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SHESHATSHIU, N.L. - The Olympic flame was welcomed with grace and warmth on the Sheshatshiu Innu Nation yesterday with no sign of aboriginal protests that some feared could herald its arrival.

"I was not concerned at all about any kind of protest," said local torch relay organizer Rena Penashue after more than 200 people in this enclave of 1,500 welcomed the flame with traditional song and dance.

"This community knows how to celebrate," she said after the relay moved on to North West River and later Happy Valley-Goose Bay, about 30 kilometres away.

It was all part of a big day in the Big Land as the flame arrived in Labrador on Remembrance Day for its grand entrance into Atlantic Canada.

"The Olympic flame is probably never coming back to Sheshatshiu," said an emotional and clearly delighted Penashue.

"This moment was very historical for them," she said of the dozens of children who waved small Olympic flags and crowded around the television cameras.

"I think they'll remember it for the rest of their lives -- a story that they can probably tell their grandchildren."

Thirty-nine torch bearers in five communities -- Wabush-Labrador City, Canadian Forces Base Goose Bay, Sheshatshiu, North West River and Happy Valley-Goose Bay -- carried the sleek baton.

Sheshatshiu is too often in the news for the wrong reasons, mostly related to social problems caused by heavy drinking. Booze-fuelled domestic calls to the RCMP eclipse the numbers seen in communities of similar size.

A particularly nasty incident last Friday night made headlines after a Mountie wound up shooting at his own cruiser. The police car was allegedly hijacked and driven at police by a man officers had been trying to arrest at a house party. The suspect is now accused of resisting arrest and assaulting a police officer with a weapon, among other charges.

But on Wednesday evening the mood was buoyant as residents greeted the torch and those who carried it. They ran in brisk below-freezing temperatures under a clear, starry sky.

The torch relay was disrupted by anti-Olympics protesters as it began its cross-country journey almost two weeks ago in Victoria. Demonstrators came out to jeer in a bid to shift the Olympic spotlight to concerns ranging from homelessness to aboriginal land-claim disputes.

Peter Penashue, deputy grand chief of the Sheshatshiu Innu Nation, is in the midst of negotiating a massive land claim deal.