Tuesday, August 10, 2004

A short visit to the Torngats

JD from James Bay likes to organize an annual summer fishing and canoeing trip to the most remote place he can find - this year it is to the Torngats, the highest mountains in Quebec, on the northenmost part of the border of Labrador and Quebec. The Inuit fear the Torngats, calling them the devil mountains; it is true that they are mostly known for brutal windstorms. Torngat in Inuktitut means 'Home of the Spirits'.

So the adventurous team has chartered an Air Inuit twin otter plane to fly from Kuujjuaq to the valley of the Koroc River, flying past Kangiqsulalujjuaq (George River). They will disembark there with their foldable hi-tech canoes, tents, guns for polar and black bears, and other wilderness gear. They are planning on summitting Mount Iberville (the hightest mountain in Quebec) if weather allows. And then the plane should pick them up in 10 days later much further downstream still on the Koroc River after 10 days of canoeing and fishing. If they don't to make it, we'll call the RCMP!

Because I happen to have booked a week of work in Kuujjuaq at the time that they are up, I had the honor to transport the foldable canoe in a hockey bag (it fits!) as part of my luggage on the flight to Kuujjuaq – I usually travel quite light when I go Up North. When the boys arrived a few days later, they opened a few seats on the chartered twin otter plane for local friends to fly back and forth to the Torngats and take some pictures. This happened 2 days ago, on August the 8th.

We landed on the Koroc Valley and it felt like a crowd - there were more tents there, belonging to the search party for the two expeditioners who disappeared somewhere on Mount Iberville just about a year ago. More details on this story here.

I got sick on the plane when the pilots were chasing black bears and caribous running on the toundra. Otherwise, here is a set of my pictures of that memorable trip.

This is where I'm talking about:



Northenmost fjord of Quebec

Glacier valley

Landed on the valley of the Koroc river

Upstream (more South) on the Koroc