Trek to Moose Factory - Febuary 2000

Day 2

2:30am came very early. Last night I had vivid dreams of hiking on ice and seeing it crack beneath me. I hope this does not mean anything. It is somewhat difficult to force

breakfast down at this ungodly hour. I quickly loaded up and headed north. Highway 11 is a very lonely road at 3:00 in the morning. I became cold very quickly and had to put my down pants and jacket on.

Fuel level was becoming critically low and I did not want to fumble with my jerry cans in –20 C weather. I found a 24 hour service station in Cobalt…gas is not cheap here, .76/L (it is .67/L at home). I pulled into the Cochrane train station at 8:30am, half an hour to spare. I met Ralph Nelson at the yard house and drove the rover onto the train. Took a few pictures of Ralph strapping the vehicle down. He was kind enough to offer me a ride back to the train station, but I declined as I thought the walk might take the numbness in my feet away.

I made a quick stop at the bank to get some cash, I’m not sure they take Visa where I am going. Looking forward to a good sleep on the train.

Arrived in Moosonee, it was very interesting to see a small town after travelling 41/2 hours without seeing any buildings.

pic?

Andrew was there to great me with his new snow machine. There was a bit of confusion as to where we were to pick up the rover. It was a couple of miles from the train station to the loading ramp. Good thing Andrew had means of transportation. We unloaded my vehicle and drove across the river to Moose Factory.

It was very unique driving on ice. The ice rises and falls with the tide, which makes the incline down to the river change by the hour. It was a very well maintained road, about as wide as a four-lane highway.

We had our first recovery task right in front of Andrew’s house. It began as a misunderstanding between Andrew and I. Andrew said, “follow him” to his house. So I did… right onto the snowmobile trail. I was soon buried over the axles in granular snow. Andrew tried to help by towing me a bit with his snowmobile. He only managed to cover the rover in snow. We tried again, and he succeeded in ripping the rear bar off of his machine. After an hour of digging trenches and jacking the vehicle, we soon realized this was going to be much more difficult to get out than I thought. It was beginning to become embarrassing as many people began peering out their windows. I hoped they didn’t see the sticker of my rover, which reads: “best 4x4x far”. We could not find anything solid to anchor the winch to and were getting very frustrated. I decided to break out the tire chains. Andrew laughed aloud, asking if I really thought they would work. I put one chain on the left front tire to try. It was amazing! The traction was almost like driving on the road. Mental note: chains are good…bring them when we go to Attawapiskat.

We decided that we would ski tomorrow and drive to Attawapiskat the following day.