Route Part 1 - BC to Newfoundland!

This is the first part of our basic itinerary - we don't have any time frames attached except for catching the Relais Nordik cargo ship down the St. Lawrence on July 3 as it only leaves once per week. Other than that, this will be our general guide but really, we'll be winging it as we go.

We'll leave Riske Creek, BC on June 20 and head south to Kelowna and then Nelson, BC for quick family visits. From there, we'll head along the Route 3 over the Rockies and into Alberta to connect up with the Route 1 (Trans Canada Highway) at Medicine Hat. Our intent is to haul through Western Canada fairly quickly because it'll be easy to visit the Western provinces from BC in future trips. We'll stay on Route 1 until Swift Current, Saskatchewan and visit family there and in Gravelbourg.

From Gravelbourg, we will head back onto Route 1 to Winnipeg and dogleg down to Steinbach, Manitoba, because we want to visit the Mennonite Heritage Village Museum. From Steinbach, we'll head south on Route 12 into Minnesota for a brief stint in the United States. We'll skirt along Lake of the Woods and take Route 11 back into Canada near Fort Francis and head to Thunder Bay.

From Thunder Bay, we'll continue on Route 11 and then Route 17 into Ottawa (doing Georgian Bay and Lake Superior on the way home) and then back over to Hull so we can stay on the north side of the Ottawa River on the smaller highways. We'll take Route 148 into Montreal and stay on the highways that stay close to the River through Trois-Rivieres and into Quebec City.  We'll continue on the north shore of the St. Lawrence on Route 138 to Havre St. Pierre where we will catch the Relais-Nordik - a cargo/passenger ship that services the boat/air access only fishing villages along the north shore of the St. Lawrence up to Blanc-Sablon, near Labrador. This will be a 2.5 day trip on the cargo ship and in each port, we will have a few hours to disembark and explore the villages of Natashquan, Kegaska, La Romaine, Harrington Harbour, Tete-a-la-Baleine, La Tabatiere and St. Augustin. We're pretty excited about this leg of the trip because we'll see a part of Canada that isn't hugely accessible. We'll disembark in Blanc-Sablon and head into Labrador and visit Red Bay National Historic Site for a night before returning to Blanc-Sablon to catch a ferry over to St. Barbe, Newfoundland.

From St. Barbe, we'll head north on Routes 430 and 436 to the Unesco World Heritage Site "L'Ainse Aux Meadows", a well preserved Viking settlement. We'll had back south on Routes 432 and 430 to Gros Morne National Park and spend some time in Cornerbrook. From there, we will stick to Route 1 to Gander and then connect with Route 330/320 to do the pennisula coastal route through Musgrave Harbour and then connect back to Route 1 at Gambo. We'll continue on Route 1 and then take Route 230/235 which will take us up the next penninsula to Bonavista and Trinity where we will loop back down and into Clarenville, reconnecting with Route 1 again. Another detour up Route 80 will take us up through South Dildo to Grates Cove and around the penninsula through Carbonear and Bay Roberts. We'll stay on the coastal roads around Conception Bay through Brigus, Holyrood and into St. John's.

We'll spend a couple days in St. John's and then head down Blackhead and Maddox Cove until it connects with Route 10. We'll head south through Ferryland and down through the southern penninsula. Route 10 changes to Route 90 as it heads back North again and then we'll head West on Route 91 through Colinet. From here, we'll head south on Route 92/100 to see that penninsula and visit Cape St. Mary's Ecological Reserve before heading into Argentia to catch the ferry to Cape Breton.

We anticipate this first part of the trip will take approximately 3.5 weeks, spending a bit of extra time in Ottawa, Montreal, Quebec City, Cornerbrook and St. John's.