| Summary | |
| Owner | Eric Gilbertson |
| Creation Date | 2013-03-06 23:01:43 UTC-0500 |
| Description | St Pierre et Miquelon Islands
Eric, Matthew, and Jacob Gilbertson August 13-14, 2012 Few people I know have heard of St Pierre et Miquelon (two small islands off the coast of Newfoundland owned by France), and almost nobody has ever heard of Morne de la Grand Montagne, the highest point on the islands. St Pierre et Miquelon is not officially a country so it kind of falls off most people’s radar. It’s the last remaining overseas territory owned by France in northern North America, and is kind of the equivalent of Puerto Rico to the United States. After extensive Internet research Matthew and I could not find evidence of a single person ever climbing to the highest point on the islands, and we felt compelled to become the first. We were already planning a big road trip through Labrador and Newfoundland, so thought we might as well tag Morne de la Grand Montagne along the way. After a little more research, we discovered that mountain is actually very hard to get to. We would need to take a ferry from Newfoundland to St Pierre, then either a flight to Miquelon (which could easily be canceled by bad weather) or another ferry to Miquelon (which only ran every other day). But the ferry and flights are to the northern tip of Miquelon Island, and the highpoint is on the uninhabited south end. From satellite photos it looked like we would then need to walk along a road for 6 miles, hike up an old trail into the woods for a mile, and then bushwack another mile to get to the summit, which was one of two hills whose heights were within the resolution of the elevation data from Google Earth. That might also need to be done exclusively at night to make the ferry/flight schedules work out. We considered packrafting from St Pierre Island to the southern end of Miquelon, but the 3.5-mile crossing in open ocean sounded a little too risky. If one of the packrafts sprung a leak, we would be in serious trouble floating in open ocean in the frigid North Atlantic. I started contacting ferry and flight operators and making reservations. Everything is over email or phone on these islands, and they only speak French. I wasn’t confident enough in my spoken French to talk to them directly, so did all the reservations over email (where I could carefully check my grammar before sending the message). On paper I had figured out a way where everything should work: we’d take the 11am ferry from Fortune, Newfoundland to St Pierre, arriving at 3pm. Then take the 5pm flight to Miquelon, arriving at 5:15pm. We’d have 14.5 hours on the ground to find our way to the highpoint somehow, before catching the 8:45am flight back to St Pierre the next morning, and then the 10:30am ferry back to Fortune. I contacted the St Pierre flight company, but there was a slight problem: there were only two available seats on the flight to Miquelon, and we were three people. Shoot. We could only devote 1.5 days for the side-trip to these islands for our road trip through Labrador, so there was no flexibility to shift days. However, I realized that since our trip was basically a big loop on the Trans-Labrador highway, we weren’t necessarily limited to do the loop in the counterclockwise direction. I recomputed all our logistics assuming we did the loop in the clockwise direction, and then inquired again to the St Pierre flight company about seats on the new set of days. It turns out the new days worked, and we were go for launch on St Pierre et Miquelon. The plan had dangerously little margin for error, though, as we would find out. Sunday afternoon, August 12, we had just completed a successful climb of the Cabox, the highest mountain on Newfoundland Island, and started the long drive to our ferry terminal eleven ours away in Fortune. We rotated drivers every few hours as we drove nearly the full width of Newfoundland. By midnight we were still an hour outside of Fortune, but we were passing so many random gravel side-roads into the woods that we decided to camp here for the night. It’s always hard to find a secret campsite closer to towns anyways, and we could easily just get up earlier the next morning. We pulled off at the next side-road and it was perfect: a dead-end road that went just out of sight into the woods. Matthew and I set up the tent and Jacob claimed the car for the night. We got up early around 7am and cruised into downtown Fortune by 8:30am. Fortune is certainly not a big town, and it probably owes most of its existence to the ferry running back and forth to St Pierre every day. We discovered that, whenever a ferry pulls in the town lights up with cars zipping back and forth, tourists stopping at stores, and more tourists getting on the next ferry run. Within an hour the town is back to its normal quiet self though. We had no trouble finding the ferry terminal on main street, and I went inside to pick up our tickets. All my emails had paid off and I came back triumphant with three round-trip tickets to St Pierre. We packed a minimalist setup of extra clothes, sleeping bags, and tent into our small backpacks, parked the car in the safe overnight spot, and hopped on the ferry. “I must warn you that this is the North Atlantic,” the captain announced to everyone “and the water can get very choppy. If you’re standing on the open top of the boat you will definitely get wet.” “Well we’re definitely standing on top then,” Matthew said to me and Jacob. We chose some seats on top and held on for the ride. The top started out with about 15 other tourists as we pulled out to sea, but as the waves got bigger and started splashing over the boat the number dwindled to just us and three other hardy souls. The boat followed the Newfoundland coast for about an hour before heading directly out to sea, pulling in to the port at St Pierre around 3:30pm. The city immediately looked distinctive from any of the cities back in Newfoundland. The houses were all boxlike but very colorful. One house would be solid red, the one next to it solid yellow and the next one solid blue. Maybe there’s some town ordinance that determines each house color. We pulled onto the dock, but there seemed to be a problem onshore. Both customs agents for the island were currently either at the airport or still out for lunch, and we weren’t allowed off the boat until they arrived. Matthew, Jacob, and I nervously glanced at our watches. Our flight was at 5pm so we still had time, but it was frustrating just standing on the boat waiting. Finally after 15 minutes two guys in a truck pulled up to the customs office and casually walked up to the door. The captain opened the boat door then and I quickly made it to the front of the line at customs. “Business or leisure?” the agent asked. “Leisure,” I replied. And with that he stamped my passport and let me through. I haven’t encountered many customs agents less inquisitive than that before. Matthew and Jacob made it through customs with equal ease, and we started walking towards the airport. From satellite images it looked to be 1.5 miles line-of-sight from the port, so we could save some money from a taxi by instead just walking. Dense fog was rolling all around the island, but we heard a plane landing in the distance so weren’t too concerned about the conditions. We walked out of town, up a big hill, and there was the airport. We walked inside and looked around, but it was deserted except for a janitor scrubbing the floor. There was only one terminal, one ticket counter, and ten seats in the waiting room. It was 45 minutes before the flight so we thought there would at least be one official airlines person to check us in. We wandered around for 10 minutes until finally an official-looking man came out with a piece of paper in hand. “Gilbertson party of three?” he asked. “Yes, Oui,” I replied. “I’m sorry but your flight is delayed by the fog,” he told us. “It is ok for planes to take off from St Pierre, but the runway at Miquelon is very short and dangerous. The pilot will make the final decision at 6pm to fly or cancel for the day. There are no lights on the Miquelon runway, so the flight must be made before dark if it is not canceled.” “Is there any other way to get to Miquelon today?” Matthew asked hopefully. “I am sorry, but the only other way is the ferry, which doesn’t run until tomorrow,” he replied. All we could do was wait and hope either the weather cleared, or the pilot was feeling extra daring. We picked up our bags and walked around the coast killing time, before returning promptly at 6pm. As before, the airport was deserted. We waited around another 15 minutes until we noticed a man driving up to the entrance outside. It was the same man we’d talked to before, but now he was apparently leaving for the day. “I am sorry, your flight was cancelled,” he told us. Our last chance to hit Miquelon was now gone. Our schedule was tight enough that we had no time to fly to Miquelon the next day, since we needed to get the ferry back to Newfoundland the next day. We reluctantly accepted defeat. “Do you need a ride into town?” the man asked. “Sure that would be great, thanks!” Jacob replied. We hopped into his car and got off at the tourist information booth to plan our next move. It had not factored into any of our equations that a flight would simply be canceled, and we didn’t have any backup plans. Our basic goals on the island were to feel like we were in France (especially Jacob, who hadn’t ever been to mainland France), and to do some hiking and camping. We could still accomplish those without hitting the high point. The first goal was easy – we walked around town to a French restaurant where the waiter didn’t speak any English, and ordered some authentic French food. We finished eating before dark and started walking uphill to the interior of the island. Matthew had saved some satellite images of the island on his phone, and it looked like most of the island was covered in trees and rocks, with the only civilization in the tiny town of St Pierre. There were bound to be hiking trails there somewhere. We optimistically followed roads to the edge of town and stumbled across a trail leading up into the woods. We followed the trail to a big overlook with a picnic table, and I bet we could have seen the whole city on a nice day. However, the whole island was still socked in with clouds and it was starting to drizzle. Matthew led the way higher up the hill as we passed out of the trees and onto barren rock and grass. The satellite image showed a pond in the middle of the island, and we headed that direction, hoping to find an awesome place to camp. There must be a big network of trails on St Pierre, because we passed several intersections along the way. Eventually we dropped down to the pond, but it was too swampy to meet our standards of awesome campsite. “What would be cooler than camping on the beach?” Matthew asked. “The western side of the island is uninhabited, so we could just camp over there.” “Let’s do it,” I replied, “but we’d better get there before dark.” With sunlight fast approaching we all started to run west along the trails. Matthew took the lead navigating by his satellite photos and Jacob and I kept up the pace. The drizzle turned into a light rain, which only encouraged us to run faster. Soon we approached the beach, but the trail only went parallel to the beach, never reaching it. We decided to bushwack down to the coast, and Matthew led the way through the trees and brush. This west side of the island is apparently the only part that has full-size trees, and quite a few were cut down. The weather on St Pierre must be too harsh everywhere else on the island. The terrain got steeper and we soon had to downclimb a short cliff to reach the actual coast. It was now apparent why the trail only paralleled the coast – because the shore was all cliffs. We found one small beach section, but it only contained about 20 ft of shore between the ocean and a cliff. We could set up our tent on the dry spot, but we weren’t sure whether it was high or low tide. It would be pretty unpleasant to be woken up at night by waves crashing into the tent, so we decided to turn around and find a better spot. We bushwacked back to the trail and continued paralleling the coast, until finally a clearing opened up at the top of the cliff. It was just flat enough to sleep on and we set up the tent and the tarp, finally getting out of the rain. The only reason we hadn’t brought two tents was so we could fit everything in carry-on for the flight to Miquelon Island, and it had always been a challenge to rig up the tarp some way using available resources. It was almost funny now how easily we could have actually brought two tents, since the flight to Miquelon didn’t end up happening. We still made the tarp work, though, and Jacob claimed a turn under it that night. The next morning the island was still immersed in clouds, and we were certain every flight today to Miquelon would be canceled as well. Matthew climbed down to the coast and cast his fishing line in the ocean a few times, but with no luck. The only sign of fish we saw was a big shark fin sticking out of the water just off the coast. The shark didn’t bit Matthew’s line either, though. We soon packed up the soaking wet tent, rolled up the tarp, and hiked back up to the top of St Pierre. This time we intersected a gravel road and took that back into town. We had a few hours left before our ferry officially left, so we walked around town more practicing our French in the bouloungerie (bakery). Matthew and Jacob took a quick dip in the Atlantic Ocean so they could write “swam in la France” on their resumes, and then we boarded the ferry at 10:30am. St Pierre continued to stay in the clouds even as we departed, and I suspect it sees similar weather most of the year. We caught a glimpse of Miquelon Island on the way back, and started making hypothetical plans of how we’d hit the highpoint on the next try. We’d definitely want to rely on the ferry to Miquelon, since it goes no matter what the weather is. That would mean three days minimum on the islands. Morne de la Grand Montagne is certainly one of the more logistically-difficult mountains to access I’ve ever attempted. We landed in Fortune by 2pm and immediately started driving back into Newfoundland to finish the last leg of our journey – the return to Boston. We drove 5 hours to Argentia, got in line behind a bunch of other cars, and officially boarded our ferry at 9pm. This was no sissy ferry. It was a ginormous cruise-ship sized vessel capable of carrying hundreds of cars for the 14-hour journey across the Gulf of St Lawrence to Nova Scotia. Most people book fancy cabins with beds for the overnight journey, but we were all cheapskates and found some comfortable chairs in a lounge to sleep in. We slept in the next morning, then walked around the deck for a few hours until the boat finally pulled into port in Sydney, Nova Scotia. I say finally because we had to wait a full agonizing hour just for the outgoing ferry to pull out of port and get out of the way. We had to put our game faces on now. It was 3pm, and Jacob had to catch a 7am flight out of Boston the next morning. According to our GPS we were still a 14-hour drive from Boston, not including any stops. We quickly drove out of Sydney south off of Cape Breton Island and towards New Brunswick. We rotated drivers every few hours, and made only one brief stop to see the Bay of Fundy. By around midnight we reached the US border, and started preparing for the usual disbelief the border patrol agents show when they learn what trip we’ve just come back from. Last time we got selected for a “random” full-car inspection after we told them we’d driven to Hudson Bay for a weekend. The time before we’d gotten grilled after telling the agent we’d driven 17 hours in a day from Boston to climb the highest mountain in Ontario over a weekend. I pulled up to the agent and rolled down the window, hoping we wouldn’t get delayed too long this time. “What was your business in Canada?” the agent asked. “We drove across Labrador and Newfoundland to go hiking and fishing,” I replied, handing him our passports. “You drove across Labrador? Why would you do that?” he asked. “The trans-Labrador highway was just completed last year, so we figured we could make a big loop from Boston,” I replied. “And you did this for vacation?” he asked. “Definitely - it was fun!” He took the passports and entered them into his computer, then handed them back to me. “Are you sure you were doing all that for vacation?” he asked again, still confused. “Why are you driving through here so late at night?” “Yep. Well, one of us has a flight to catch in 7 hours in Boston, and we’re currently about 5 hours away so we’re hoping to make it in time by driving through the night,” I replied. “Well good luck,” he said, waving us through. We pushed on, rotating drivers, and made it to Logan airport at 5:30am, a mere 1 hour before the check-in gate closed for Jacob. Jacob made it onto his flight just in time. Final trip statistics: 3,723.6 miles driven Boston to Labrador to Boston, 71 hours 53 minutes moving time in the car. |