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Trans-Taiga Road (2004)

jamesbayroad.com

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Re: Trans-Taiga Road (2004)

#81

Post by nucleardog »

widforss wrote: post #70
nucleardog wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

the US, Denmark and France?

You got it.

After a long, protracted dispute with Denmark where we sent our respective militaries out to Hans Island to give each other gifts of Whiskey and Schnapps (known as "The Whisky War"), we finally settled on drawing a border down the middle of the island giving Canada and Greenland/Denmark a land border.

Canada shares a maritime border with France at St Pierre and Miquelon, a few islands off the coast of Newfoundland that are a French overseas territory.

Re: Trans-Taiga Road (2004)

#82

Post by sorokod »

nucleardog wrote: post #68
rob74 wrote: post #42

> 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…

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…

One of those countries has its longest land border in South America

Re: Trans-Taiga Road (2004)

#83

Post by LAC-Tech »

newyankee wrote: post #3

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

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

Re: Trans-Taiga Road (2004)

#84

Post by cgh »

rob74 wrote: post #42

> 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…

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.

Re: Trans-Taiga Road (2004)

#85

Post by volkl48 »

williamdclt wrote: post #61
linehedonist wrote: post #15

Note that all this information is 20 years old and is badly outdated. Many of the facilities mentioned (eg the Nouchimi Outfitters gas station) no longer exist. https://www.facebook.com/TabascoADV/photos/a.696618650541057...

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?

If you want to know what virtually any wildly remote road is like, one of the best places to check is usually where people doing motorcycle/off-road adventures post, like advrider.com

Someone, somewhere, has almost certainly gone there and done that, with pictures, documentation, and enough mentions of other things that you can look up for more details.

On that note, here's a 2021 trip from someone that I read a few months ago: https://forum.expeditionportal.com/threads/riding-the-most-r...

-------

But for a quick summary of what I got out of it/minor additional research:

- A few company (Hydro-Quebec) outposts of a few buildings each for workers out there at the hydro sites that are why the road exists and some rural airstrips for the same purpose. Presumably like any other isolated worksite in that sense.

- An outfitters near the mid-point with lodging, supplies, etc that seems to serve both the workers traveling the route and some tourism. Looks like some very good fishing out there and I see other notes on the internet of people trekking out that way to fish - both indigenous people and tourists. (Also quite pretty if you like the taiga + lakes environment).

- There appear to be some other travel groups that have some private camps in the region and fly people in for fishing via floatplane, too.

- Doesn't appear to be any other permanent settlement along the road.

Re: Trans-Taiga Road (2004)

#86

Post by madaxe_again »

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

Specific to the U.S., assuming no terrain clues - go NW, SE, SW, or NE, as most roads in the U.S. go N, S, E or W - mitigates the possibility of parallel tracking.

The latter - pick a direction, walk in a straight line.

Re: Trans-Taiga Road (2004)

#87

Post by vaindil »

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.

[0] http://www.donniedarko.org.uk

Re: Trans-Taiga Road (2004)

#88

Post by bravesoul2 »

moralestapia wrote: post #66
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

You could still do that parallel to a road.

The idea is to minimise tbe chance.

Re: Trans-Taiga Road (2004)

#89

Post by volkl48 »

hkleppe wrote: post #52
imaginator wrote: post #31

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 piece of the puzzle that you're missing is the dams at the far end of the road divert the Caniapiscau River into the La Grande River, which provides close to half the water that eventually feeds all of the generating stations downstream.

Additionally, the reservoirs formed are important for making the system provide reliable power to match demand - demand for power in Quebec peaks in the coldest parts of winter, and the natural peak of runoff/river flow....is not then.

So, the generation out there is useful but is not the primary reason why the road was built all the way out to there.

--------

No special insight on the difficulty/expense of constructing the transmission, but ~788MW of extremely cheap power forever for constructing/maintaining ~130mi of extra transmission doesn't seem completely improbable to work out financially, especially at the time.

I'll also note:

- Vegetation maintenance costs are probably low given how slow things grow out there.

- This was constructed long before the modern era of cheap(er) renewables.

- Even today, Quebec's location, weather, and time of year of peak demand make the calculation for solar's cost-effectiveness a lot harder.

Re: Trans-Taiga Road (2004)

#90

Post by skissane »

defrost wrote: post #47
skissane wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 luc…

In a truly life-threatening situation, the emergency authorities can send help by air

If they don’t and someone dies as a result, they are going to have an awful lot of explaining to do at the coronial inquiry, it isn’t going to end well for them

Of course I realise in this 1986 tragedy the coronial findings (whatever they were) seem to have made very little impact - but again, I think standards and expectations today are different from what they were almost 40 years ago

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