Ungava Bay

All seemed thoroughly to enjoy the prospect of the trip, and their assurance greatly added to my ease of mind.

A deeper touch of anxiety was added for me by information obtained at Rigolet to the effect that the Hudson's Bay Company steamer, Pelican, my only means of return to civilization before the closing in of winter, would be at the post at Ungava, my destination, the last week in August.

That left us two months to make the journey, which at the shortest would carry us across 550 miles of Labrador wilderness.

This seemed a great deal to expect, but the men were confident and only eager to be started.

Chapter five, To the Bend of the River.

Beyond this point our progress was slow and difficult.

There were days when we made less than two miles, and these were the discouraging days for me, because there was ever hanging over me the thought of the necessity of reaching Ungava by the last week in August, if I meant to catch the ship there.

However, by poling and tracking, by lifting and dragging the canoe through the shallow water near the shore, or again by carrying the entire outfit over the sand hills or across boulder-strewn valleys, we won gradually forward.

And cargo supplies, this is how a lot of it gets there.

So they've modified this jet, and it was a wonderful two-hour, maybe two-hour and 20-minute flight to Kujuak, same as last year, into Ungava Bay region and Kujuak.

The second time around, I felt that every new trip, always learning stuff, new destinations, open our eyes, expand our horizons.

It was really nice for Pilly and I to get back there this year and revisit some familiar places and learn far more about the region.

The logistics involved, there's several extra steps involved.

towards creating the kind of hospitality that Alan now has to offer.

So even getting supplies into Kuujjuaq, Ungava Bay has the Actually, the highest tides in the world.

So boats coming in, you know, you have to come in, you do your delivery and you're out on the next tide.

forces of inconceivable magnitude moved through the mass the outer surface of the globe as it cooled ripped and shriveled like a withering orange great ridges the mountain chains of to-day were furrowed on its skin here in the darkness of the prehistoric night there arose as the oldest part of the surface of the earth the great rock bed that lies in a huge crescent round the shores of Hudson Bay, from Labrador to the unknown wilderness of the barren lands of the Coppermine Basin touching the Arctic Sea.

The wanderer who stands today in the desolate country of James Bay, or Ungava, is among the oldest monuments of the world.

The rugged rock which here and there breaks through the thin soil of the infertile north has lain on the spot from the very dawn of time.

Millions of years have probably elapsed since the cooling of the outer crust of the globe produced the solid bases of our continents.

Well, it's Canada, eh? Yeah, it's Canada.

And Ungava Bay is frozen as of mid-August.

So, yeah, you bring your stick and your puck and you go for it.

You don't want to miss the net with your shot because you could chase that puck forever across the ice.