Cartwright NL Newfoundland-Labrador Canada
Frequently Asked Questions
At the village wharf for expedition ships, or by inflatable boat depending on conditions. Cartwright guards the entrance to Sandwich Bay on the Labrador coast.
A few hundred residents, a wharf, a school and houses scattered facing the sea. There is almost no tourist infrastructure, and the welcome from residents more than makes up for it.
The short climb up Flagstaff Hill gives the panorama over Sandwich Bay and the offshore islands. The high point, though, happens outside the village: inflatables run out to the Wonderstrands, where you sometimes land directly on the sand.
Some fifty kilometres of straight beach north of Cartwright, backed by the Mealy Mountains. In the Saga of Erik the Red, Norse navigators around the year 1000 named them Furðustrandir, the 'wonder strands'.
From Captain George Cartwright, an English merchant and diarist who settled in the region in 1775, whose journals describe 18th-century Labrador life with rare precision.
In season, yes: icebergs drift offshore, remnants of Greenland glaciers carried south by the Labrador Current. From Flagstaff Hill you can sometimes spot them with the naked eye.
Humpback and minke whales in these capelin-rich waters, seals hauled out on rocks, puffins skimming the waves. On the Wonderstrands the tracks are usually those of caribou, foxes and black bears.
The Akami-Uapishkᵁ–KakKasuak–Mealy Mountains reserve, created in 2015, one of the largest protected areas in eastern Canada. Rounded summits, peat bogs and salmon rivers, with virtually no facilities: the park is viewed from the coast or entered with guides.
In layers, with a waterproof windbreaker and waterproof boots: beach landings get wet and the sea wind rarely eases. Labrador stays cool even at the height of summer.
Metis, Inuit and Innu traditions have mingled here for generations. Visitors who take time to talk with residents encounter a hospitality that isolation has never dimmed.
