Red Bay — Basque Whaling Station and Labrador Coastal Highway Terminus

Red Bay is the eastern terminus of the Trans-Labrador Highway and one of the most legit historical POIs you’ll find at the end of a hard drive in eastern Canada. The Parks Canada site preserves the remains of a 16th-century Basque whaling operation — think reconstructed try-works ovens, interpretive shelter over excavated whalers’ graves, and a small-boat museum housing the San Juan chalupa, one of the oldest intact wooden boats in the Americas. The landscape is stark and beautiful: cold North Atlantic light, low hills, and the faint smell of salt and history. Come here after grinding the TLH and let it actually mean something.

The visitor centre is open late-May through early October — verify hours before arriving, as they run skeleton staff in shoulder season. The surrounding community is tiny. Fuel, basic groceries, and a few guesthouses exist in Red Bay, but don’t count on much. Cell signal is marginal to nonexistent. This is the end of the road — literally.

End of the TLH. UNESCO whaling history.