standing feature
what the road brings
What the road brings
Not far past the sign warning drivers to carry chains and wear good treads on their tires, the 60-kilometre stretch of road into Gingolx (Kincolith) curves, drops and climbs at such magnificent angles one wonders if the engineers who designed it followed the flight pattern of a fly. The gravel-asphalt-gravel road is buffeted by mountains on each side and spends much of its time hugging the Portland Inlet.
Gingolx—a village of about 400 people, give or take—looks like anything you’ve ever seen, heard or imagined about a village on the coast of Newfoundland: a smattering of houses—some in varying states of decay—with overgrown lawns and a few bikes lying here and there in the tall grass. The roads are dirt, lined with 15 km/h speed limit signs.
Driving slowly through the village, we felt the eyes of those we passed fixed on us, as ours were on them. Since the road into this once-isolated village was completed in late 2002, geographic voyeurism has become a spectator sport.
We parked the car in front of one of two stores in town, a trailer with a Coke sign lighting up the window. Inside, a guy suggested two places to camp: beside trailer No. 5 on Volunteer Street or out by the government docks. With the first option holding little promise, we headed back through the village and out toward the docks.
The shore was dotted with worn-out boats and the road soon narrowed into a single lane to cross a bridge. On the other side, there was a large tree by the side of the road with various pieces of footwear (running shoes, winter boots, heels, etc.) nailed to its trunk. No apparent reason, no explanation, just a random collection of shoes left behind by their owners, attempting to climb the tree on their own.
With no shoes of our own to contribute, we carried on and found a clearing across from the boat launch. There was mud and the remnants of a fire, but enough room to pitch a tent. As we ate dinner, the man from the general store—whom we later learned was named Dean—drove up on a four-wheeler.
He told us a grizzly bear had been spotted twice in the village earlier that morning and that his mother had room for us at her bed and breakfast. We were faced with a decision that would alter the direction of the trip: do we stick with our initial plan to camp and risk a late-night visit from a hungry grizzly bear or do we accept the offer and go stay at the bed and breakfast?
Having reached a stalemate in our decision-making process, we flipped a coin: heads we camped, tails we headed to the B&B.
The B&B won out, even though we were never sure if the grizzly bear was a convenient sales ploy.
Pulling into the driveway, the B&B looked like a regular house. There was light petering out through cracks in the downstairs window blinds and a small set of stairs up to the front door. Inside, the matriarch of the house, Winnie Doolan, was fussing around the kitchen.
“ Hello, welcome to my home,” she said to us.
“ Go get the futon. We need the other futon,” she told her son.
The futon never arrived, but Winnie gathered up some comforters and piled them by an end table in the living room. We would be sleeping on the floor, she informed us. All of the other beds were taken.
Winnie had a full house at her B&B, one of two in the village. A crew of tree planters from Terrace had settled in before us. Most were already in their rooms, preparing, no doubt, for their 5:30 a.m. departure.
Over tea at midnight, she told us about the road and how it has brought more and more people to the village since it was completed. She told us that prior to the road being built, people used to bring cars up by barge from Prince Rupert. They never had to insure them or license them; there really wasn’t anywhere to go. The road changed that.
But the road had brought other things into this village. Law enforcement, laws in general and lots of people—some coming to take a look, others coming to party.
The phone rang and Winnie answered it. Someone wanted to use the Interac machine at the corner store she also owned to get some cash. Winnie told them she was in bed and hung up. She doesn’t like to give cash to people who have been drinking, especially at that time of night.
Not long after, we settled into our blanket beds on the living room floor. The kitchen-dining room-living room area was open-concept, so we were basically sleeping in the highest traffic zone possible, next to the entranceway or perhaps the bathroom. But it was warm and dry and I was sure a grizzly bear wouldn’t eat us as we slept on Winnie Doolan’s floor.
Over breakfast the next morning, we visited with Winnie and her husband, Steve. He runs Doolan’s Fish Camp, where thousands of oolicans are made into grease. They do the same near Kitimat, but Steve and Winnie both say they prefer Kincolith grease to the others. To me—I couldn’t say taste-wise because I wasn’t that brave— Kincolith one definitely smelled less fishy. When asked about the uses of oolican grease, Steve said basically anything in the kitchen that might call for some sort of oil. Then he spread some on his toast, in lieu of butter.
As we were leaving the village, I began to think about all of the things the road brings. Access to the outside world and easier ways to travel, for sure, but with added convenience comes a certain trade-off. Tourists driving slowly through the village, gawking at the people and their homes. All of the problems of the outside world, be they substances or sensibilities.
I wondered what could possibly prepare a town and a people for this; what amount of prediction could prepare people for the invasion, for the tax on their systems and land. What would it feel like to go from near-isolation to under-the-microscope examination in the matter of a few months? The people of Gingolx can’t un-build the road, they can’t go back to life before, and there is no turning back. They can only brace themselves for the things to come, can only carry chains and wear good treads. Even if they eventually nail them to a tree.
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