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September
2005 Travelogue
Page 1 of 8
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| Back to the James Bay region in September
again! I was hoping this time to reach the area during a period of
non-rainy weather, for once, but I was only partially successful.
My goal for this trip was to drive to the end of the
Trans-Taiga Road and back. The
Trans-Taiga Road is an extremely remote road that starts at km 544
of the James Bay Road and runs east
for 666 km, almost to Labrador. At the very end, you are 742 km from the
nearest town! For those of you new to this area ... the James Bay Road
starts six hours north of North Bay (Ontario) and proceeds north on the
Quebec side of James Bay for 620 km. There are only two towns on it,
Matagami at the beginning and Radisson at the end. Radisson is MUCH
farther north than Moosonee, which most people in Ontario think is
pretty far north. It's a huge empty land of wilderness, not spectacular
scenic-wise, but spectacular because of its remoteness. This was my 5th
trip up here.
 My article
about this trip is now up on the Canadian Geographic website:
www.canadiangeographic.ca/magazine/ND05/indepth/place.asp |
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I spent the usual day just getting
to the James Bay Road, and I
camped that night at Olga Lake, at km 48. Spectacular Sunset! It
rained later. |
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The next day was cool, windy and
overcast (sigh!).
I stopped at km 161 to stretch my legs and go for a short walk
up to the top of a ridge for the view. |
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Here's a panoramic movie of the view from the top
of this ridge
If you have a high speed broadband Internet
connection, choose the High resolution size (640x480).
Otherwise select the Regular resolution (320x240) size. |
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And further on I stopped at the Broadback River to go for a walk
upriver to look at the rapids. |
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Here's a movie of these rapids. |
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Along the trail I found these
leathery-looking mushrooms. |
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Then on to the spectacular
Rupert River and its huge
rapids. |
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This photo gives you a good idea
of why these rapids are called "Oatmeal Rapids" - because that's
what they will do to you if you try to run them. At least two
people have died trying. |
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These rapids may be no more after
2007. Hydro Quebec has plans to divert this river northward to
feed our voracious appetite for electric power. Yet, a little
conservation on our part will go a long ways towards preserving
places like this, of which there are so few left. Look around
you day or night. If you know what to look for, you will see
appalling waste when it comes to electricity usage. A couple
of years ago the Crees of this area voted in a controversial
referendum to approve this project. It was controversial because
it was rife with all the backroom dealing that characterizes
politics everywhere. However, a new chief has just been elected,
partially on a platform of environmental preservation. He
advocates building a wind generator farm instead. We'll see how
much he is able to do. |
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And just in case you're thinking right about now that
those rapids don't look so big... have a look at this movie of them.
If you can, download the High-res movie
and play it maximized with the sound turned up. This
will give you a sense of how big this river is.
More movies are available -
CLICK HERE |
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