Well, Strawberry Moose had a good day today.

On the road between Port Hope Simpson and Mary's Harbour we encountered some more of his cousins. This time it was mother and daughter. And a short while later we encountered another juvenile. So he's having fun anyway, meeting up with all of his family and he's ever so excited about it all. Good old Strawberry Moose.

As for me, I've done nothing like as much as I hoped. But then again, I've been distracted. For a start I couldn't get out to see the Wunderstrand. Although it's just across the bay from Cartwright, it's actually a 10-mile walk followed by a 10-minute kayak journey (you need to carry your kayak the 10 miles, by the way), or else it's half an hour across the bay in a kayak (in a howling wind across freezing cold water) and of course regular readers of these columns know that I couldn't get warm again. You know that it's against the law to light a fire in a canoe - you cannot have your kayak and heat it.

There is however a certain spot where you can drive to and with a long telephoto lens and a little judicious crop and sharpen, you can make out the beach right away in the distance.

Of course a photo isn't the same as actually walking in the footsteps of Eirik the Red at the climax of his magnificent epic voyage to Vinland, but I suppose that it's the best that I can do.

Anyway, back on the Labrador Coastal Drive (as this bit of the Trans-Labrador Highway is called) the next stop was the most delightfully-named Pinsent's Arm, a small fishing village on the coast in a sheltered bay off the Atlantic. I always thought that the name was quite romantic.

I had to ask directions when I got to Charlottetown. I hailed a passing native
"Excuse me - can you tell me where I can find Pinsent's Arm?"
"Why yes alrighty" she burred (I just love the way they talk in Labrador). "It's over there in that bucket".

Pinsent's Arm has a population of 64 and they were all on the quayside waiting for me to arrive. One of the fishing smacks that operates out of here had just put in to port.
"What do you catch here now that the cod has finished? Shrimp like out of Cartwright?" I enquired.
"Why no" he replied. "We get them thar whelks and scallops".
But if they were whelks and scallops in those baskets they were unloading then I'm going to get my eyes tested as soon as I get back to Europe.

So  they pointed me out the way through the rubbish dump and local tip to the point where you can see the Atlantic through the cove - it's quite impressive.

I also made it to St Lewis - the farthest easternmost settlement on mainland America. And if ever I had to pick a place out here to settle it would be here - it is easily the prettiest place that I have ever visited on the North American continent.

It was a forgotten village - settled in the earlier days of white exploration and then forgotten. And when it was "rediscovered" in the 19th Century the person who discovered it (I can't remember who now) remarked on the "industry and divinity" of the inhabitants.

Its more modern claim to fame, as everyone will tell you, is that it was a station on the DEW line - the Distant Early Warning radar system installed by the Americans on Canadian soil to track and then shoot down the atomically-armed Russian bombers so that the nuclear fallout would be in Canada and not in the USA - but of course it wasn't, despite how romantic the legend sounds. It was actually a site on Pinetree - the forerunner of the DEW line but which operated on a much shorter-reach traditional radar system and with all the defects of a traditional system, and once the Russians mastered the art of low-flying, Pinetree's days were numbered.

And after that, with me not being halfway around where I wanted to go, and having found some playmates for His Nibs, I've had to lay up for the night in Mary's Harbour (spelt correctly - this is Canada not the USA).