Local heroes

My husband and I were travelling for our first time from Goose Bay to Labrador City this summer (Aug. 15). We got off the ferry in the morning and asked the travel and tourism office in Goose Bay for information about the Route 500 Highway for distance, current road standards, places to stay, if people travelled in one day all the way to Labrador City, and information regarding the use of our cell phones for reception along the way. They assured us that the road was vehicle worthy, gave us phone numbers for places in Churchill Falls, assured us that lots of people everyday go all the way to Labrador City, and told us not to worry about using our cell phones because they wouldn't work, but that we'd see emergency phones along the route that we could use in the event of a problem.

Once we stopped to eat and rest up at Churchill Falls, we decided to head for Labrador City, even though the road so far had been really rough, full of potholes.

At the 140km-point west of Labrador City, we found at dusk-with clouds of black flies and in the middle of black bear country-which we had, not one but two flat rear tires, thanks to Route 500 Highway! Our two cell phones didn't work, we only had one spare tire, there were no gas stations, houses, people or any help and no way of getting a hold of our CAA. The nuts on the tires had recently been drilled on as we'd changed them in a mechanic garage before we left for vacation, so they were not coming off manually.

So what do you do in the middle of nowhere? Pray. And so my husband prayed something like this, "Lord help us. You know where we are, even if we or no one else does."

Four minutes later, two transport trailer trucks heading for Quebec arrived on the scene. We hugged our strange but newfound friends. They changed the one tire and repaired the second and got us rolling again. We drove in between both trucks for safety in the complete darkness.

About 20 kms later, the repaired tire blew. Too many potholes! We hopped in with our new French friend who drove us to Labrador City to the Two Seasons Inn. They had no vacancies for the night. It was 1 a.m. and we were beyond tired.

The front desk manager took immediate action. She was an angel. She called other hotels and B&Bs; they were all full. She made us a pot of coffee and offered for us to sit down in the lobby, make some CAA toll-free calls. Nothing...no help from CAA. Morning came.

The desk manager had spoken with her husband in the night and asked him for help on our behalf- he worked the midnight shift too.

In the morning after working all night, her husband arrived with an Aerostar tire on a rim that his friend had loaned him. Meet angel Number Two. We hugged our new Labrador City friend and our front desk agent new Labrador City friend. He drove us 120kms! What strangers do this? Only in Labrador? We hugged and hugged this angel, and thanked him and thanked him. He changed our tire to the loaned spare that fit just right, and followed us back all the way to Labrador City.

We were amazed at this wonderful tired man who just worked all night and then helped us. He led us to the local Goodyear store, where we purchased two new rear tires and had them installed. First, we had to go to the local wrecker and pick out rims, and of course, he took us there. Later we picked up his wife and we went for lunch.

This wonderful couple is Gary and Elaine Philpott, of Labrador City. Cheers to them! An amazing couple with hearts so big we will never forget.

Sincerely,

Karen and Ronny Ward

Collingwood, Ontario