Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Trans-Taiga Road (2004)

jamesbayroad.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 97 posts

Re: Trans-Taiga Road (2004)

#41

Post by retrac »

noduerme wrote: post #37
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…

Fascinating! The border between Quebec and Ontario looks like the Mexican border with the US, or the Israeli border with Egypt, but this is all in the same country, Canada. In the US you can see some traces of this between Nevada and California or Idaho and Oregon, due to different laws and tax structures. Obviously if it's a sharp difference in land use along an arbitrary imaginary line, it must be due to the govern…

Different history of colonization policy in Quebec and Ontario. Colonization in Ontario was shut down in the 1930s during the Great Depression. In Quebec, formal colonization was more tightly integrated with the Church, had more institutional support, and officially continued until 1973. There were still government-backed homesteading projects in the 1960s in Quebec. Also, on the Ontario side in the early 20th century there was no road/rail connection except via Quebec. Which meant that development in the region was tied more to Quebec than southern Ontario. And Ontario had little reason to support that. So it remained government land on the Ontario side. Or at least that's how I understand it.

Re: Trans-Taiga Road (2004)

#42

Post by rob74 »

> 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...

Re: Trans-Taiga Road (2004)

#43

Post by skissane »

defrost wrote: post #40
skissane wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keep in mind that tragedy happened all the way back in 1986. Anyone doing the same kind of work today (bore maintenance in extremely remote Australian desert) likely has a Personal Locator Beacon-which can be used to transmit your location to the authorities in an emergency via satellite. Dramatically increases the odds of being rescued promptly if stranded.

Same time as I was doing similar work in the same area, same time the Pintupi Nine popped up wondering who all these pale people are. > likely has Yeah, mostly the case but certainly not all .. had they been available at the time it'd be unlikely that pair would have been given an EPIRB given the run down economic state of the pastoral station then. If you want an EPIRB success story for those that are routinely well…

If your employer doesn’t supply one for that sort of work, they need to be reported to the OH&S authorities. That said, you can always bring your own. If it were my kid in that scenario I’d buy one for them.

Another factor: currently satellite-based SMS is becoming increasingly available - I just got a message from Telstra the other day telling me it had been enabled on my service (using Starlink direct-to-cell). In years to come it is going to become ever more mainstream. So even if you don’t have an emergency beacon, so long as you have a sufficiently recent mobile phone…

Re: Trans-Taiga Road (2004)

#44

Post by noduerme »

retrac wrote: post #41
noduerme wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fascinating! The border between Quebec and Ontario looks like the Mexican border with the US, or the Israeli border with Egypt, but this is all in the same country, Canada. In the US you can see some traces of this between Nevada and California or Idaho and Oregon, due to different laws and tax structures. Obviously if it's a sharp difference in land use along an arbitrary imaginary line, it must be due to the govern…

Different history of colonization policy in Quebec and Ontario. Colonization in Ontario was shut down in the 1930s during the Great Depression. In Quebec, formal colonization was more tightly integrated with the Church, had more institutional support, and officially continued until 1973. There were still government-backed homesteading projects in the 1960s in Quebec. Also, on the Ontario side in the early 20th centur…

Thanks for the history. Very interesting. I guess Ontario still isn't interested in trying to farm land further north now..? The last time I was in Australia (15 years ago), I met a French chef in the middle of nowhere in the Northern Territory (he walked out of the bush with a can of kangaroo meat to say hello) who told me he was being paid something like $500 per month by the government just to live out in the middle of nowhere and homestead, which I found astonishing.

Re: Trans-Taiga Road (2004)

#45

Post by orthoxerox »

cyberax wrote: post #30
bix6 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes, and no one sane invests into agriculture around Moscow when there's much more warmer and fertile land down south. Factory farms and greenhouses? Yes, certainly, but this is driven by the food demands of a massive metropolis next door: move east or west far enough to offset this benefit and you will see scenes of rural decay.

Re: Trans-Taiga Road (2004)

#46

Post by antupis »

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?

It depends, like here in Finland, there is lots of farmland and active farms, but most is at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humid_continental_climate , Norway also has a lot of farms in subarctic areas like this in the article, but Norway is substituting farming very heavily even European standards.

Re: Trans-Taiga Road (2004)

#47

Post by defrost »

skissane wrote: post #43
defrost wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same time as I was doing similar work in the same area, same time the Pintupi Nine popped up wondering who all these pale people are. > likely has Yeah, mostly the case but certainly not all .. had they been available at the time it'd be unlikely that pair would have been given an EPIRB given the run down economic state of the pastoral station then. If you want an EPIRB success story for those that are routinely well…

If your employer doesn’t supply one for that sort of work, they need to be reported to the OH&S authorities. That said, you can always bring your own. If it were my kid in that scenario I’d buy one for them. Another factor: currently satellite-based SMS is becoming increasingly available - I just got a message from Telstra the other day telling me it had been enabled on my service (using Starlink direct-to-cell). In…

.. then you're golden and just waiting for some one to pop on out the David Carnegie Road, or out into the Tanami.

Communication is only part of the issue here.

In the above linked recent incident the police when contacted couldn't make it out from Kalgoorlie (despite an initial indication) and handed off to a station owner who was able to make a 600 km+ round trip across a broken road to resupply water.

That was lucky, and luck doesn't always land.

Re: Trans-Taiga Road (2004)

#48

Post by decimalenough »

antupis wrote: post #46
bix6 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It depends, like here in Finland, there is lots of farmland and active farms, but most is at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humid_continental_climate , Norway also has a lot of farms in subarctic areas like this in the article, but Norway is substituting farming very heavily even European standards.

*subsidizing

Re: Trans-Taiga Road (2004)

#49

Post by decimalenough »

orthoxerox wrote: post #45
cyberax wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can grow plenty of food there: wheat, potatoes, apples, cabbage, etc. It's roughly at the same latitude as Moscow.

Yes, and no one sane invests into agriculture around Moscow when there's much more warmer and fertile land down south. Factory farms and greenhouses? Yes, certainly, but this is driven by the food demands of a massive metropolis next door: move east or west far enough to offset this benefit and you will see scenes of rural decay.

That's because small-scale farming is not sufficient profitable, not because it's not possible. You can find scenes of rural decay in most any industrialized country.

Re: Trans-Taiga Road (2004)

#50

Post by smikhanov » 

    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.
Post reply on HN