The Right Side Of The Road

Despite loosely masquerading as a Batman film, The Dark Night is feverishly estranged from any comic book roots. The genre itself presupposes a certain modicum of both humor and literacy, neither of which garners more than the briefest of cameos in this generally disappointing endeavor. While Heath Ledger’s chilling turn as the Joker is sure to rightfully garner postmortem praise, cinematic psychosis is not alone enough to save a gratuitously blood-spattering thriller that runs one act too long.

Gotham’s latest caper fable attempts to reveal the plethoric spectrum between good and evil, yet ultimately fails to produce a single character defined by such grayscale. The juxtaposition of a needlessly-complex plot against painfully simplistic figures is troublesome, as the once-eponymous hero battles an organized crime syndicate with multinational ties while, simultaneously, attempting to undermine a cake-faced Joker. That the painted villain, a near co-protagonist in this rendition, is also occasionally at odds with the usual lineup of Sicilian suspects creates a tremendous amount of worthless tension.

The notion of fugitive-on-fugitive crime would potentially prove a meritorious dramatic exploration if the lawless figures bore sufficient depth so as to allow genuine emotional conflict. Yet in a film where the only remotely conflicted villain fails to arrive on the scene until roughly the time when credits should be rolling, it is difficult to absorb the interplay between bad and worse with more than a polite yawn and check of the wristwatch.

Mr. Ledger does steal the screen in the same deft way his character loots a bank, though Christian Bale’s rendition of Bruce Wayne is patently flat, while Maggie Gyllenhaal’s undertaking of shared love interest Rachel Dawes is too similar to Kirsten Dunst’s Mary Jane Watson to demand much in the way of acclaim. Unfortunately the damsel in distress is not the only déjà vu-rich effort; while Mr. Ledger may prove successful in his final film, it does occasionally seem he is perhaps less intent on playing the Joker than on playing Jack Nicholson playing the Joker. Imitation, no matter how convincing, remains less a form of creativity than flattery. Yet for a film badly estranged from its once-cute comic book roots, such reminders of prior renditions are unwelcome fodder for comparison.

The notion of a dark Batman tale is not new – this entourage of Gotham stand-outs long ago departed the realm of Adam West’s chosen methodology of humor through hyperbole. Yet The Dark Knight amasses an astounding body count, displaying the variety of cinematic indifference to the lives of named characters normally reserved for less fantastical stories of war. Such would perhaps be excusable if the traditional action paradigm of comedic relief was heeded even in the slightest. Instead the audience is asked to endure the wantonly far-fetched spillage of blood for no reason other than the apparent advancement of a morality tale premised upon the variety of three-dimensional characters the script fails to yield. Outside of the most masochistic of societies, torture and murder do not alone equate to entertainment.

The final insult is the film’s brief political foray into a privacy-themed lecture seemingly scripted by the American Civil Liberties Union. In Spider-Man the interplay between power and responsibility was shoved down audiences’ throats; in Superman Returns we were deprived of a “the American way” because at least once screenwriter was apparently feeling more cosmopolitan than nationalistic. In The Dark Knight the sermon is, fortunately, less obvious, though such is not to say that any socially literate audience member could miss it. The point advanced – the alleged pitfalls of pervasive wiretapping – bears no genuine relation to the overall cinematic arc and seems inserted for the sake of argumentative advancement alone.

Sadly, comic book tales simply are not the place for such political rhetoric – even if they make every effort to disclaim their comic book roots.

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“I am rather inclined to believe that this is the land [the Lord] gave Cain,” observed Jacques Cartier of the north banks of the St. Lawrence River in 1534. Nearly 500 years later, that terrain constitutes Labrador, Newfoundland and Quebec, with some locals honoring the quotation as a tribute to their scarcely-trampled acres.

Such strikes as an unusual point of pride, if not an altogether self-deprecatory note. In the King James Bible, Genesis 4:12 reports of the fratricidal punishment, “When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength.” Yet the comment is apt – the baron expanses observed by Mr. Cartier in the sixteenth century are the same brutal outposts present today.

Labrador covers more land than New Zealand yet has an overall population comparable to that of one square mile of New York City. The largest community has fewer than 7,600 people, and even it is a rough amalgamation of two towns fused together. Throughout these desolate expanses, the people are as scarce as the land is vast.

The only two “highways” in Labrador are gravel, yet even these rigid pathways did not exist until just a short time ago. While Innu-aimun and Inuktitut have today mostly given way to English, the tongue carries heavily dialectic tones, with no two communities recognizing the same precise lingual intricacies. Those words not warped by local tradition are nonetheless delivered in rich accents; the expansive syllables and vowel-prolongations of the upper-Midwest and populous Canada are only amplified here – this may be the land the Lord gave Cain, but it, too, has been subject to the Tower of Babel’s aftermath.

Through all of this, remarkable geographic beauty is accompanied by a certain popular innocence. In communities not penetrated by the outside world until just a few years ago, and scarcely traversed even now, thick senses of self-reliance are built around trust, peace and quiet social order. Tradition is cherished, and with that comes certain incestuous ways – both metaphorically and literally. That one surname nearly completes the phonebook in Mary’s Harbour is clearly of greater alarm to outsiders than locals – in a town of barely 400, first names are all you really need.

The highway has, of course, brought some signals of external society; communities once unacquainted with driveways are now abuzz with the hum of auto engines. But the road has, too, brought its problems; a generation of parents now proves more sheltered than their offspring – it is hard to keep your children away from drugs when you have never seen them yourself. Here, trust is a Pavlovian response, and unearned courtesies are nonchalantly extended to outsiders, no matter their motives.

While such warm civility guides much of the local charm, it does, too, strike as ironic. After all, locals consider this to be the land the Lord gave Cain – a murderer begot of the world’s original sinners.

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GOOSE BAY, N.L. - That’s English, French, Innu-aimun and Inuktitut, in case you’re keeping score.

ROUTE 389, Que. - And should something go amiss between here and there?

TRANS-LABRADOR HIGHWAY, N.L. - The sign is actually in better shape than the road.

ROUTE 389, Que. - Other than aiding enemy soldiers in their strategic advance, this marker serves just what purpose?

KEDGWICK, N.B. - In French culture, apparently drinking really is “cool.”

MATANE, Que. - Does the maple leaf in the middle of the Golden Arches somehow fool locals into not realizing they’re enjoying one of the United States’ finest exports?

BETHEL, Maine - Fashionable hardware.

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HOULTON, Maine – Yesterday I was on gravel roads in Labrador and Quebec. Now I’m at the top of Interstate 95, which connects Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Washington and Miami. This northern border town is far from a metropolis, but relative to the desolate rural outposts I have visited, things sure do feel civilized.

The stretch of Route 389 in Quebec from Fermont to Fire Lake proved the journey’s most treacherous leg. Like the Trans-Labrador Highway, it is a gravel road. Unlike the trek from Goose Bay to Labrador City, drivers aren’t given satellite phones in case of emergency. The low-quality road twists and turns through mountain after mountain; it becomes essential to drive in the middle of this highway in order to prevent frequent skids from leading into ditches, yet poor site lines rarely provide for ample notice of what little oncoming traffic might, too, be making this absurd passage. Periodic graffiti is a dangerous distraction – some of it even has a decidedly corporate feel (pictured below).

After Gagnon, the gravel returns, but is not nearly as painful. A single gas station sits in the middle of nowhere – its very existence carrying a Hitchcockian quality – yet the fuel of Relais Gabriel makes for a welcome relief. Following a lengthy drive along the eastern boarder of Lake Manicouagan, a crater-formed body of water visible from space, the great dam of Manic-Cinq (pictured above) eventually brings a hint of modernity and much-welcomed stretch of pavement to the journey. This monstrosity, the largest in a series of “Manic” dams, lends juice to much of the region and has the informal distinction of marking the end of the most rural portions of the trek out of Labrador. There is not much between Manic-Cinq and the city of Baie-Comeau, but a healthy stream of official vehicles now roams the paved road.

A handful of turns later, that pavement leads to this pavement – the top of a gateway to some of the United States’ most important cities. It is a fitting end to a journey that took me to where the northernmost contiguous highway on this side of the continent comes to a dead end.

Next stop: The trip is over, but some reflections will follow in the coming days.

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GAGNON, Que. – When Route 389, a notoriously curve-rich gravel highway, turns to pavement seemingly in the middle of nowhere, it is a pleasant surprise. Why that pavement ends here is a sad reality. There is nothing random about this roughly 90 kilometer stretch of high-quality roadway – it once served a very important purpose.

Gagnon is a ghost town without buildings. There are sidewalks, functional sewers and even an airstrip, but nothing else. Some maps show the streets running in and out of the main boulevard here – in reality, they, too, appear to be gone; at the very least, brush now covers their former entranceways.

As many as 6,000 people used to live here. There was a school, a church, a hospital and all the other trimmings of a tidy community. Along the now-deserted sidewalk, you can still see where driveways once began (pictured above). For at least two decades, this town serviced a mine in Fire Lake, which happens to be about 90 kilometers up the road – hence the pavement. Back then, Route 389 didn’t reach this far north; Gagnon was entirely isolated.

In the mid-1980s, the mine was closed for economic reasons. On July 31, 1985, The Globe and Mail reported, “Almost no-one is left now at Gagnon, and the former Fire Lake mine and Lac Jeannine concentrator just to the northwest are silent monuments to the excessive optimism of the Seventies.” Soon enough, the bulldozers came.

On the edge of this former town now stands a French sign (pictured below), which roughly translates into little more than a historical marker. There is an absurdity to the median strip in the middle of this stretch of Route 389 – like the Trans-Labrador Highway, this is a rugged, scarcely traveled road. Yet the abrupt divide does serve as a sort of posthumous memorial to a town that was ruined before the outside world ever blazed a clean trail into its once-prosperous confines.

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LABRADOR CITY, N.L. – The bright orange case on the floor of my car is mildly disconcerting. It looks like a strange cross between a pastel-themed toolbox and a weapons container. I’m just hoping I don’t have to open it.

The drive from Goose Bay to Labrador City is considered sufficiently rogue and dangerous such that the Canadian government issues emergency-programmed satellite phones to those of us who choose to traverse the gravel road. The telecom-rich orange box is free; I am under orders to present it to a hotel clerk in Churchill Falls – the one stop between the two cities – where I will, in turn, be issued a new box for the second leg of the journey. I could take it straight through, though I have trouble imagining how the trip would be completed sans a layover in Churchill Falls – the town has the only gas station along the route and given that the Trans-Labrador Highway would likely demolish a hybrid sedan, it is a safe bet that most drivers’ gas tanks aren’t big enough to comfortably complete the trek without a pit stop. Once here in Labrador City, I present the second phone to yet another hotel clerk. Fortunately, I never had to open the box.

I’m not crossing Mongolia, touring Siberia or biking through Sub-Saharan Africa. I am in a first world country – part of North America, no less – and yet the only road in and out of town is so long, hazardous and poorly traveled that no police are present and not a single cell phone provider offers reception.

The orange box is great if I have engine troubles, which I do not. But now there is a bear standing in the middle of the road, and as I slam on the brakes, take a deep breath and reach for my camera, the pastel case catches the corner of my eye. It suddenly occurs to me that if the creature is in a bad mood, unlatching a box, dialing a phone number, explaining the problem and then waiting for the Mounties to devise an efficient rescue strategy, may not prove altogether practical. Meanwhile, I have not seen another car in either direction for nearly an hour, and it is beginning to sink in that I am pretty much on my own. Fortunately, the bear wanders off (pictured above).

Once in Churchill Falls, it is refreshing to see a sliver of civilization again – not to mention a few solid miles of pavement. There is a massive electrical grid on the boarder of town, which accounts for the otherwise random community cropping up in the middle of nowhere. The downside is that the power company dammed the local river (pictured below), and a number of locals are left waxing nostalgic for the days when the word “falls” meant more than a trickle across an otherwise-dry rock bed.

Finally, I arrive in Labrador City in time for a hot dinner. When I woke up this morning, I was aboard the M/V Robert Bond; in roughly twelve hours I have seen Churchill Falls, Goose Bay and North West River – the town where the northernmost contiguous roadway on the eastern half of North America ends. Quebec is now roughly 20 kilometers to my south – soon enough, I’ll be out of Labrador and en route back to the United States. But there are still sites to be seen, even if I don’t need an orange box to get to them.

Next stop: Quebec – oui!

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LAKE MELVILLE – As the M/V Sir Robert Bond’s public address system proudly boasts that we are passing an iceberg (pictured above), thoughts of J.J. Astor and James Cameron dart through my mind. Some of us on deck have already noticed a mini-berg earlier in the evening, but this one is much larger – and that doesn’t even account for the ninety percent of it supposedly below water. Is it really necessary that we pass so near its edge?

The ferry ride from Cartwright to Goose Bay is an astonishing thirteen hours aboard a boat short on amenities. Compared to the ride from North Sydney to Port aux Basques and the quick journey from St. Barbe to Blanc-Sablon, this vessel is small and rugged. Fortunately, however, it is an overnight journey and the bar is open until midnight – Crown Royal and sleep help pass the time.

Phase I of the Trans-Labrador Highway addressed the road from Labrador City to Goose Bay. Phase II of the project established a corridor from Red Bay to Cartwright. Phase III, the only component yet to be completed (pictured below) will link Cartwright and Goose Bay, essentially interweaving the whole road system. It’s hard to imagine the M/V Sir Robert Bond ginning up much business once Phase III renders this overnight stretch optional, though the boat does serve another route from Newfoundland to Cartwright, and it serves to reason this may be enough to keep the vessel sailing.

One of the things that quickly becomes apparent in communities like Cartwright and Mary’s Harbour is that this highway system, despite consisting of little more than expansive gravel routes, has literally changed everything. Towns once reachable only by boat or plane now have a link with the outside world – a mechanism for truck drivers to deliver goods, tourists to casually wander through and an overwhelming notion of oft-frigid isolation to be alleviated.

Then again, when you can see icebergs off the side of the local ferry in July, the days of isolation may be over, but the frigid part still rings true.

Next stop: More Labrador.

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MARY’S HARBOUR, N.L. – The Trans-Labrador Highway speed limit first strikes as less of an actual limitation and more of a gutsy teenage dare. The periodic postings cap traffic at 70 kilometers an hour (roughly 44 mph), but it takes a solid 20 minutes to warm up to the idea of going any faster than about 50 kilometers an hour.

Starting in the town of Red Bay, not far from the Newfoundland ferry drop in Blanc-Sablon, the road ceases to be paved – literally. This is an expansive, largely uninhabited, seemingly unpatrolled gravel highway that happens to run through amazingly gorgeous terrain. And while the trek may sound far more brutal than a traditional United States interstate journey, it turns out this “lesser” surface has a few interesting safety perks. For starters, even though it is a two-way road, almost no one is risky enough to attempt side-by-side driving; the local custom is to pull over if you see another car coming toward you and let it pass, oftentimes with a friendly wave to the driver. And you will likely never fail to notice an oncoming vehicle, nor one to your front or back, because the cloud of dust kicked up by every traveling automobile is so vast as to be visible from hundreds – if not thousands – of yards away. The key is not leaning back on the accelerator until the cloud clears and you are certain no other vehicles are hiding in the dust.

These informal road rules are largely, however, an academic exercise. This is Labrador – you can drive tens of miles without seeing another motorist. And the local charm, trust and legal obedience is so thick that the notion of reckless driving seems a silly thought best contained to more southern or western regions. Sleds can be seen periodically along the side of the road (pictured below) – people leave them at various intervals so they are near next time the firewood needs hauling. The notion that one would be stolen is simply unfathomable.

Here in Mary’s Harbour, barely 400 people occupy the town. Everyone knows everyone – and everyone is eager to point this out. The local gossip scene is apparently quite spectacular. But the natural scenery is also remarkable – on a Friday evening, a local man can be seen salmon fishing in the water (pictured above). The mountains, rocks, and brush make for a gorgeous combination; the water is a purer shade of blue than anything the good folks at Crayola might manage to manufacture.

With nature, however, comes flies. And Labrador is known for its black flies. They are not simply massive and seemingly undeterred by repellant; they are numerous and they are quick. The mosquito epidemic is such a part of the community fabric that locals discuss it with casual nonchalance; where weather makes for innocuous chatter in other regions of North America, the bugs serve a similar purpose here.

Next stop: TBD.

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GROS MORNE NATIONAL PARK, N.L. – As a moose lightly jogs alongside my car (not pictured – I was petrified), it becomes starkly apparent that these animals are not merely larger than deer but, indeed, approach in height and length the standard measurements of a motor vehicle. That this particular animal finds apparent amusement in side-stalking my car, which quickly reduces in speed to about three miles an hour, is at once a delight and horror – a fabulous wildlife sighting hampered by the raw fear that Bullwinkle J. Moose might take a sudden and unannounced interest in my headlights.

The second largest national park in Atlantic Canada, Gros Morne is a thing of pure natural beauty. Oceanic waves splash softly against large rock faces (pictured above) as the sun rises and fog dissipates around 5:00 AM local time. Elsewhere, mountains begin to emerge from an overcast sky (pictured below). Route 430 cleanly traverses the park, leaving nature mostly unmolested and wildlife comfortably at home. The highway is known as the Viking Trail, crossing through much of the territory Leif Ericson is thought to have first encountered roughly a millennium ago.

There are camping sites, hiking trails and scenic views throughout Gros Morne. And while I have no doubt that its beauty remains immense and appreciable during all hours of the day, there is something particularly majestic about wandering through its vast expanses during sunrise. Even the summer weather at this time of day is, of course, on the chillier side of the high 50s Fahrenheit, and the wind continuously intense – my car door nearly blows off as I get out to snap a photograph.

On the north side of the park is the Great Northern Peninsula, Newfoundland’s northwestern-most region. A rough amalgamation of various small communities, the peninsula is nearly as rich in charm as Gros Morne is in beauty. And these various coastal towns all have their own panoramic images to be adored; the crisp purity of Newfoundland’s coast is hard to overlook.

St. Barbe is near the north of the peninsula, roughly even to the bottom end of the Strait of Belle Isle. A 19th century fishing locale, the town claimed four residents in 1875 and has roughly 65 more today (though a local service clerk insists any census number in the seventies is an exaggeration). From here a short ferry leads across the strait to Blanc-Sablon, Quebec, a community only a couple of miles south of Labrador’s border. Despite being on mainland Canada, however, the highway system on the west end of the ferry route – while long and complex – does not presently lead to any external roadways. The only ways in are by boat or plane, though a plan currently exists to merge the northern point of this traffic system with Goose Bay, a community near to the top of the Trans-Labrador Highway, and such would create a means of external automobile access (albeit a rather circuitous one).

Just what do these self-contained pathways behold? I shall soon find out.

Next stop: Labrador.

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DEER LAKE, N.L. – “Where is this place, exactly?” inquires a Newfoundland and Labrador tourism sign aboard the ferry from Nova Scotia, before rhetorically answering, “It’s about as far away from Disneyland as you can possibly get.”

Traveling on the Trans-Canadian Highway out of Port aux Basques, the fourth exit coincides with an off-ramp for the town of Corner Brook – it comes over 130 miles into the journey. Sure, there are intersections and gravel roads leading on and off the “highway” (and that is a term being bandied about rather loosely here), but the notion that the fourth genuine exit comes over two hours into the trip is, in and of itself, an apt commentary on the tremendously rural nature of Newfoundland. It is, however, a gorgeous trip, marked by a beautiful contrast of mountains (pictured above) and streams, offering three-dimensional scenery I didn’t encounter in Nova Scotia or New Brunswick.

For what it is worth, AT&T wireless does not get reception up here – not even roaming. For the first time since high school, I found myself clasping a gas station payphone. And as for the Internet, my hotel does promote its free Wi-Fi, but the signal is weak and connection slow. Trying to upload photos has taken a decent chunk of time; merely checking my e-mail has all the awkward elements of a flashback to the dial-up modem era.

Interestingly, however, such Wi-Fi advertisements are remarkably en vogue throughout the island – nearly every hotel billboard boasts of one such claim, as do the roadside flyers for numerous campgrounds. And while I will not be pitching a tent tonight, I must admit that the underlying concept of a cyber-rich campground is altogether fascinating – perhaps no better means of harboring the finest attributes of the 19th century and the 21st century whilst leaving the intervening 100 years out of the equation.

Signs of the 20th century are not far off, however. The Deer Lake Power Plant, constructed in the 1920s, led to the creation of this small town. And while it may have been a gorgeous marvel in the roaring days, it today more closely resembles a creaky cinematic horror set. The plant (pictured below) is in need of a generous helping of cosmetic work, far more than a mere paint job might accomplish. Still, it makes for a fascinating site – in a community dominated by natural scenery and a touch of quaint architectural charm, the aging plant on the lake makes for an interesting point of contrast.

Next stop: TBD.

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