You can tell you are cruising seriously off piste when the a fisherman, in an open boat, wandered across to our anchorage to give us fresh, wild salmon fillets and point out that we are anchored in exactly the same place as the sailboat that visited last year. Just one visiting yacht a year!
Makkovik is one of the tiny towns of mid Labrador that is frozen in from November to July. In their brief summer it's 300 inhabitants scramble to catch crab, shrimp and turbot which they process ashore and send onto Lewisporte, some 500 miles south, for export.
The people of Makkovik couldn't have been more helpful. The fish factory gave showers, laundry and the thinnest sliver of Wi-fi. Thankfully we escaped without being filleted and gutted! The two groceries get re-stocked once a week during the summer but the ship stops coming from November until July when the ice blocks the way.
Curiously, there's precious little infrastructure here even when compared to Greenland. No cellphone coverage, painfully slow internet, unpaved roads and a dock in disrepair. Supporting these incredibly remote towns must be a real headache for those that have to decide and fund these things. There is though a school, a hotel and they are building a new station for the Mounties.
We couldn't have had a warmer welcome to Canada particularly as the temperature climbed to the mid twenties which is such a stark contrast to what we have become accustomed to over the last 6 week. The mosquitoes enjoyed our visit too though!