A day of milestones. We have been on the road one calendar month, traveled 5000 miles and reached Labrador City at the western end of the Trans-Labrador highway. It was also a day of gradually changing terrain. We started the day with a continuation of the hilly granite country with its myriad lakes where the road was forced to twist and climb around the terrain. As the day progressed the terrain flattened somewhat, the lakes were joined by large areas of wetlands (I think what they call muskeg in Alaska) so that at times the road seems to be forced through the lakes rather than around them. Interspersed between the lakes are some impressive rivers. The forest continues to be an endless carpet composed mostly of what I think are black spruce, the same kind of trees we saw on the road to Inuvik. To our surprise there has been a lot of sealed road today, some of it brand new, and even the gravel (more accurately packed earth) we have encountered has been in good condition allowing (our) highway speeds.

This morning we came across a tow truck trying to pull a demolished pickup from the side of the road. The tow truck operator seemed to have his work cut out for him as the pickup had to surmount a 3ft rock ledge before it would be back on the road surface. The bitting insects quickly ended our role as spectators.

Two big mines today, one at Fire Lake and the other just before Labrador City, both iron ore. The latter of these looks like an entire mountain is being demolished. It is accompanied by a huge field of washed spoil that looks to measure in miles.

The towns of Fermont and Labrador City (34 kms apart) that support these mines are little more than work camps with a few amenities for families, modest houses, large dormitory buildings a few shops and not much else.

At the end of the day we found (you guessed it) another gravel pit. These make good camping spots. The ground tends to be firm, and we can generally get well off the road and away from truck noise. It is also getting difficult to find places to pull off the road as now for miles the road is only a ribbon of (sealed) gravel pushed through the muskeg swamp.

Post script - almost forgot. Just before Labrador city we crossed the border out of the province of Quebec and into NewFoundland-Labrador. Suddenly the road signs are in English only. I guessed no bilingual policy here. This change reminded me of the conversation with the Swiss couple in Quebec City. They pointed out that even the Iranian government (not known as a supporter of the decadent culture of the British and US) provide all road signs in English (as well as the local Persian obviously).