People
It sounds like Cindy is like my wife Virginia in that she truly enjoys 'people engagement'. As a youngster my favorite book was Verne's Mysterious Island, a novel of a few people on a 'deserted, forced to be self-sufficient.
It's true that often when we travel we have relatively little people interaction, however during our summers in NH we're saturated with friends and relatives, partially because we live at the beach and partially because we have a dozen or so relatives around us, some within a 100 yards.
On the rural treks a slow pace permits more interaction with people, though I will say Labrador just has very few people.
As to major Grocery stores, I remember one story. Ginny went to get a hair cut in one of the tiny towns on the southern Labrador coast. She asked the lady cutting her hair where she shopped. The lady said, when the ferry from Labrador to Newfoundland is running (not from November to April) she drove down to Cornerbrook in Newfoundland once a month to shop where there's a Walmart and a major grocery store, a four hundred miles round trip and 3 hours of ferry.
Cornerbrook is the only place on the west coast of Newfoundland that has a truly 'American' type grocery store though there are places along the west coast that have stores you might find in smaller American towns. Happy Valley and Labrador City both have medium sized grocery stores. All other communities in Labrador have mom and pop sized stores, combination grocery and hardware and clothing stores. We love exploring those little stores because they contain a myriad of different things.
I will say we were able to buy very good baked goods in many of the small towns.
Most places only have frozen meats. We bought one frozen block we thought was beef but could not eat it once we cooked it, never figuring out what we bought. We were able to buy a cooked rotisserie chicken in the smallest of towns in Southern Labrador, a real treat.
We tend not to eat out a lot. Howwever in Newfoundland that trend is reversed. We know so many little places to eat that have excellent seafood or unusual things like caribou that we eat out more than normal, having our usual good breakfast at home, a lighter hikers/explorers lunch, and often going out for dinner.
Fresh fruits and vegetables are an issue in Labrador. When ever we saw a banana or any other fruit we bought it.
Ginny says that there are just not a lot of people in Labrador, even in the few campgrounds. When you can stop for Lunch in the middle of the Labrador highway, have lunch, walk about a little and not have another vehicle pass in an hour in either direction, you know you're alone.
Safe travels,
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Norm and Ginny Milliard
1982 Sunline 15.5 SB
2004 Honda CRV 4 cyl, manual
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