It rained and rained during the night. The cooler temperatures and our screen kept bugs at bay and we slept wonderfully. Fully rested and it is truly grand to sleep in the cool!! We could keep our back window open all night!
It was still raining when we awoke so we had to break down camp in the rain. It means having a wet canopy and screen next time we put them up, but it is what it is! The temperature once we started out was in the mid 40s!! LOVELY! It was also very windy and the trees were just waving and waving as we drove by.
Our journey is a long one as we want to get to the end of the road, two destinations actually, Radisson and Chisasbibi. It depends on which road you count. Radisson is the end of the James Bay Highway and it literally ended with a sign that says Fin (French for End). Chisasbibi is a Cree town off the James Bay Highway but you have to go this route if you want to see James Bay, which is part of Hudson Bay, which is part of the Arctic Ocean. Yes, it is pretty amazing!!
The road we traveled is paved, so to speak. It was also very bumpy, with “waves” where your vehicle feels like a roller coaster, and holes (OUCH) and cracks and some varying degrees of all of the stated. There was little traffic and some of it was being “fixed”. We saw more than one highway worker wearing a parka under their bright neon orange/yellow since it was so cold. We had stoplights so we could wait for no cars, and sometimes cars, we followed pilot trucks since some stretches were bigger than others, we wove around cones on our own as that seemed to be what was expected. We bounced and bounced and made good time. How bouncy was it? Well, my FitBit said I got in 10,000 steps by the end of the day. We spent most of the day driving! That bouncy!! Our phones also registered steps, not quite 10,000 but up close.
We saw so many roads tucked into the endless trees. Where were they going on this road? We saw “cabins” for lack of a better word, sporadically placed. Worker cabins? Hunting or fishing cabins?? Many were definitely not new, but some showed newer windows, so ??
At the beginning of our journey we had to sign in so they knew we were “out there.” They gave us a kilometer by kilometer of things to look out for, starting with the campsite for last night.
We aimed for Riviere Rupert (Rupert River) and my oh my it was very impressive. The sign, in both French and Cree (more on the Cree later), but the guidebook we picked up said it was a “powerful” river and that it was. The water cascaded down over rocks and into rocks and it is just hard to describe. It was gorgeous and put out some powerful breezes and mist! The observation decks were actually close to the edge so you could be sort of up close and personal. There were two more decks indicated so we drove across a very old bridge and hiked just a bit on a not often traveled path to those two platforms. Closer to the rapids. The only curious things was the color of the water. It was brown, like coffee watered down just a bit, or perhaps tea? We have video so you can see it for yourself when you see us.
We gave up our Lupine flowers from the coast and are now entranced with the beautiful orange and yellow ones that are everywhere, even clutching on to rocks and amid gravel roads. They stand tall but the foliage is close to the ground and the flowers are tiny, about the size of a dime! They are a burnt orange color or a yellow color. Lovely!!
We are driving through the taiga and it is stark and beautiful. Taiga is the evergreen forests of high northern altitude, and sometimes they are a bit swampy. There are little tiny swamps and big giant lakes, these trees being more “scraggly” looking. Some parts were recovering from a fire at some point. The trees were charred and the ground just green, nothing tall yet. Rocks and lichen (lovely light-colored moss) popped up more frequently. Stark but amazing at the same time. We saw signs for moose and caribou but saw neither.
I was driving at this point, really wanting to drive until the road ended!! I sort of missed a turn (Cheryl took the wrong dam road) , and wound up at the end of a road, just now the right one. That happens to me a lot. :) From the literature we got, we knew that back in the early 1970s they built a hydroelectric facility. This facility was considered the “the great project of the century.” It caused a lot of problems originally with the Cree and Inuit Native Peoples as this would have been highly disruptive. The power plant is actually underground!! The entire project is roughly the size of New York State and is one of the largest in the world. We found a wooden tower we walked up to see the entire area in full scale 360 awesomeness. We then drove back and drove over the dam and looked over the “step” spillway. Each is 10’ tall and is the size of 2 football fields. What a wondrous feat!
Andrew then drove us into Radisson and we got gas first thing We had planned to get some earlier and there was an area devoted to those driving this long drive. Gasoline, a restaurant, some accommodations, etc. BUT the facility had been struck by lightning during the storms the night before so didn’t take credit cards!! To luck our truck has a giant tank so we really didn’t NEED gas but we want to keep it topped off. There were three gas stations in Radisson according to the book. We found 2 and one didn’t have gas pumps. The other did and the gas was more expensive than usual. But we would need it eventually. After we got gas, we found the true end of the road and then headed back out. The town boasts about 300-500 people (depending on the source) but it feels like more. During the 70s construction of the plant, it topped out at about 2500. It was established in 1974 to accommodate the workers needed to build the hydro-electric plant and people just stayed. There were two restaurants as well but opted to head to Chisasbibi as it was back down the road a bit and then an hour drive to the bay.
The road to Chisasbibi wasn’t part of the James Bay Highway but it was paved. We were thinking how great it was and then we hit some waves, holes, cracks. It is what it is when you leave north!! We bypassed the town so we could get to the bay. We topped a small little hill and there it was, James Bay. And on the beaches were boats, just tied up ready to go. Most of them looked like canoes, with the back end squared to support a motor. We stepped in, and it wasn’t cold. We have now stepped into the Arctic Ocean it two parts!! We talk about the importance of Hudson Bay early in the colonization of Canada, and actually the USA in 5th and 6th grade Social Studies. So it was extra special to step foot here.
Andrew eyed the island just a little ways out, and thought about getting our kayaks out. Two reasons, one of which we haven’t been able to get them out yet due to wave and water conditions, and two, that island was in the province of Nunavut!! But we were on Cree land and almost everything here required permission from the Cree Council. We noticed a small watering hole that had lots of geese in it on our way in. I thought they looked odd but didn’t give them a second thought until we left. They were fake. Why?? To draw some in (Hey, look geese, land here!!) as they depend on the migrating geese for food or ?? At home we try to get rid of them!! Perhaps the migrating geese thought they looked “off” too and just fly on by.
The Cree have inhabited this area along with several other communities south and north, and some only accessible by boat or plane, for more than 5000 years. They were a nomadic tribe until the the early 1800s when the Hudson Bay Company founded Fort George, an island in the mouth of the La Grande River. The Cree then abandoned their nomadic way of life and and settle nearby on the island. There are special laws the protect their (and the Inuit further north) and some areas require strict approval, like hunting and fishing to protect their way of life and survival. Other areas have similar protections but are “looser” so to speak but it is common to ask for permission anyway as it shows respect for their way of life. We weren’t sure if kayaking across their land was accepted or not. We weren’t hunting or fishing, but….
When the hydro-electric plant was built, part of Fort George island eroded due to the increased water flow, so the Quebec Government offered to move their village mainland, moving some 200 houses. The village itself hosts 2 restaurants, one we couldn’t find and one closed, a convenience store, where we bought a few supplies, and no campground. Oh. Hmm. Different sources put the population at between 3000-4000 today. We drove around and, unfortunately, nothing caught our fancy. The Cultural Center looked like a rectangular teepee but didn’t open until later the next morning, after we needed to leave. It really looked like most small towns!
We didn’t want to drive back to Radisson (which was founded by a gentleman who founded the Hudson Bay Company after he was awarded the charter for this land by King Charles II, his name being Pierre-Esprit Radisson. So we headed on back down the highway from whence we just came!! How far should we drive? That was the big question. There was a rustic campground but it was another 8 km drive from the main road. Most of the roads leading off the highway were rock and not often traveled by the looks of them. Next stop, a campground next to the Beaver River. Perfect. Outhouses? Check. Andrew pulled in and headed to the river to get a glance while I checked out the facilities. Andrew came walking back quickly, and I noticed at the same time. OMG. HORDES of mosquitoes, AGAIN. Since it was 9:30 we just hopped into the back and didn’t set up the canopy. Long driving days are long days so we were tired.
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