The idea started when a good friend of mine up in Moose Factory was complaining of the boring long winters up there. Knowing very little of the area, I jokingly said why don’t I come up and visit. I quickly found that it would be a bit more involved than just hopping in the rover and driving to his door. There are no roads to Moose Factory; you must travel by rail to Moosonee and then cross the river to Moose Factory.

I began by trying to reserve a spot on the train for the land rover. This was more difficult than you would think. The first three phone numbers I was given for freight shipping were not in service, I finally got thorough to someone who could reserve a spot on the autoloader in Cochrane. Unfortunately, after I went through all of the booking procedures, I found that they were unable to book the return trip from their office. I had to call the Moosonee office to reserve a place on the return train. They seem to do things much different up there. I was expecting to receive some sort of confirmation number to prove that I indeed reserved my place on the train. They assured me that I was booked in because they “had my name on a slip of paper”.

As I packed up the night before, I could not help worrying whether I would get to Cochrane and find out there was no room on the train…. 11 hours is a long way to drive for nothing.