

According to Makkovik AngajukKâk (mayor) Barry Andersen, the fish facility in his town opened in 1990, yet, “to this day, that plant has never seen a cod.” It is a dire notable for a town that, prior to the 1960s, had the richest fishing grounds in the province, and fishing “down on the Labrador” was once a lucrative and cultural affair.

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Makkovik AngajukKâk, Barry Andersen (right), remembers a time when the fishery was more vibrant and fishermen would still use smaller boats, not just the longliners dominating the fishery today.

Holly Andersen photo

Born in Makkovik, a combination of Inuit and settler traditions, Andersen has lived in this community of less than 400 all his life. In his youth, he worked at the fish plant. After high school, Andersen was hired by the province to coordinate the construction of fishing stages around the Labrador coast for salting cod fish.

However, Andersen says, once the stages were built, the fishery went on a steep decline: “The fish catches were already very low,” he says.

Offshore visitors may have been the likely culprit. During the late ’70s and early ’80s, there were ice-strengthened trawlers from three different countries just off the Labrador shores buying over-the-side (unprocessed) fish

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from locals and from fishers from the west coast of Newfoundland and the Northern Peninsula. “In November and December, it was like a Christmas tree lit up out on the horizon. The Japanese were taking 320,000 pounds of cod a day,” Andersen says.

One fond memory he has from this time is of Sundays when the Japanese and Portuguese fishers came ashore to observe the holy day and engage the locals in some sports. “We had an international softball tournament on the go for years,” he says, adding that it was “just for fun… we made our own entertainment, as there was no movie theatre.”

This international connection and the fishing went on for nearly a

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Barry Andersen photo

These days the fish plant in Makkovik mainly processes snow crab.

decade. Andersen also recalls counting more than 100 longliners from around the province supplying the foreign factory freezer trawlers. “In summertime, the population of Makkovik would almost double and the old fish plant, which employed 115 people, would process millions of pounds of fish.”

Labrador’s Early Moratorium For most of the province, the moratorium slammed down on the fishery in 1992. Labrador, however, felt the storm a few years earlier. “Back in the 1980s, we saw the cod fail north of here at Cut Throat, then Nain, then around here and onward south, to 1992 on the island, and we know the story from there,” Andersen explains.

“By 1989, all the longliners had left… it happened pretty quickly.”

The last codfish, he says, was caught in 1989 by Captain Wilfred Bartlett, who had fished on the Labrador

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for a decade.

Andersen comments, “The fishermen’s committees saw it coming down… it fell on deaf ears; but lo and behold, the prediction came true.”

By the time of the federally mandated 1992 cod moratorium, fishermen in the Makkovik area were initially denied access to moratorium compensation like TAGS, simply because they couldn’t produce any landings in the years leading up to the ban.

Scarcity and Protection Thirty-two years after the cod fishery ended in Labrador, according to Andersen, “time has not improved the fishery much... It used to be a major employer.”

Cod are still scarce, the char stock is “a shadow of its former self,” and the commercial salmon fishery is no more.

Andersen, a former fisheries guardian with the Labrador Inuit Association (now Nunatsiavut Government) and

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former community constable and Canadian Ranger, says he still sees foreign boats fishing offshore from Makkovik. When asked if it’s legal, he responds, “Must be allowed… the surveillance aircrafts are out and about.”

These days, snow crab keeps the plant chugging along and its 25 workers employed. “If it wouldn’t for the

years or so, we never see any numbers of harps here. One or two here and there.” He recollects throwing moss on the old harps’ backs when they came in on the beach at the capelin.

“The bay would be full of harps and bedlamers right up to head of Makkovik Bay at the Goose Grass – huge schools of them all over the

Holly Andersen photo

crab, we’d be in dire straits,” he says.

By July, harvesters had landed 240,000 pounds this year. In comparison, in the 2002 season, 1.6 million pounds were processed. Andersen says, “If we are not careful, it will be in the same boat as the cod down the road.”

Turbot is going the same way as the cod, he says. “There is a competitive fishery, but Torngat Fishery is getting very little of the fish for processing. It is caught off our shores and processed south on the island.”

Andersen notes, as well, that seals are notably absent. “In the last 20

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bay… thousands. We would net them for sale and making boots.”

Capelin stocks are also at the top of Andersen’s list of priority issues that need to be addressed. “When I was a child, the capelin would come ashore like clockwork last week of June, regardless if ice was in the bay. And then in mid-July the ‘outside capelin,’ as we called them, would come in.

Cod trap time up here.”

A couple of frying pans full of capelin were garnered this past summer from Postville, he says. “A small bit came ashore at Sandy Point just

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west of the community… talk of the two communities, if you can believe that.” He’s convinced that “until we get the capelin back, the cod will not come ashore.”

Another factor affecting the cod, he stresses, is its breeding grounds at Hamilton Banks. “There’s fishing taking place year-round, rather than

As our conversation winds down, Andersen reflects nostalgically on the time when he was 13 and launched his father’s new 12-foot fibreglass boat out on the water with his cousin. “Just off from Father’s house, we caught 300 pounds that day, gutted them and sold to the fish plant.”

By comparison, earlier this summer,

When asked if he ever gives up on the fishery, which he describes as a “pretty bleak situation,” Andersen is quick to respond. “We always have hope and optimism, hoping that things will change.” seasons,” he explains, emphasizing, “There’s no chance for the fish to reproduce. The bottom is dragged over, causing habitat issues… There is a season for moose and caribou, but for fish, it’s fair game year-round. Have to have a nursery, somewhere safe, where the fish are not clobbered.”

When asked about advocacy efforts to address these fishery issues, Andersen says, “Brought up since time immortal… We have been crying adjacency for years and keeping other issues at the forefront… but we are far out of sight, hard to get attention.”

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some folks along the shore caught three codfish, he says. “It was breaking news all around the coast.”

When asked if he ever gives up on the fishery, which he describes as a “pretty bleak situation,” Andersen is quick to respond. “We always have hope and optimism, hoping that things will change.”

Makkovik, he remarks, is stuck out to sea with a view to the horizon – a perfect fishing community. “We were built for the cod… but not one codfish for the plant… If we let it go by the wayside, it will go by the wayside.”

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New memoir sheds light on the experiences of Inuit residential school survivors in Labrador

BY JENN THORNHILL VERMA

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An evocative seascape welcomes readers to the

memoir, Reflections from Them Days: A Residential School Memoir from Nunatsiavut, by Nellie Winters of Makkovik. The cover features the fishing community of Cut Throat, an island off an island off northern Labrador. There, Inuk Elder Nellie Winters (or “Aunt Nellie,” as she’s lovingly referred to by family and friends), spent her childhood summers fishing and foraging with family.

The cover is particularly compelling in its depiction of a seascape, drawn from the perspective of someone approaching the land by boat. The illustration, also by Winters, has a childlike quality: while it’s precise in detail, it’s whimsical in execution – sketched, then filled in with colouring pencils. The harbour of Winters’ illustrated Cut Throat is dotted with dories and fishing stages that she has labelled in her own cursive writing: a 26

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“fish stage” here, a “salt house” there.

Salt was especially important in those days. Salt-curing and drying allowed the fish to be preserved for lengthy periods of storage, feeding families through the fall and winter months.

Fall is when many Inuit and Innu children in Newfoundland and Labrador – and Indigenous children all across Canada – returned to residential schools. These government- and church-sponsored schools intended to FALL 2021

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assimilate Indigenous children into Euro-Canadian and Christian society.

Separated from their families, communities and culture, children were often taken by force to these boarding schools, which were the site of countless human rights abuses. In 2021, the horror and severity of these abuses resurfaced as Indigenous communities reported finding mass unmarked graves of children – former students who’d vanished while attending residential schools.

In Reflections from Them Days, published in 2020 in English and Inuktitut

by Inhabit Education, Nellie Winters recounts her own experience attending Nain Boarding School. The Moravian Mission and the International Grenfell Association ran this and other boarding schools in Labrador (in North West River, Cartwright, Makkovik and Nain) and northern Newfoundland (in St. Anthony). Between 1949 and 1951, when Winters was between the ages of 11 and 13, she left her community and family in Okak Bay, on the north coast of Labrador (now the self-governing Inuit region of Nunatsiavut), and travelled 400 km south to Nain for school.

Winters has a heartbreakingly accurate way of conveying the devastating consequences of that period from a child’s perspective. For example, she writes

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Winters writes about her childhood, including time spent at residential school.

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about the boat ride from Okak Bay to Nain and how the captain quieted the children (some as young as seven) by promising to throw anyone crying overboard. “I suppose he only said it to quiet them down,” Winters recounts, adding, “You should have heard them sobbing and trying not to cry.”

Of her time at boarding school, Elder Winters says, “When you get to school in Nain it was strange, you know. You had to start over.”

references attending church twice on Sundays, and says it was after her time that students were required to speak English and no longer permitted to speak Inuktitut.

Especially endearing are playful entries referencing how children made their own entertainment; for example, using seal skins for wintertime sledding: “Sliding on the sealskins made them pretty. When you’re sliding it makes the fur right nice.

“It takes a while for things to come back in my head,” reads the book’s dedication, “but it’s good memories when I got to talk about it.”

The book delves into 11 stories, offering memories of growing up in Okak Bay alongside stories at boarding school, so the reader need not guess how different life could be for a child navigating between their home and residential school. In chapters titled, “The Boarding School” and “Strict Rules,” Winters references the discipline common in residential schooling: “A lot of children spent half their time in the corners with their hands behind their back. You wouldn’t have to do too much bad anyway for you to get put in the corner;” and “if some people do something wrong, they walk down to the Mission House and get the cat o’ nine tails, or something.” Elder Winters

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Turn them around and you stop short, eh. That’s your brakes, the fur.”

Winters also recalls knitting and embroidering the popular inukuluk designs of Inuit figures.

In her bio, which closes the memoir, we learn Winters became a prolific artist, experienced in multiple artistic mediums, mostly passed on through her Inuit upbringing and much of it self-taught. Elder Winters, a mother to 11 children and grandmother to 57 grandchildren, has become one of the most influential artists in Nunatsiavut.

Her artistry is one of the reasons Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador conferred an honorary doctorate upon Inuit Elder

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Nellie May Winters in January of this year (the event also recognized Inuit Elder Jean Crane). Recognized as a prolific artist, author and educator, Winters received the degree of doctor of laws, honoris causa, at the special convocation – the first-ever to be conducted by the university in Labrador.

Back to her memoir, Dr. Winters uses language that’s true to her speaking voice, which was transcribed and edited by Erica Oberndorfer, a botanist who came to know “Aunt Nellie” during frequent trips to Makkovik. That’s where Winters, now 83, has spent most of her life after her family was forcibly relocated in 1956, during a time when the provincial government shuttered a number of remote communities.

(Resettlement remains a contentious topic in Newfoundland and Labrador.) In terms that are truly hers, Winters’ phrases sometimes trail off, as would happen in recounting early childhood memories.

“It takes a while for things to come back in my head,” reads the book’s dedication, “but it’s good memories when I got to talk about it.” Winters’ memories are complemented with a brief glossary of Inuktitut terms in the footnotes. Pipsis, we learn, is “dried trout or char.” Kamutik is “a sled for travelling or hauling wood, pulled by dog or snowmobile.” And Kellup is

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seaweed, used to line the garden to help the vegetables grow. The text of the memoir is also punctuated with Winters’ black-and-white sketches of landscapes and people, often appearing with cursive writing demarcating relevant landmarks, such as the girls’

Inuk Elder Dr. Nellie May Winters

schoolhouse or sleeping quarters at boarding school.

Reflections from Them Days is a keepsake of a book, intended for all ages. The book can, at once, help readers understand the history and impacts of residential schools in Newfoundland and Labrador, while also gaining an appreciation for the resolve of survivors like Dr. Nellie May Winters, who have carefully and thoughtfully preserved their Inuit culture and communities for the benefit of generations to come.

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A company’s plans to lure space-minded tourists to Cartwright

BY CONNIE BOLAND

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THE ROAD TO CARTWRIGHT

is not unlike the road to establishing a business in any town. The journey takes time and patience. For those who are willing to invest the energy, the rewards are worth the effort.

“I would love to be in Cartwright right now,” says Richard Graf, CEO of Starfire Scientific Inc., during a recent telephone interview from Ontario. “It’s absolutely breathtaking there and people have been very supportive of what we are trying to accomplish. It’s the ideal site for this kind of work.”

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Starfire Scientific provides an inexpensive way for people to launch objects into space. Tired of your partner’s threadbare high school jacket?

Sick of that orange bowl that was a wedding gift from an aunt twice removed? Last year’s pandemic pyjamas need to go? From scientific satellites to a loved one’s ashes, a favourite action figure, video games, art supplies, and everything in between – if it’s not alive, if it fits into the two-inch by 24-inch payload section and weighs less than four-and-a-half pounds, an object can be fodder for Starfire Scientific’s space gun. So far, Graf has been contacted by artists and adventurers, as well as people interested in space travel, about the uses for his space gun.

The former master corporal and non-commissioned officer in charge of a weapons maintenance platoon with the Canadian military has been working on this project since 1990.

Graf is inspired by the late Gerald Bull, the former Canadian engineer who developed long-range artillery and was involved in the High Altitude Research Project. HARP pioneered the use of cannons to explore earth’s upper atmosphere and to try to

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launch satellites. The design of the Starfire Space Cannon is based on cannons used by HARP in the 1960s, which launched about 300 flights identical to the launch that occurred in Labrador in 2018.

“Safety is our primary concern. We work with provincial and federal governments to ensure our launches are conducted in accordance with the highest standards,” Graf says.

The Cartwright Suborbital Flight Range was registered for environmental assessment in March 2017. Restrictions specific to Labrador, including caribou calving in the early summer, and weather conditions in the late fall and during winter months were considered. The Government of Newfoundland and Labrador released the project in September 2017. The staging area for the launch is located 8.5 kilometres south of Cartwright.

The company transported its portable space cannon to Labrador for initial testing in August 2018, ready to shoot an almost 14-metre canon straight up into the sky. On the video of the event, posted online at StarfireScientific.com, you can almost feel the excitement as the countdown begins, and sense the whoops of joy as the

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Starfire Scientific’s space gun is portable. Here it is with Richard Graf on the road near Cartwright.

cannon fires and an object is launched.

As part of Phase 1, the researchers used plywood boxes full of sand.

Graf calls the test a success, but says his first foray to Cartwright was just as exciting. “It was an incredible journey.

When you drive into Cartwright and see the land spread out in front of you, it’s majestic.”

The launch in 2018 was the culmination of years of research and development. It combined aspects of three previous gun launch systems. Following its success, Graf and fellow adventurer Bob Kingsmill began working

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on Phase 2. Graf sees scientific and academic potential for his business, with Starfire Scientific developing a satellite launching vehicle for the space cannon to place small satellites into orbit.

There is also commercial and promotional appeal. Graf envisions companies reaping the rewards of positive and expansive marketing and public relations from launching things into space.

There have been no launches with the big gun since 2018. Graf is conducting development test shots with a

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Richard Graf mans the trigger (right) as the Space Cannon fires its payload into the sky (above)

smaller gun on a regular basis.

“We are currently working through a few issues, but we are absolutely committed to operating in Cartwright,” the entrepreneur says. “I am very much looking forward to getting back up there.”

He believes Starfire Scientific will bring more tourists to Labrador and specifically Cartwright. He hopes to work with other businesses in the town. Graf believes customers worldwide will be attracted to Starfire Scientific, and he expects significant interest in the operation as a major tourist attraction.

“Starfire will be good for the local economy,” Graf says. “It will attract

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people who want to experience the excitement of a launch, as well as those who want to send an object into space. People will also want to see our flights in action.” He plans to build a viewing area once commercial flights begin and hire local residents to work at the site.

As of July 2021, the businessman continues to work with Transport Canada to overcome airspace restrictions. “Our plan to operate in Cartwright hasn’t changed,” Graf says.

“We received no negative comments from residents. In fact, it was just the opposite. In spite of the delays, we will operate our business in that town. We are not giving up.”

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Large as Life This large black bear was spotted in June 2020 near Churchill Falls.

TIMOTHY COLLINS Labrador City, NL

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s built a American e th II W mote During W tion in a re ta s n o ti a ig coast. secret nav Labrador e th f o a are IS FLYNN

BY DENN

Top photo courtesy of the Eva Luther collection

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Dennis Flynn photo

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Wandering Great Caribou Island,

across the narrow tickle from Battle Harbour, Labrador, I pass remnants of the everyday life that once livened this spartan landscape. A child’s desk emerges from turf near the remains of a schoolhouse. Plants reach skyward through the rusted-out bottom of an ivory-enamel wash pan. A fisherman’s rubber boot adorned with lichens and moss rests near gravestones whose inscriptions are shielded by shrubs.

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Dennis Flynn photo

The land is a confluence of cultures and stories. The name Battle Harbour is a matter of conjecture, with writer W.G. Gosling pointing to 1560-era Portuguese maps with the word Batal meaning “boat.” Then there’s the legend of a final battle here between the Montagnais Indians and the French c.

1760. By reputation, Battle Harbour was the social and economic capital of Labrador in its heyday during the salt fish era, until most residents were resettled c. 1966 to nearby Mary’s Harbour (about an hour away by boat). Today the island is a remarkable National Historic Site of Canada, due in large part to the dedicated work of the Battle Harbour Trust in preserving the site and sharing the stories of this living museum with unique tours, accommodations and visitor experiences available in season.

My reverie on this September 2009 trip is interrupted when a pleasant older gentleman hiking with his wife spots me belly to the ground, fully stretched out, photographing a cairn

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of stones. He says with a smile and Southern States accent, “Son, you spend any time in the military? You look like a sharpshooter. You’d be right at home with the Americans in 1942 and 1943, when soldiers put up a top secret LORAN station here.”

As it turned out, that brief friendly encounter was not the last impromptu conversation I’d have about this top secret military installation that proved critical to the Allies in the Second World War. It came up again just over two years ago, during a chat with writer and historian Jean Pierre (J.P.) Andrieux at his home in St. John’s, NL. We were browsing through his remarkable collection of photographs (more than 50,000), documents and ephemera related to ships, sailors, wrecks and rescues around Newfoundland and Labrador and Saint Pierre et Miquelon.

His wife Elizabeth notes with a smile, “I also have my own connection to the sea, as my relatives are Earles of Carbonear [who were]

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Historian J.P. Andrieux (right) and his wife Elizabeth have a connection to the LORAN station in Labrador.

Elizabeth’s relatives, namely Captain Guy Earle (inset below) brought personnel and supplies to the construction site on board his vessel, the Thomas S. Gorton (below).

heavily involved with fishing, sealing, and the salt fish premises at Battle Harbour. The late Captain Guy Earle, in particular, had a remarkable early life and many adventures,” she says.

“When Guy was about 25, he travelled to Battle Harbour in the winter of 1942-43 during WWII on his wooden schooner, Thomas S. Gorton, on a topsecret mission to bring American military men and supplies to finish a LORAN base up there.”

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Elizabeth then provided me with a printed copy of Voyage Down to the Labrador, by American serviceman William A. Ogletree. It is a fascinating, entertaining and, at times, humorous glimpse into this little-known aspect of Battle Harbour history. Arguably the funniest incident Ogletree shares occurred in Guy Earle’s hometown of Carbonear, while waiting out a winter storm. At the time, the acronym LORAN (Long Range Aid to

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Panoramic photo of the White Point LORAN station circa 1960. Courtesy Eva Luther collection

Navigation) was a highly classified code word known to only the most trusted American military members.

The LORAN system was a chain of signal boosters installed at strategic locations to aid in plane and ship radio navigation over longer distances – such as the Atlantic Ocean, where traffic was in peril from the enemy.

Ogletree notes, “Most of my men went to either the Catholic or Anglican church of choice that Sunday.

Outside the Anglican church some men approached us. One of them asked, ‘Ye be the men what’s bound for LORAN Point?’ We were astonished! We never heard the acronym LORAN until we were leaving the MIT Radiation Lab. An instructor had each man come up and he whispered the word ‘LORAN’ into his ear; a top secret word itself should not be spoken except to men with proper clearances. He wrote on the blackboard, then erased, ‘long range aid to navigation,’ and mentally we made the connection.

“Now, here was a [local], talking about LORAN Point. I asked him, ‘What can you tell us about LORAN Point?’ He took a stick and drew a 40

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map on the surface of the snow, showing us where two buildings had been constructed and where three antenna poles stood. He said the proper name was False Harbour Point, but that during the previous summer [1942], the McNamara Construction Co. had renamed it LORAN Point.”

So much for keeping secrets from observant fishermen! The Carbonear men probably had no idea what a LORAN did or if was fit to eat, but they knew exactly where it was and how to get there. After all, it was also the site of a summer fishing village named White Point.

Ogletree’s WWII voyage ended safely when 13 military men and 128 tons of supplies were delivered by Guy Earle to White Point for the LORAN station on January 11, 1943. For many years that trip remained a local legend among mariners as one of the latest times in a shipping season for any wooden vessel ever heading north to the Labrador.

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The U.S. Coast Guard would supply the station during winter by parachute drops from an PBY-5A Catalina aircraft. They could also retrieve material from the ground with a hook and wire system. From the collection of Lieutenant Col.Ted Allan Morris, United States Air Force (Retired)

seasons. Since White Point was icebound and inaccessible to vessels during long winters, and there was no airstrip at Battle Harbour, the US Coast Guard Air Facility (operating from the American base at Argentia

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on the island of Newfoundland) instigated an ingenious series of parachute drops to deliver supplies. They also had an inventive system of “aerial hook pickups” from a low-flying plane to retrieve outgoing mail. An

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Nothing remains of the White Point LORAN station on Caribou Island today

Dennis Flynn photo

April 23, 1950, news release related to the specialized delivery service to the remote LORAN station stated, “During a typical month, the Air Facility dropped 160 pounds of mail and 3,100 pounds of cargo, including commissary supplies of fresh meat and vegetables.”

So what became of the LORAN station?

I connected with Lloyd Luther of St. Anthony over the phone in April

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2019. He worked at the LORAN station long after the war ended and after the Americans had handed it over to the Canadian government. He was stationed there from 1969 to 1976, first in the kitchen and, after learning the ropes, as a “scope watcher,” making sure the signals stayed in sync for accurate navigation. It was a remote place to live and work.

Curious about how he endured the legendary winter blizzards, Lloyd says it was factored into the design. “The

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station was set up in such a way that the main building and most everything else you needed while on shift was connected by a covered walkway between the structures, so for the most part, you did not have to go outside to do your job. Sometimes during the winters, with the really big storms, you might get stuck inside for a few days, but that was the worst of it.”

Lloyd is quick to add that there were lots of charms to his free time at White Point. “Now for a fellow like me, being outside didn’t bother me any time of the year. It was a great place if you were an outdoorsman because on your time off there were very few distractions. So you could hunt or set a few traps or snares, or pick berries, or just go for a hike. It was a great place to trout or to take a small boat out and jig a few cod, so I never had any problem with it at all.

I enjoyed my time there and it was very interesting work.” Lloyd left the LORAN station to attend radio school and worked as a radio operator in aviation until he retired in 2005.

He adds, “Eventually a newer version of the technology called LORAN ‘C’ was set up at a different location further away, near Fox Harbour [now known as the community of St. Lewis], and Great Caribou was no longer needed. Today there is nothing really left, as the site was dismantled and largely returned to what it originally looked like is my understanding.”

Lloyd concludes, “Anyway, for me it was a unique spot to work and I was glad to have had a chance to be there.

It was part of a very valuable network to aid navigation for ships and planes.

In its day, White Point helped make travel safer for many people who probably never even heard of it.”

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Goose Bay

www.cafconnection.ca gbmfrc@nf.sympatico.ca P.O. Box 69, Station C Goose Bay, NL A0P-1C0 (709) 896-6900 ext.6060 (709) 896-6916 (fax)

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Wild Times in the Big Land

Feathered Friend

“A grey jay came for a quick visit and snack as we stopped to stretch our legs along the Labrador Highway!”

CANDICE GAUDON Labrador City, NL

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Otterly Adorable

Curiosity got this otter long enough for the perfect shot.

ELDRED ALLEN Rigolet, NL

Nothing Unusual Here

The submitter says black bear sightings like this are fairly common in Labrador.

NORMA KNIGHT Happy Valley-Goose Bay, NL

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My summer on the Ossokmanuan River

BY VICTOR FRENCH, P. GEO.

My introduction to the wild expanse and

beauty of Labrador was late June 1980. A geological consultant I was working for had received a request from an individual in France to investigate an unusual feature detected from satellite imagery, then a relatively new technique used in the mineral exploration industry to search out mineral deposits.

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The target was a remote site in the Ossokmanuan River area of west central Labrador. On June 30, with assistant Adrian Griffiths, I departed St. John’s for Churchill Falls on an EPA 737 jet. I vividly recall landing on the asphalt airstrip. During our descent it looked like a band-aid; it was the minimum runway length permissible for landing a 737. I remember well the reverse thrusts and how the brakes went on immediately upon meeting the runway. The next few seconds were gruelling, wondering if we were going to stop before the end of the runway!

We were picked up at the airport by an outfitter from Twin Falls. From there we were flown by a singleengine Cessna float plane to our remote campsite 25 miles into the bush. We landed on a small unnamed pond, our home for the next two

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weeks. After unloading our prospector’s tent and supplies, we waved to our pilot as he left, hoping he would not forget where he’d dropped us.

One way you have to be prepared for prospecting in Labrador is to be well stocked with fly repellent (“dope”). I’d been warned of the voracious nature of the Labrador mosquitoes; hence, I was armed with many bottles of repellent. During the time we were setting up our canvas tent and the bush facilities of washstand and privy, cooking supper and trying our luck in the pond, taking us to nightfall under the Labrador skies, we did not encounter a single mosquito!

We were delighted and scoffed at the warnings we were given by our friends. How wrong they were!

Our first evening thus passed with immense comfort and revelling in the adventure of being in Labrador. The

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evening was further enhanced when Adrian unexpectedly landed a more than three-foot-long northern pike on his first cast. What a surprise when you’re used to catching small mud trout.

tape to tightly wrap the coveralls around our wrists and ankles. Together with a fly net for a head covering, this uniform was our saviour for the next two weeks, allowing us to complete our work in relative comfort.

The quietness of the evening, the lure of the Labrador wild, the sense of adventure together with the reward of catching a large fish AND no flies made for a great sleep.

The quietness of the evening, the lure of the Labrador wild, the sense of adventure together with the reward of catching a large fish AND no flies made for a great sleep. Next morning, under the dawning of a clear blue, sunny Labrador sky, we stepped out of our tent and into a rude awakening: the flies were out by the thousands.

July 1, 1980 – oh happy Canada Day. To say the flies were murderous is an understatement. The onslaught brought on many coats of the dope and maximum clothes coverings.

A friend accustomed to the Labrador flies had recommended we take coveralls with us – not your usual prospecting/geological bush wear – and, as protection, a roll of electrical

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The real challenges proved to be eating our lunch without a diet of flies and keeping the tent at a reasonable comfort level. Traditional fly coils worked and, thankfully, we had packed enough to get us through.

Our work started with staking claim to the land we were exploring by marking out the area: blazing the trees and affixing government-issued metal claim tags on which you recorded the staking information, such as time and date of staking, and the name of the person staking. Upon returning to St. John’s this information was filed with the appropriate fees at the mineral claims recorder’s office, making the claim official and giving the mineral rights to the owner. (This age-old

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method of staking has been replaced by map staking using the internet and paying online, bringing to an end the romance of staking your claim in the great outdoors.)

The claimed area measured almost 10 square kilometres, and the next two weeks of work focused on traditional “boot and hammer” prospecting, geological mapping and rock sampling – the first on record for this area. There were no signs of human passage, only the well-worn caribou trails rutted from years or centuries of migration, with signs of wolves and black bears throughout.

We worked from dawn to evening, aided by our fly protection and availing of the beautiful sunny and serene Labrador days framing the untouched beauty of the gentle, caribou mosscovered landscape dotted with Labrador black spruce. All that broke the silence was the ring of our geology hammers and our complaints directed at the armies of black flies, mosquitoes and stouts (both delta wings and moose flies) filling the air with their chorus of gleeful humming. After a day’s work and fighting the flies, sleep came easy under the star-filled Labrador skies, which, in the early summer, only revealed an occasional

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glimmer of the famous northern lights (aurora borealis).

The days passed quickly and peacefully. We did not unearth any hidden or waiting-to-be-discovered minerals; the reward was sharing in the solitude, beauty and serenity of the land and the memories, made in just two weeks of being there, lasting for a lifetime.

It was a great start to many Labrador trips for me in years to come, taking me from Hebron in the north to Little Drunken River to the south, from Seal Lake in the west to Hopedale in the east, and enriching my exploration ventures throughout this vast and magical land.

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BY JENN THORNHILL VERMA

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Standing guard over the Strait of Belle Isle on the south coast of Labrador, a 33-metre tall lighthouse looms larger than any other in Atlantic Canada. The Point Amour Lighthouse has guided transatlantic shipping since 1958 through the Straits, which is the northern outlet of the Gulf of St. Lawrence and separates Labrador from the island of Newfoundland. At its narrowest point, this 125-kilometre-long seaway extends 15 km across to its widest point at 60 km across.

While the lighthouse and its keepers have guided safe passage for thousands, other passersby were less fortunate. As one story goes, on a dark and stormy night in the 1860s, a captain navigating through the Straits ran his ship aground and everyone aboard perished. That evening, the lightkeeper had allegedly failed to keep the lamp burning.

Incapacitated from drinking a barrel of rum, the lightkeeper could not climb the 132 stairs to refill the oil-burning lamp. Captain Johnson, as people call him (though there are no records accounting for the captain, crew or vessel), reappears at the light station on dark and stormy nights, dressed in oilskins and wrapped in the ship’s anchor chain.

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The only mention of this ghost story on the Point Amour Lighthouse website, which is maintained by the Labrador Straits Historical Development Corporation, is a transcript of a conversation with Ricky Hancock.

He talks about growing up at the lighthouse and the ghost of Captain

true, the more than 160-year history of the lighthouse has its share of haunting tales. On September 16, 1889, as the roar of the sea masked the lighthouse’s foghorn, the British naval vessel HMS Lily wrecked about 45 metres from shore. Lightkeeper Thomas Wyatt and his assistants

Andrea Hurley photo

Johnson, though even Hancock’s account details a joke he and others played on unsuspecting visitors, having them believe they’d seen an apparition dressed in a white sheet and dragging chains.

Whether or not this ghost story is

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responded to the ship’s distress calls (guns firing from the ship’s deck).

Seven men died in the swells of the stormy sea that evening, and the ship sank. Four men were rescued thanks to Wyatt’s ingenuity in fixing a line to the ship that the crewmen used to pull

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themselves to safety. Wyatt would later be recognized by the British Admiralty for his heroism on that stormy evening.

Then, on August 8, 1922, the wreck of the British warship HMS Raleigh became the most infamous marine disaster in the history of the Strait of Belle Isle. Averting an iceberg, Captain Richard Barney guided the ship into shallow water, where rocks gouged a 110-metre gash through the ship’s hull. Eleven people perished, while the remaining 680 officers and crewmen spent the night scattered about the light station, where lightkeeper Jeff Wyatt assisted everyone that evening.

Today, visitors can see the site of the ship’s demise on the Raleigh Trail.

Point Amour Lighthouse remains in operation, though it’s now automated with its 16 seconds of flashing light followed by a four-second eclipse. It has been designated as a provincial historic site and is open for visitors.

Jenn Thornhill Verma is an author and journalist from Newfoundland and Labrador living in Ottawa, ON. Her maternal great-grandmother, Lucy Bolger, worked as a maid servant at the Point Amour lighthouse with lightkeepers Thomas and Jeff Wyatt.

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Jenn Thornhill Verma illustration

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A Recommended Reading List

Tales from a Labrador Pilot

By Benny Powell

Born and raised in Labrador, Benny Powell grew up and became a captain with Air Labrador. This collection of stories and poems is his third book set in Labrador.

We All Expected to Die: Spanish Influenza in Labrador, 1918-19

By Anne Budgell

Using the recollections of survivors, diaries kept at the time, Hudson’s Bay Company journals, newspaper reports, and government documents, this powerful and uncompromising book tells the story of how the Spanish influenza virus travelled to Labrador and wreaked havoc there.

Life on the Mista Shipu: Dispatches from Labrador

By Robin McGrath

Through her words, author Robin McGrath guides locals and visitors alike around parts of Labrador that are too often overlooked, and offers candid glimpses of the characters and the cultures of the three founding peoples of modern Labrador.

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I Never Knowed It Was Hard

By Louie Montague

Trapper and fiddler, Louie Montague, a 77-year-old Nunatsiavut (Inuit) elder from North West River, Labrador, recounts in rich detail the way of life in “them days.” Here he talks about his family, trapping, hunting, caring for sled dogs, encounters with Innu in the country, woodworking and, most importantly, life on the Naskaupi River.

Broken Wings

By Clarissa Smith

This is the author’s brutally honest true story of growing up on the Quebec-Labrador coast in the 1950s and ’60s. It’s a story about love, hate and abandonment; but overall, it’s about the fragility of life. (Also consider her next book, My Journey, in which Smith continues the story from her days at Bishop Mountain Hall, a boarding school in Quebec, to a journey back to Bradore, the place of her birth.)

Our Life on Lear’s Room, Labrador

By Greta Hussey

Hussey’s account is simple, yet compelling, as she describes the trip north on the Kyle, setting up the fishing room, the Labradorians, the typical day of a fisherman, curing fish in the fall, the hard life of a young girl cooking for a crew, native skills, folk medicine, making do with little and, on the lighter side, games and amusements.

Walk With My Shadow: The Life of an Innu Man

By George Gregoire

In the authentic voice of a storyteller, Gregoire invites the reader to see Innu society and culture from the inside. He shares stories from his earliest childhood memories and the wondrous life of a hunter. The story of his adult life is a mirror through which the images of a once independent people, under siege from the encroachment of a powerful and indifferent Canadian society, are tragically reflected.

All these titles are available to buy through Downhome, either online at ShopDownhome.com or by calling 1-888-588-6353.

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How the Pye Centre is trying to gain ground in food security for northern communities.

BY NICOLA RYAN

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For many years, Frank and Joyce Pye ran the

80-acre Grand River Farm in Happy Valley-Goose Bay. Committed to developing agriculture in Labrador, the Pyes worked to ensure that healthy, locally grown food was available in the area. Grand River Farm – known as Pye Farm – also welcomed the community and celebrated the social aspects of growing and sharing food through u-picks and fall fairs.

When Frank got sick in 2017, the Pyes wanted to ensure the farm could continue for future generations. They reached out to Memorial University’s Labrador Institute, which acquired the farm in 2019. Now known as the Pye Centre for Northern Boreal Food Systems, Frank and Joyce’s legacy lives on in a state-of-the-art experimental and community farm dedicated to northern-based agriculture.

Eldred Allen / Bird’s Eye Inc. photo

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“We took ownership of the farm in 2019, and we’ve been working ever since to bring it back to life and restore it to its former glory that Frank and Joyce were able to achieve,” says Jamie Jackman, program coordinator for the Labrador Institute. “Our intention is to become a communityled and northern-focused farm for food systems research, education and community connections, [along with] food production and distribution in Labrador.”

The Pye Centre has been reimagined into a community of engaged farmers, community growers and researchers working together. Partnering with local Indigenous groups and prioritizing local knowledge of foodways, the centre’s aim is to learn about the science of growing crops in Labrador and to contribute to strengthening food security in Labrador and

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other northern boreal regions.

This past summer the fields were once again full of activity after being left fallow for a couple of growing seasons. “It’s a slow process. We’re wrestling with weeds,” laughs Jamie.

Fortunately, they were aided by many generous and knowledgeable locals who were happy to lend a hand. “It’s been excellent because we have so many great farmers in the area who are willing to help us,” says Jamie. “They believe in the vision of the Pye farm as something that can assist with farmbased research, which eventually will help all farmers in the region.”

He especially credits the thriving fields to the work of resident farmer Lem Seaward. “We’ve learned a lot,” says Jamie. “He’s been tremendously helpful to us.”

In the far-flung communities of the Big Land, the price of food is high,

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and quality and access to fresh produce is limited. There are few frost-free days and the growing season is short. Food insecurity is a continual challenge. The Pye Centre’s research aims to strengthen local food production and ensure that continuous, sustainable sources of food are available locally to all.

Research studies are chosen specifically for their applicability to the local climate and culture.

“It’s really important to note that everything we do at the Pye Centre is informed by our commu-nity,” says Jamie. “It’s informed by the farmers and the Indigenous organizations that sit on our advisory committee, and the different agricultural departments, both

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Pye Centre staff planting strawberries, June 2021 Pye Centre for Northern Boreal Food Systems photo

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federal and provincial. We want everything that happens on the farm to be directly implementable. We’re very happy to have those advisors with us, and to have a system that meets the needs and priorities of our local food producers.”

season-extending techniques in northern regions (the other sites were St. John’s, NL, and Whitehorse, YK).

“It speaks to the importance of the positioning of the Pye farm,” says Jamie, noting that the farm’s association with Memorial University is invaluable to making connections and joining networks of similar studies across the North.

In the AAFC study, researchers Tara Ryan and Danica Brockwell experimented with degradable plastic mulch and low tunnels to cover seedlings and warm the soil and air around them. The mulch helped the plants get a head start at the beginning of the growing season, and the low tunnels helped promote growth all season long. Both methods also helped the soil to retain moisture. Throughout the summer, tidy rows of green beans,

“Research is definitely a fundamental element of our farm,” Jamie says, “but you can’t have a farm without the community.”

The summer of 2021 was the farm’s first season of hands-on research. The Pye Centre was one of three locations in Canada where researchers employed by Agriculture and AgriFoods Canada (AAFC) investigated

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potatoes and turnip flourished. Building on the encouraging results of the study, the farm now plans to add a greenhouse component – an Arctic Acres growing dome – to further explore season-extending techniques.

“Research is definitely a fundamental element of our farm,” Jamie says, “but you can’t have a farm without the community.”

In his capacity as program coordinator, Jamie’s work at the Pye Centre focuses on community engagement and outreach. They’ve already seen lots of support from community partners and school groups who can’t wait to implement hands-on activities at the farm. Other future plans for the community space include a gazebo to serve as an outdoor classroom, an apple orchard with hardy fruit trees, an annual fall fair, and a strawberry u-pick that could serve as a social

enterprise. In fact, in June, a team planted 2,500 new seedlings in the strawberry patch.

“Frank and Joyce were really well known for their abundant, beautiful strawberry patch, where people would come down every summer and pick with their families,” says Jamie. “So we want to continue that.”

Now that fall’s frosty weather has arrived, the successful summer season has come to an end. The Pye Centre is establishing itself at just the right time: northern-based agricultural research is expanding and people are interested in exploring issues of sustainability and food production.

“There’s a lot of dreams for the Pye Centre and the potential it has to be a connection for the community around such an important issue as food security,” says Jamie. “Where the Pye Centre can go – the sky’s the limit.”

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THESE INCREDIBLE drone photos by Eldred Allen of

Rigolet, taken during a controlled release of water this past summer, show the power of Churchill Falls. Through the Churchill Falls Generating Station, this waterway provides more than 5,400 megawatts of hydroelectricity.

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photo finish

Blazing End to the Day The sky is lit with flankers as the sun sets over Lobstick, Labrador.

DOMINIQUE ANDREWS Labrador City, NL

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