I'm fascinated by these. Who are the people operating these places? Where do they live, what's their lifestyle? Who are the customers, what are their stories?
> Along this road is also the farthest north point you can travel on a road in eastern Canada.
Not to belittle the remoteness of this road, but I just find it interesting that the farthest north point you can travel on a road in eastern Canada is further south than most of Sweden (not to mention Norway or Iceland, which also have very extensive road networks). Another reminder of how important the Gulf Stream is for the climate of Europe...
Might be less surprising once you hear what Canadians mean when they say "Eastern Canada".
Canada's divided almost exactly in half with the top half (48% of the land area) being the territories (Yukon, Northwest Territory, Nunavut; collectively "Northern Canada") and the bottom half being the provinces.
When people say "Eastern Canada", they're referring to the Eastern provinces (Ontario, Quebec, the maritimes), and have already excluded the entire Northern half of the country. The nothernmost point of Eastern Canada is barely further north than the southern tip of Finland.
However if you look at Northern Canada, there's stuff like Alert, NU with roads and an air strip which is the northernmost continuously inhabited place in the world. It sits more than 1200km further north than the northernmost tip of Scandinavia.
My favourite Canadian geography fact: Canada shares borders with three countries. Two of those are land borders.
Re your Gulf Stream comment: Whitehorse, Yukon is roughly at the same latitude as Bergen, Norway. Bergen’s climate is temperate and similar to, say, Vancouver: rainy, a bit of snow in winter, rarely staying below freezing for long. The coldest temperature recorded is -17° back in 1987.
Whitehorse’s average daily low in winter is close to -20°, with common drops to around -40°. When I was a kid up in that area, I remember walking to school at around -30 to -40°. We also played outside in those temps, which seems a bit mad now.
Here’s the fun part: Whitehorse has the warmest climate in the Yukon.
I get that there are other factors, like coastal vs inland environments, but regardless, any disruption to the Gulf Stream is bad news indeed for Europe.
> Along this road is also the farthest north point you can travel on a road in eastern Canada.
There's always so much room for pedantry with statements like that. If eastern Canada includes Labrador (which it generally does), the town of Nain (which is further north) has roads that people drive cars on: https://maps.app.goo.gl/b1saMzzXKDQrHZQy6
Nain isn't connected to the rest of Canada's road network though, so it depends if one really means something like:
"this is as far north as I can take a long road trip in eastern Canada"
or
"this is as far north as I can be in a car, on a road, in eastern Canada, even if it is just a 1km ride from the airport on one side of town to the hotel on the other"
Its funny when I saw this road, I realised the distance is probably more than the N-S or E-W distance of Bangladesh , a country with > 171 million people last checked.
In fact barely equal to the diagonal length of the country.
How much ever one talks about fertile plains, tropical weather being able to support more people, this no is still bonkers to me
The low population density of central Canada is not because it's not fertile.
A few hundred kilometres south of the area in the article, is a vast clay belt of about half a million square kilometres. It's fertile. You can grow potatoes and oats and the usual garden vegetables up there. Somewhat settled on the Quebec side, and there are farms, but less than 5% of the area suitable for agriculture, is currently used for agriculture. It's a region about the size of France, and there are no large cities, and the total population is about 100,000.
That's not specific to this road. You could probably pick any 50,000 sq km area on the planet besides Bangladesh, and the population density would be several orders of magnitude lower than that of Bangladesh, except for maybe the few largest metropolitan areas in the world. Bangladesh can't support half its population, and Canada could probably support 10x its population, so one has to conclude that the wild difference in fertility rate is not as simple to explain as a function of how much land there is or how much food can be produced there.
Its funny when I saw this road, I realised the distance is probably more than the N-S or E-W distance of Bangladesh , a country with > 171 million people last checked.
I feel like you've just given the Canadian Government some ideas
I'm a fan of the Gibb River Road in northern Western Australia, it's around as long, has some beautiful gorges along the way for a little swimming, there's a river crossing at the Pentecost.
There are a few campsites along the way, and there is fuel at around the halfway point, and a town at each end, so it's not quite as far from civilisation as the Trans-taiga, plus you don't have to drive back the same way to get out! It's also significantly warmer, so much so that you want serious sunscreen and bugspray.
I find browsing around the map in remote Canada pretty interesting, especially the number of named settlements for which there appear to be absolutely no information or satellite evidence they exist. Take Roggan River: there’s a Wikipedia page claiming it’s a small village, and it’s on Google Maps, but there’s nothing identifiably there, and there’s no further information I can find online. The map is littered with these.
From personal experience, there's over a dozen fly-in communities in the Northwest Territories. No roads, the only way to reach them is snowmobiling in the winter or taking a plane from Yellowknife.
My understanding is that Northern Quebec and Ontario are similar, lots of very small indigenous communities that still follow pre-colonial practices. They would get supplies by plane or by boat. It's not surprising a settlement with 50 people is hard to find on satellite.
Only a few of the villages on and about the Amistustikwach will have visible road access and cleared land plots. Many will blend in with the landscape and have river access.
Intersting! I know that in the contiguous USA, you will never be more than 20 miles from a road no matter where you are, but have no idea how far one can drive from a town.
For the curious, I think that number comes from these people and is actually 21.7 miles, includes any kind of drivable surface, (like beaches and unmaintained private roads), and excludes anything that is too wet (like the middle of the great lakes or a flood plain).
no settlements or towns aside from Hydro Quebec's settlements for workers (these are private and are not open to the public - they will kick you out)
Will they really kick a passing driver out when it's freezing outside? Heck, wherever the population is this sparse and conditions are this harsh people normally actively invite you to their places. This sounds so weird.
> people normally actively invite you to their places.
I've recently watched a Youtube vlog made by some tourists who went there on motorbikes and they stopped just to have a look at one of the Hydro settlement, they were invited in, given coffee and when they mentioned they wanted to find a spot nearby to pitch a tent they were told they could sleep in a hut that was unused at the time. So I guess they are indeed very nice with passersby, I guess they just have a general "rule" because they don't want travellers to rely on them.
One of the most memorable cycle touring blogs I have read is of Bill St Onge's tour down this road.
In addition to the natural difficulty of cycling this extremely remote road (both ways), he was dousing himself in so much bug repellent that his heart was constantly racing (he thought he was going to have a heart attack) and he was hallucinating (IIRC) a giant bear that was stalking him.
As soon as I read "gravel road" I instantly started thinking about what it would be like to cycle it. I think I'm going to have to get hold of that book.
It looks like the road was constructed to serve the four hydro facilities that generate power for Montreal. https://openinframap.org/#7.12/53.8/-74.103/A,B,E,I,L,O,P,T show's the hydro facilities and power lines weaving their way down to Montreal.
Relatively long distances of road and power transmission lines to reach the two most remote locations. Especially considering they seem to be limited in capacity (only 319 and 469MW).
Curious to know if something bigger was in the plans, or perhaps the road also have/had other uses?
The average consumption of residential and agricultural customers is relatively high, at 16,857 kWh per year in 2011,[119] because of the widespread use of electricity as the main source of space (77%) and water heating (90%).[124] Hydro-Québec estimates that heating accounts for more than one half of the electricity demand in the residential sector.[125]
I absolutely love websites like this that have a ton of information about a very niche topic. No ads or monetization, just someone who put together a very detailed website about something they love.
I think my first encounter with a website like this was for the movie Donnie Darko, which I found after I first watched the movie and was trying to understand the story. The website is still up! [0]
If anyone has examples of similar websites, I would absolutely love to read them.
[+] [-] linehedonist|9 months ago|reply
[+] [-] williamdclt|9 months ago|reply
[+] [-] BeFlatXIII|9 months ago|reply
[+] [-] rob74|9 months ago|reply
Not to belittle the remoteness of this road, but I just find it interesting that the farthest north point you can travel on a road in eastern Canada is further south than most of Sweden (not to mention Norway or Iceland, which also have very extensive road networks). Another reminder of how important the Gulf Stream is for the climate of Europe...
[+] [-] nucleardog|9 months ago|reply
Canada's divided almost exactly in half with the top half (48% of the land area) being the territories (Yukon, Northwest Territory, Nunavut; collectively "Northern Canada") and the bottom half being the provinces.
When people say "Eastern Canada", they're referring to the Eastern provinces (Ontario, Quebec, the maritimes), and have already excluded the entire Northern half of the country. The nothernmost point of Eastern Canada is barely further north than the southern tip of Finland.
However if you look at Northern Canada, there's stuff like Alert, NU with roads and an air strip which is the northernmost continuously inhabited place in the world. It sits more than 1200km further north than the northernmost tip of Scandinavia.
My favourite Canadian geography fact: Canada shares borders with three countries. Two of those are land borders.
[+] [-] cgh|9 months ago|reply
Whitehorse’s average daily low in winter is close to -20°, with common drops to around -40°. When I was a kid up in that area, I remember walking to school at around -30 to -40°. We also played outside in those temps, which seems a bit mad now.
Here’s the fun part: Whitehorse has the warmest climate in the Yukon.
I get that there are other factors, like coastal vs inland environments, but regardless, any disruption to the Gulf Stream is bad news indeed for Europe.
[+] [-] lastofthemojito|9 months ago|reply
There's always so much room for pedantry with statements like that. If eastern Canada includes Labrador (which it generally does), the town of Nain (which is further north) has roads that people drive cars on: https://maps.app.goo.gl/b1saMzzXKDQrHZQy6
Nain isn't connected to the rest of Canada's road network though, so it depends if one really means something like:
"this is as far north as I can take a long road trip in eastern Canada" or "this is as far north as I can be in a car, on a road, in eastern Canada, even if it is just a 1km ride from the airport on one side of town to the hotel on the other"
[+] [-] nkrisc|9 months ago|reply
[+] [-] gosub100|9 months ago|reply
[+] [-] newyankee|9 months ago|reply
In fact barely equal to the diagonal length of the country. How much ever one talks about fertile plains, tropical weather being able to support more people, this no is still bonkers to me
[+] [-] retrac|9 months ago|reply
A few hundred kilometres south of the area in the article, is a vast clay belt of about half a million square kilometres. It's fertile. You can grow potatoes and oats and the usual garden vegetables up there. Somewhat settled on the Quebec side, and there are farms, but less than 5% of the area suitable for agriculture, is currently used for agriculture. It's a region about the size of France, and there are no large cities, and the total population is about 100,000.
You can even see the Quebec/Ontario border from space in some spots, because the Ontario side is wholly undeveloped: https://www.google.com/maps/@48.7805302,-79.5591059,52996m/
[+] [-] noduerme|9 months ago|reply
[+] [-] LAC-Tech|9 months ago|reply
I feel like you've just given the Canadian Government some ideas
[+] [-] unknown|9 months ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] Nursie|9 months ago|reply
There are a few campsites along the way, and there is fuel at around the halfway point, and a town at each end, so it's not quite as far from civilisation as the Trans-taiga, plus you don't have to drive back the same way to get out! It's also significantly warmer, so much so that you want serious sunscreen and bugspray.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibb_River_Road
[+] [-] petesergeant|9 months ago|reply
[+] [-] gdbsjjdn|9 months ago|reply
My understanding is that Northern Quebec and Ontario are similar, lots of very small indigenous communities that still follow pre-colonial practices. They would get supplies by plane or by boat. It's not surprising a settlement with 50 people is hard to find on satellite.
[+] [-] defrost|9 months ago|reply
The google map pins are pretty approximate.
[+] [-] jedberg|9 months ago|reply
[+] [-] mgerdts|9 months ago|reply
[+] [-] bombcar|9 months ago|reply
[+] [-] shkkmo|9 months ago|reply
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42104894
[+] [-] moralestapia|9 months ago|reply
(Assuming nothing kills you in nature)
Edit: Wait, no. You could be extremely unlucky and be walking parallel to the closest road, lol.
[+] [-] smikhanov|9 months ago|reply
[+] [-] mastazi|9 months ago|reply
I've recently watched a Youtube vlog made by some tourists who went there on motorbikes and they stopped just to have a look at one of the Hydro settlement, they were invited in, given coffee and when they mentioned they wanted to find a spot nearby to pitch a tent they were told they could sleep in a hut that was unused at the time. So I guess they are indeed very nice with passersby, I guess they just have a general "rule" because they don't want travellers to rely on them.
[+] [-] nsavage|9 months ago|reply
[+] [-] mousethatroared|9 months ago|reply
[+] [-] ghssds|9 months ago|reply
[+] [-] wmitty|9 months ago|reply
In addition to the natural difficulty of cycling this extremely remote road (both ways), he was dousing himself in so much bug repellent that his heart was constantly racing (he thought he was going to have a heart attack) and he was hallucinating (IIRC) a giant bear that was stalking him.
He has taken the blog down, so I can't link it - presumably because he has published a book - https://www.amazon.com/Cycling-Quebecs-Trans-Taiga-Road-Wild...
[+] [-] Lio|9 months ago|reply
[+] [-] shmerl|9 months ago|reply
[+] [-] imaginator|9 months ago|reply
[+] [-] hkleppe|9 months ago|reply
Curious to know if something bigger was in the plans, or perhaps the road also have/had other uses?
[+] [-] jdkee|9 months ago|reply
The average consumption of residential and agricultural customers is relatively high, at 16,857 kWh per year in 2011,[119] because of the widespread use of electricity as the main source of space (77%) and water heating (90%).[124] Hydro-Québec estimates that heating accounts for more than one half of the electricity demand in the residential sector.[125]
[+] [-] retrac|9 months ago|reply
[+] [-] vaindil|9 months ago|reply
I think my first encounter with a website like this was for the movie Donnie Darko, which I found after I first watched the movie and was trying to understand the story. The website is still up! [0]
If anyone has examples of similar websites, I would absolutely love to read them.
[0] http://www.donniedarko.org.uk
[+] [-] deadbabe|9 months ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|9 months ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] nancyloure|9 months ago|reply
[deleted]