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North America · Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada
Labrador's fjords, with Inuit guides
Eleven days along the northernmost coast of Labrador, in a national park with no roads, no trails and no cell coverage, reached by charter aircraft and travelled by boat. Every group carries Inuit bear guards and travels with Inuit guides, whose families lived in these fjords within living memory.
Happy Valley-Goose Bay
Assemble, weigh bags to the gram for tomorrow's charter, and sit through a bear-safety briefing that is not a formality. Dinner and an early night.
Saglek
Two and a half hours up the coast in a Twin Otter, the treeline falling away beneath you, and a gravel landing at Saglek. Settle into base camp inside the electric fence.
Saglek Fjord
A first full day on the water. Sea-run char, black guillemots, and a landing for a walk up onto the tundra where the ground is a hundred colours and none of them are green.
Reservations for Meridian Expeditions — reservations@meridianexpeditions.example · +1 (604) 555-0142. Bookings taken here are written back to the operator’s reservations platform; PEAK 15 remains the system of record.
North Arm
Deeper into the fjord system, with the boat's engine off for long stretches. Bears are usually seen on this stretch, and the protocol for that is decided before we leave, not in the moment.
Nachvak Fjord
Six hours north along an open coast, weather permitting — and the weather does not always permit, which is why the itinerary carries slack. Into Nachvak Fjord in the evening light.
Tallek Arm
A walking day up the Tallek arm, on no path at all, following a guide who is reading the ground. Waterfalls off both walls, and a silence that people find takes some getting used to.
Ramah Bay
The chert quarries — a translucent stone traded the length of the eastern seaboard for four millennia. Flakes still lie where they were struck. Nothing is collected and nothing is moved.
Hebron
South to the mission station, abandoned when its families were relocated in 1959. Elders travel with the group here, and the day is theirs to shape. It is the quietest day of the trip.
Labrador coast
A working passage back toward Saglek with landings as the sea allows — a beach, a lookout, a stand of willow that counts as a forest at this latitude. Final night at base camp.
Happy Valley-Goose Bay
The charter south, weather dependent, and a hotel with a shower and a door. Final dinner together, and the group photograph that everybody said they did not want.
Goose Bay Airport (YYR)
Onward flights via Deer Lake or St. John's. We hold the day loose: northern charters slip, and we would rather build that in than explain it to you at the gate.