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Trans-Taiga Road (2004)

jamesbayroad.com

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Re: Trans-Taiga Road (2004)

#21

Post by brudgers »

moralestapia wrote: post #14
jedberg wrote: post #6

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.

So if you're ever lost, you just walk? (Assuming nothing kills you in nature) Edit: Wait, no. You could be extremely unlucky and be walking parallel to the closest road, lol.

Assuming nothing kills you in nature

Weather is the only likely natural hazard outside polar bear country (and to a lesser extent grizzly country because grizzlies are less likely to see you as food). And if you are in polar bear country weather is extreme.

But as the saying goes “there is no bad weather just poor clothing choices.”

Re: Trans-Taiga Road (2004)

#22

Post by labster »

bravesoul2 wrote: post #18
moralestapia wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if you're ever lost, you just walk? (Assuming nothing kills you in nature) Edit: Wait, no. You could be extremely unlucky and be walking parallel to the closest road, lol.

Nerd snipe: given a compass and dropped in a random location what is the best strategy (based on direction assuming no clues from terrain) of finding a road. E.g. strategy might be 1000 steps south then 1000 east, repeat. Nerd snipe 2. Same without a compass or any sense of direction. Assume you can accurately make a 90 degree turn and count steps

Honestly I’d just walk downhill. Most human settlements are on rivers, most roads take the lowest passes. At night, I’d just walk in the direction of the sky that’s glowing the most.

Re: Trans-Taiga Road (2004)

#23

Post by [deleted] »

bravesoul2 wrote: post #18
moralestapia wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if you're ever lost, you just walk? (Assuming nothing kills you in nature) Edit: Wait, no. You could be extremely unlucky and be walking parallel to the closest road, lol.

Nerd snipe: given a compass and dropped in a random location what is the best strategy (based on direction assuming no clues from terrain) of finding a road. E.g. strategy might be 1000 steps south then 1000 east, repeat. Nerd snipe 2. Same without a compass or any sense of direction. Assume you can accurately make a 90 degree turn and count steps

[deleted]

Re: Trans-Taiga Road (2004)

#24

Post by petesergeant »

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.

Re: Trans-Taiga Road (2004)

#25

Post by jedberg »

bonzini wrote: post #13
jedberg wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Updated my comment because you're right, I meant contiguous USA. And I'm aware it's about Canada, which is why I said "I wonder what the answer to this same question is for the USA". :)

You probably want contiguous rather than continental. Continental does include Alaska but not Hawaii or US territories.

You're right, and I edited my comment accordingly, but I asked Google and got this interesting AI response, so I guess a lot of people on the internet make the same mistake, since AI just echos its training data:

The term "Continental United States" (CONUS) generally refers to the 48 contiguous states plus the District of Columbia, excluding Alaska and Hawaii. It encompasses the landmass of the United States located on the North American continent. While sometimes confused with the "contiguous United States," which also refers to the 48 states, "continental" specifically emphasizes the geographical location on the continent.

Re: Trans-Taiga Road (2004)

#26

Post by jedberg »

School-Cotton wrote: post #17
moralestapia wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if you're ever lost, you just walk? (Assuming nothing kills you in nature) Edit: Wait, no. You could be extremely unlucky and be walking parallel to the closest road, lol.

Walking in a spiral pattern (where the layers of the spiral are close enough that if you look toward the center, you can always see the point where you were on the previous layer) will guarantee that you eventually see all points on any given radius.

That could be an awful lot of walking though.

Re: Trans-Taiga Road (2004)

#27

Post by jonah-archive »

labster wrote: post #22
bravesoul2 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nerd snipe: given a compass and dropped in a random location what is the best strategy (based on direction assuming no clues from terrain) of finding a road. E.g. strategy might be 1000 steps south then 1000 east, repeat. Nerd snipe 2. Same without a compass or any sense of direction. Assume you can accurately make a 90 degree turn and count steps

Honestly I’d just walk downhill. Most human settlements are on rivers, most roads take the lowest passes. At night, I’d just walk in the direction of the sky that’s glowing the most.

Melville (roughly) agrees -- from the first chapter of Moby-Dick:

---

Once more. Say you are in the country; in some high land of lakes. Take almost any path you please, and ten to one it carries you down in a dale, and leaves you there by a pool in the stream. There is magic in it. Let the most absent-minded of men be plunged in his deepest reveries—stand that man on his legs, set his feet a-going, and he will infallibly lead you to water, if water there be in all that region. Should you ever be athirst in the great American desert, try this experiment, if your caravan happen to be supplied with a metaphysical professor. Yes, as every one knows, meditation and water are wedded for ever.

---

Re: Trans-Taiga Road (2004)

#28

Post by rafram »

brudgers wrote: post #21
moralestapia wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if you're ever lost, you just walk? (Assuming nothing kills you in nature) Edit: Wait, no. You could be extremely unlucky and be walking parallel to the closest road, lol.

Assuming nothing kills you in nature Weather is the only likely natural hazard outside polar bear country (and to a lesser extent grizzly country because grizzlies are less likely to see you as food). And if you are in polar bear country weather is extreme. But as the saying goes “there is no bad weather just poor clothing choices.”

If you’re lost in the wilderness, hunger and thirst are the real concerns.

Re: Trans-Taiga Road (2004)

#30

Post by cyberax »

bix6 wrote: post #11
retrac wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fo…

Does it matter if it’s fertile though? Isn’t the climate there the limiting factor on ag?

You can grow plenty of food there: wheat, potatoes, apples, cabbage, etc.

It's roughly at the same latitude as Moscow.

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