Route Map   Weather Map   Daily Journal         Q & A   Special Reports   Education Section           The Game Click here to send the Viking adventurers your questions		A wild beauty beyond words Log Date: August 18, 1998 Author: Hodding Carter Lat/Long: 59 34.5 N/63 51.6 W Location: The Iron Strand, Labrador Weather: Clear Skies Sightings: Beauty Click on the pictures below to view enlargements I cannot do this place justice, and neither will the photographs I'm sending along with this entry. I do not think any photograph can. It would take a painter. A great painter. The beginning of the Iron Strand   We had a painfully slow day of sailing, then rowing. Sometimes we could see the coast as the fog shifted around, but usually all we saw was Snorri and the water until the afternoon. The fog began to lift and we began to make out this dramatic coastline - mountains sloping straight down to the ocean. Green hillsides. Monolithic peaks. John Gardner got all excited about fishing at the Helge River, and since we were making no progress we decided to head for it. That's where the painfully slow rowing came in. Eventually, we made it here. Immediately it sounded different. Beaches. Red beaches. The fishing reel was dropped overboard as we were preparing to row the dinghy to shore. We marked it with the lead line. John says he's going diving for it later. Old tent rings spread across the level ground as we climbed up the rocks, once ashore. Then the ground itself spread out - flat and green for hundreds of yards. We've seen nothing like this for months. Erik and Dean "at play in the Field of the Vikings" Dean and I walked farther, onto the beach. Bear prints. I quickly looked up to make sure one wasn't around. I walked along. Caribou prints. Big ones. I walked some more. Wolf prints. I had not expected to run into wolves so soon. I took off my shoes and walked beside the animal prints. The cool wet sand was freeing. I looked up and saw the mountains silhouetted against the fading sky. The small river tried to flow into the ocean just a few yards ahead. This was all too unbelievably beautiful. I did not want to leave, but I had to get back to Snorri. I rowed back as quickly as I could and then told Terry, John Abbott and Rob (they were watching the boat and cooking dinner) that they had to leave the boat at that moment. They could not miss this place. For a few years now, I've been anxiously waiting to see the Wonder Strand as described in the sagas. White beaches will stretch for miles and miles, creating a peaceful retreat from the rocky coastline, but I can't imagine they will outperform this place. Not much ever will. You can see the print, right? Rob and Doug looking grim. (I wouldn't let them turn around and see the shoreline.) Top of page