Out of sight (II)

As a public service, here’s an image of another of the landscapes, conveniently far from the seat of the media universe in St. John’s, and conveniently less famous than Gros Morne, that may be impacted by NALCO(R)’s proposed Lower Churchill project, as described in the recent environmental filings.

For the benefit of those who don’t know, this is the view across Little Lake (foreground) and up Grand Lake (in the distance) from North West River. The stretch of water connecting the two is the Rapids – which are actually much less rapid now, than they used to be, thanks to the Churchill Falls project, which diverted a significant part of the flow of the Naskaupi River which once drained through here.

Grand Lake continues for another forty miles to the mouths of the rivers — Naskaupi, Red Wine, Crooked, Beaver, and Susan — which flow into it. Some of those names will be familiar to readers of the books by Dillon Wallace and Mina Hubbard.

This same scene, heavily photoshopped, taken from almost the exact same spot, has been used by the provincial tourism department as one of the few Labrador images it has ever used in print advertising. (No Labrador scene has yet figured in any of the expensive and heavily-rotated television ads.)

At some point in the recent past, the forest management plan for the forestry zones in this image was amended in order to protect the view planes.

The proposed northern routing of the Gull Island electrode line would cross the Rapids, via the forested areas on the far side of Little Lake on either side of the Rapids.