Already on arrival in Montreal/Saint Hubert the receipt by the ESSO FBO was extremely friendly. A surprised service team stood around our aircraft and wanted to know many details about long trip to Montreal.
The handling early today is fairly quick in spite of a Sunday morning. Compared to Europe, the service provided in Canada and USA by the mostly small FBO companies is simply sensational. Besides a refueling service there are comfortable pilot's briefing rooms available – and the coffee is freshly brewed and of course free of charge. And still the AVGAS prices are not even half as expensive as in Europe.

The takeoff on runway 24 L in Saint Hubert leads us by means of radar vectors of Departure Control directly to the city of Montreal along its’ 1976th Olympia areal and the F1 race course. As with most of the smaller IFR airfields also here there is no complicated SID (standard instrument Departure) route. You have to climb on a certain course up to a given altitude. Once airborne all the rest is regulated by ATC (Air Traffic Control) by means of radar vectors.

Unfortunately, our flight to La Grande Riviere mainly leads over closed cloud layers or completely thru the clouds. Thus our view on the untouched north Canadian nature and its’ vast sea area is mostly blocked.
After the birds still had to walk in the morning at the La Grande Riviere airport because of the bad weather, the ceiling has raised to 600 ft in the rain upon our RNAV approach. The approach is conducted completely "uncontrollably". On a given traffic frequency one announces the respective position to the remaining traffic. And on the airfield "radio" frequency you announce your intentions – it’s it.

The airport La Grande Riviere serves us as a stopover for our trip continuation to Iqaluit. In view of the tiny village we find the perfect infrastructure of this airport astonishing. AVGAS is available at the refueling station and in spite of the remote location the prices are not much higher, than elsewhere in Canada.
The taxi prices are a complete different story: One of the three local taxis brings to the hotel for an astronomical fare.

Not only by the weather reminds us at Siberia. Also the area here is called Taiga. Thus it is not surprising that, except of the caribou hunters in winter, almost nobody travels to this part of Canada.