For a handful of years, I've flirted with the idea of heading up to Southern Labrador to see two places reachable only by ferry, William's Harbour and Norman's Bay. With a true lack of internet coverage, the idea of being a rare visitor excited me. It would also increase the scope of what I've seen along the Southern Labrador coast, as I'd only been off the Trans-Labrador Highway at Cartwright previously.

In June of 2017, there was suddenly imminent pressure to visit as it was announced that the residents of William's Harbour had accepted resettlement and would be taking the monetary package to leave their community. It was now or never if I was going to see this remote fishing community.

I've hurried out of work at lunch and driven the 4 hours up to the Labrador ferry before, this isn't anything new. To get over to Labrador and have enough time for anything distant, it's what you have to do unless you're willing to take additional vacation days.

The difference today was that I was then headed up to Charlottetown Labrador - and because I was catching a morning ferry from Charlottetown tomorrow, I would be driving 267km (165mi) in the dark on the Labrador side tonight.

Southern Labrador is one of those places that you drive through at night and feel unease. The southern portion has eight towns, but there's few streetlights and they're spread out with giant, curving, rough roads. As tonight was overcast, it was pitch black immediately after I exited each town, leaving nothing but 2-lane blacktop and dark, mysterious lands to each side.

Following the southern grouping of towns, it was a 30 minute drive to Red Bay that prepared me for the coming, longer periods of isolation. Part of me wanted to stop in Red Bay and find accommodations in the comfort of a familiar town, but I had to keep going.

Past Red Bay, the government had promised $100-million this year to pave the road between here and the turnoff for Charlottetown. The only problem was even with hundreds of people using this road daily, updates were nonexistent on the internet and I had no idea what road conditions I would find.

Sure enough, I left Red Bay for the Trans-Labrador Highway and it was instantly gravel. I didn't know when they were planning on paving this 188km section of gravel road, but apparently September was still too early in the year.

The paving company would (sort of) show me though.

Chugging along and eating up the drive at 80km/h on the gravel road, suddenly I could see construction barrels and equipment up ahead. Apparently they were paving from north to south without any signage about progress? Regardless, I was elated and soon doing over 110km/h on smooth, brand new pavement through the Labrador night. This was going to be a cakewalk!

That is until I covered a measly 5 or 10km. Then the construction barrels returned and my car bombed back down onto the gravel roadway. It was fun while it lasted.

Passing through Lodge Bay and Mary's Harbour, tiredness arrived as the distance numbers crawled towards Port Hope Simpson. It's in this tired fog that there were lights up ahead and I thought I was seeing things because there was no reason for stationary lights out here. Finally approaching, a couple of semi-trucks were parked in the road and my mind instantly jumped to horrible conclusions of some accident on this remote road.

Gently easing my door open, I stepped out wide-eyed and worried about what I would find. Slowly approaching the running, blinding trucks, one of the truck drivers walked around his truck and right past me, providing no explanation for why they were in the middle of the road or what was going on. Confused and a bit angered by this entitled wanker, eventually the other trucker popped out and pleasantly said they'd be out of the way in a second.

There was a promising rest area along the highway overlooking the Alexis River, but that yahoo in the truck made me think better of it. Better to get to Charlottetown and tuck away there, away from the traffic of the TLH.

Finally reaching Charlottetown, it seemed busy and healthy, not the typical rural Newfoundland place with an abandoned building or vacant lot to put up a tent. Having never been here and knowing nothing of the churches or parks, I then weighed camping in the parking lot of the local airstrip, before deciding against that and going back to the gravel pit just outside town. It seemed quiet enough and in ten minutes of pumping up my air mattress, not one car came or went from Charlottetown.

Getting my tent set up, I then cracked a cold Sam Adams, pleased with conquering the 616km (383mi) up here after leaving work at lunchtime. It was now eleven hours later and I was satisfied with my day of travel.

The next morning I went down to the dock, checking in and ensuring the ferry was following the online schedule. I like to do this now because I've experienced a couple of times where the province makes a slight change and lets the locals know, but they also don't think it's important enough to update the provincial website.

Everything was all good though and the crew were going about their daily tasks. We'd be pushing off in about 45 minutes.

After a quiet 2017 so far, this was getting back to the things I enjoy. I was psyched that I made it to Charlottetown and was minutes away from departing; the drizzle and early fall temperatures be damned.

Charlottetown was still inland even if it has ocean access. I was standing at the foot of a deep bay where we'd sail directly east, picking our way through the myriad of islands out towards the open ocean. The ferry was going to take 3 hours to cover 46km (29mi) today, taking a right hand turn once out at sea and heading south to William's Harbour. The cost: $8.25 round trip.

Another thing about doing this trip this way was that I was taking the long way to William's Harbour. As the village is located in Alexis Bay, the shorter ferry ride would be from Port Hope Simpson at the mouth of the Alexis River. Unfortunately the provincial schedule didn't work for leaving from Port Hope Simpson, which left me driving to Charlottetown.

Boarding the ship and meeting the crew of four, I soon realized I was the only one headed to William's Harbour today. $8.25 for my own personal cruise!

This wasn't cruising the Caribbean though, and as the weather quickly deteriorated, I decided I'd check out the shoreline features during the presumably better weather tomorrow. Having the 10-seat passenger lounge all to myself, I changed the television to SportsCentre and lounged out.

It didn't take long for the 80-ft boat to really start rolling and jumping in the windy waves, while Gordon Lightfoot played in my head and I listened for the wind in the wires. As much as I love watching sports in the public spaces of this province, I knew I needed to lay down as life would be much easier sleeping through these conditions.

A couple of hours later I woke to find the boat had stopped rolling and someone had changed my SportsCentre back to NTV. I happily jumped up, knowing that if the boat was slowed then we had to be near William's Harbour. I rushed outside to catch my first glimpse of the unfamiliar and exciting community.

(Aside: as someone who loves the colourful names of this province, we had just passed Starvation Cove.)

The boat docked & with only one passenger, it didn't take very long for me to pass over the gangway. There was next to no one meeting the empty boat and those that were, were simply picking up goods or bringing goods to the boat for delivery on the mainland.

I always think I'm going to be the main attraction in these places, so I hurried past the couple of ATVs, up the dirt road and into town. Arbitrarily deciding to go left at the fork in the road, the gravel path curved around the harbour and emptied into an open, barren area with ATV and car tracks going every which way. I was also in a hurry because it was raining and seeing the local school had a tiny overhang, I rushed over there to throw on my rain gear.

It was only raining as I walked to the school, but really started to pour as I stood beneath that overhang. This wasn't a big space either as I had to squeeze right up against the back wall if I wanted to escape the precipitation.

Unfortunately, and inexplicably, this is where I realized that I forgot to bring rain pants. Frig. The temperature was about 8°C (46°F) and my pants were already getting wet.

Maybe it's because I live in Western Newfoundland and it's extremely rare that it rains all day, but this was up north on the Canadian Shield. I don't know what I was thinking, because it sure didn't look like the rain was going to let up anytime soon.

I stood pleased with driving over 600km and riding a ferry for 3 hours to reach William's Harbour, only to be unprepared.

Without rain pants, I obviously didn't bring another pair of pants and was stuck only with what I was wearing. Knowing that the weather wasn't supposed to improve, I simply waited for a little break in the intensity of the rain, then headed up to the general store in search of a giant poncho or some overalls.

I have to admit I was hoping someone at the store would offer me rain pants or overalls if they weren't available at the store - but after these items weren't available, I wasn't the attraction I thought I would be. I walked back out into the rain without much comment or observation as to why I was in this town of 26 year-round residents.

Near the general store was a staircase leading up to the Anglican Church. In addition to taking a rare photo of the interior, I had ulterior motives in sizing up whether I could set up shop here for the night.

The only problem was how wet I was and how nicely the interior of the church was maintained. I felt bad enough that I was dripping everywhere just as I stepped inside for a picture, so I thought better of setting up my tent and belongings here.

Quietly closing the door behind me, I kept myself moving.

I sized up the school as well, but peering inside, I found it was one of those cases where the building has long ago stopped being used for education, and instead has been sold to a local resident for storage.

I stood around for a bit, hoping whoever owned the school would be sketched out by me and come see what I was up to...and then offer up one of the empty classrooms once he/she determined I wasn't up to anything nefarious. I'm normally not this much of a mooch, but I was upset with myself and hoping for a little charity to help with my mistakes.

In the end no one came. In fact, it seemed like no one was around at all this afternoon. I was making a point of being out in the open, but it seemed like everyone else was holed up and not watching me from their windows. Or maybe they were at their cabins, I wasn't quite sure.

There was also a community hall, but that seemed like an even worse idea as I pictured a big open space with my dripping wet clothes and belongings on their nice hardwood floor.

From the side of the community hall, I could see a shack that was missing a back window. High-stepping my way through the blowing grasses, trying not to pick up every last bit of moisture, the shack was also missing its front door and front window but the floor was solid and the wind was so constant that the rain only soaked the northern third of the inside.

This looked like my best option. I threw my backpack inside, then picked up the detached door and tried to block off some of the front window by leaning the door against the open space.

It was now time for lunch. Cooking up Kraft Dinner with my portable camp stove, things were going better as everything cooked fine and I was even able to make coffee as well. The only problem was that I forgot another thing, a spoon, which left me trying to eat KD with the handle end of my toothbrush. Eventually I abandoned the idea of a utensil and just scooped the damn noodles right into my mouth.

Now that I was done cooking, I happily took off my wet pants and hung them out to dry over a couple of wall nails, despite the fact that it was one of those damp, sunless days where they would barely dry.

Rolling out my sleeping bag, I was happy that it wasn't so cold that my legs were freezing in the open air, but rather I could take my time getting comfortable before sitting down to read. This wasn't so bad.

The sheets of rain continued as I cracked an Original Coors and laughed at where I found myself. I'd driven all this way, taken time off of work, used one of the last summer weekends and found myself so far from sunny Corner Brook; just to spend an afternoon sitting in this abandoned shed sipping Coors and listening to out-of-date Bob McKenzie hockey podcasts.

All of the planning, packing, multiple ferries and sleeping outside, just to spend the afternoon laying on the ground in a rundown shack in William's Harbour. I wondered what my other Newfoundland friends were doing this Labour Day Weekend, picturing them as dots on a map, located along the sunny Irish Loop or at the beach in Pasadena. The thought of them being able to look in on me, sitting here and doing this, amused me.

At least I'd learned that my sleeping bag was going to keep me warm and overcome the dampness from my wet jeans.

Knowing this, I went back out into the rain one more time, looking to do a little more exploring since I knew I was leaving early tomorrow morning.

Located on Granby Island, William's Harbour has been continuously used by Inuit fisherman throughout the centuries, and then seasonally by English fishermen by the late 1700s.

In the early 1800s, the English firm of Hunt & Company established a post 3km away at St. Francis Harbour, and in the 1840s, an Inuk man by the name of Samuel Kibenook settled nearby with his family at William's Harbour. This name, although it has morphed into Kippenhuck, is still common in Port Hope Simpson.

The first time William's Harbour appeared in the census was 1856 with a population of 14. This number would increase slightly in subsequent years as families chose William's Harbour over nearby St Francis Harbour Bight or Georges Cove.

By the mid-1960s, there were 70 people living in William's Harbour seasonally, but none remaining over winter. Half of them would winter in Port Hope Simpson, while the other half would winter not so far inland, at Rexon's Cove.

As only a seasonal settlement William's Harbour didn't have many services.

The Newfoundland Encyclopedia claims that the operator of a small fish plant eventually convinced people to stay here through the winter and this forced the government to provide electricity, a new school and greater services.

Meanwhile, the CBC states that the government informed all of the nearby seasonal settlements that only one community would be electrified and everyone needed to get together and pick a single location.

Regardless of how people came to overwinter here, the cruel part of choosing William's Harbour over Rexon's Cove is that other nearby non-insular communities have now been connected by road. St. Lewis, Charlottetown and Pinsent's Arm were all connected to the Trans-Lab Highway between 2002 and 2004, while the isolated island communities of William's Harbour and Black Tickle remain accessible only by ferry (or snowmobile in the winter).

Eventually the isolation would be the undoing of William's Harbour. The fish plant closed and the children moved away, leaving today's youngest folks in their 50s and the majority in their 70s. And when the thin ice of early or late winter prevents snowmobiling to go pick up prescriptions or visit the clinic, a storm can then cut off all access by preventing the government plane from arriving. One year it was 19 days before the plane could land with peoples' needed medication.

From the collection of articles about leaving, it's clear that the last residents love William's Harbour, but winter and the lack of services would eventually win. Especially as the government increased the resettlement package from $90,000 per household to $270,000, there was greater appeal in leaving and heading inland to somewhere with a clinic and a road to the outside world.

In November of 2017, the government came and removed the hydro poles and the town's diesel generator plant, and then completed the last run of the ferry service. The cost of this plus the resettlement packages was $4-million, but William's Harbour would have cost the government $7.9-million over the next 20 years otherwise, which is why this program is in place and why the government agreed to pay the residents to leave.

To give you an idea of how much some people love this place, residents Michael and Pamela Penney didn't accept the resettlement offer, because it meant giving up the deed to their house and allowing the provincial government to possibly come in and bulldoze their house in 5 years time.

(The government doesn't want to actively bulldoze any of these places, it's just they want to reserve the right in case they have good reason, such as finding gold or silver nearby.)

Sadly, the government is now working on changing their resettlement legislation so that they don't acquire the deeds in the process. Too little, too late for the poor Penneys.

The rain continued as I picked my way up this hill to get an even better view out over William's Harbour. This was exactly the type of landscape I love to wander freely and take a thousand pictures, and sure I was dumb for forgetting my rain gear, but I also lamented that it wasn't a nice sunny day. I felt like I was missing out on seeing a beautiful place by exploring in these conditions.

Also, do you see the boat in the harbour? I'd later hear some residents speculate that it was so-and-so, a contractor who came to town to size up what the government contract would entail for taking down the hydro here.

Sufficiently soaked right down through my second and last pair of socks, I dragged myself back through town, hunched over and looking defeated, hoping that someone had some extra rum and fire to share on this Friday evening.

As much as I tried to make myself look like a sad sack, there still wasn't anyone around and I was back at my shed in record time.

It's there that I took off my wet pants for the day, throwing on my long johns to keep warm only to realize that I brought the long johns that I ripped the ass out of previously. LOL.

I spent a few minutes contemplating whether these were long john chaps or assless long johns. I believe I found assless long johns to be funnier in my cold, restless delirium.

There's a road here that goes to the nearby settlement of Georges Cove, one of those empty Labrador fishing communities and one that's also home to an old church.

Heading to an island by coming to William's Harbour, I didn't put any time into research or looking at satellite views, since I figured the weather would allow me to explore until my feet bled. Therefore, I also missed this Georges Cove.

In addition to the usual sadness I feel when these places disappear from the map, there was additional sadness here because I'd love to explore these hills and walk to Georges Cove on a pleasant sunny day. This felt like a unique place disappearing more than other times because there wasn't another barren, seaside community nearby.

I briefly crunched the numbers on returning before the November resettlement, but sadly I was too busy and driving up here was too great of an undertaking to repeat.

I didn't stay up late because I don't enjoy growing cold or reading by headlamp. I was also concerned with waking up early and being bored laying there waiting for daybreak, but as I slept in, I must've expelled more energy in the cold and damp of yesterday than I imagined.

Now that I had a warm boat coming for me in a few hours, I was no longer concerned with getting wet or cold. I put my damp socks back on and headed towards the general store again, looking to treat myself to something exotic like a Gatorade or a Vitamin Water.

The store is one of those places that doesn't have hours, but rather the residents call the owner and she opens it up from her house across the street. Therefore I found it locked and closed.

Wandering back down I heard someone holler out wondering if I needed anything in the store...and then another person hollering the same thing. Cranking my head sideways, I found that both houses to my right, separated by about 30 feet, had people out on the front steps accepting that I didn't need anything from the store, but excitedly inviting me inside for a warmup and a bit of tea.

Eventually this broke down into me standing there indecisively while the two residents asked each other, "are you going to take him in? I'll take him in. No, you? No, I will. No, you?"

I soon settled it for them by choosing the house with the Labrador woman instead of the mid-50s Labrador man, figuring she would be a bit more compassionate and understanding towards my stupidity and lack of preparedness, haha.

I ended up at the Needhams house, where apparently I would have been invited in for boiled ham breakfast if I was walking earlier. Instead, I had to survive on just cookies, grapes, muffins and tea, which I ravenously chowed down while also warming both my hands periodically with the tea. Even better, once Mrs. Needham saw that I had wet socks on, she scoffed and grabbed a pair of thick wool socks from her husband's sock drawer, telling me to put them on and keep them, dismissing my attempts to give them back with a wave of the hand.

(I still have these socks and bring them on camping adventures for good luck.)

I sat around and talked about William's Harbour for a while, but mostly the Needhams were busy with their own tasks around their home. Asking about the abandoned house next door - the two-story rectangle with missing windows and an election sign one picture up - I expected it to be their parents' old place or something, but apparently it was never a Needham household and if it was, it would have been taken down long ago. Apparently an Ontarioan bought it with plans to renovate it into a summer cabin, but the house hasn't seen any maintenance since.

Before I knew it, I had to get to the ferry and of course I apparently couldn't walk? The man next door was keen to chip in some hospitality and was over in his side-by-side to bring me down to the dock. Along the way, Trevor talked about how Corner Brook to him would be like Toronto to me, much too big and with too many people. He was also surprised that I chose to sleep in that shed, saying that the school and community hall were both open and no one would have cared. I swear I tried the school door, but not the community hall.

Ah well, I'll always have a fond memory of that random shack along the backside of William's Harbour.

The Needhams had a bit of a discussion trying to figure out where I was talking about, before pinpointing whose shed it was & how the owner was working offshore. I was wondering, but also thankful, why the shed owner never showed up as I was walking around in my assless long johns.

Getting a ride was actually a bit stressful as I suddenly had to throw all of my belongings together that I'd splayed out everywhere in my abandoned shack. Thankfully Trevor said he could take my can of opened Carnation milk if it was going to be a torment. I liked the use of torment as a noun.

Down at the dock, the ferry was just pulling past that contractor boat and making its way over to the wharf and a waiting town dog. The men laughed as the dog approached me for pets, since the dog apparently knows the rest of the men are working and won't pay the dog any attention.

Getting ready to board the boat, yet again I was the only person who would be taking the ferry today. The townsfolk put some fear in me here, asking if I was prone to seasickness and having another good laugh at the prospect of going out in the seas on this windy, turbulent day. If these hearty sea folk thought it was going to be a rough crossing, I wasn't looking forward to the following 3 hours.

It was a funny thing at the Needhams in the morning, where Mrs. Needham was bothered with the fact that people were going to hear a tale of me coming to William's Harbour and no one helping me out. Of course this was a bit silly now considering the socks and grapes and tea and side-by-side rides of this morning, but not only that, three or four other people I met in the following days were shocked by my experience over the rainy afternoon, unwilling to believe that I was actually out walking and exploring in the rain, and wasn't invited into 10 different homes. The caring nature of William's Harbour residents is well known along this coast.

As we pulled away and William's Harbour slowly disappeared, there was part of me that wanted to rush inside and get to sleep before the rough seas, but I also wanted to contemplate how it's extremely unlikely I'll ever see this place again - and that's a sad thought for how I want to explore more of it, the friendly people, and wanting to show it in a better light than this rainy old 24 hours.

Whereas I wasn't going to come up here until my friend Kim convinced me I had to, I now had such a remarkable time that I owe her one. I was very happy to have seen William's Harbour.

Eventually going inside the boat, today there was football on but I had to get to sleep. Returning to Charlottetown 3 hours later, I wasn't yet done with this trip to Southern Labrador though.

Continue to Part 2...