DRIVING OFF THE MAP 🗺️ The TransTaiga Road | Northern Quebec (P3) // EFRT S8 EP 22

On the last stretch here you can see James Bay in the distance. Rough little road coming in here but we're taking our time and it's quite a milestone for us. We've made it all the way to James Bay. It's windy and rough out there. Winter, the plan for tonight is we're just going to get set up, up and get shelter, not going to cook anything outside and down for the night. James Bay is located on the southern end of Hudson's Bay, extending from the Arctic Ocean. It is a huge body of water covering an area of 68,300 square kilometers or 26,400 square miles. It's cold. A large portion of this area is part of the polar bear provincial park. Ringed seals are common in James Bay and polar bears can be seen hunting the seals as prey. Many species of fish and whales swim within its waters, including beluga whales. Despite bordering the Canadian provinces of Quebec and Ontario, the bay and the islands within it are actually a part of none of it. The only Canadian province or territory we haven't driven through yet. As with the rest of Hudson's Bay, the waters of James Bay routinely freeze over in the winter. It is the last part of Hudson's Bay to freeze over and the first to thaw in the summer. This morning we're just making some peanut butter and honey or Nutella toast with some coffee. It's a crispy one. Yesterday morning we woke up to high winds and about minus eight or ten. So this morning is a warm welcome because it's, I think, only minus three or so and hardly any wind. So it's a beautiful morning. We've just been watching the hunters. They're hunting some geese, going out on their boats, having their coffee. It is pretty and it's really neat. It's been on my bucket list to see ice packs or icebergs and they're right off the bay here. With our binoculars we can see them and it's really special. This honey is really frozen. It's barely moving around here. Being able to camp right on the shores of James Bay is a real privilege and even though we've been hunkered down here because of the high winds and the cold, it's just been exciting to walk along the shoreline and watch the tide come in and go back out and you can see big chunks of ice, which I guess is pack ice, that's floating out there on the bay. This is on Cree land so hunters from the Cree nation here head out on their little canoes and boats. You can hear one in the background. They just took off about five or six guys. It looks like they head back into the islands over there and they're hunting geese. The geese are returning this time of year and so we spoke with a gentleman yesterday and he told us how they fill their freezers with geese this time of year and that feeds them throughout the summer. It's been a real privilege to be able to spend some time here and really experience this place. Seeing this vehicle broke down on the side of the road was a timely reminder of the potential hazards and road conditions that we will face on the Trans-Tiaga road ahead. We decided to fuel up in Radisson before driving the 10 kilometers out of the town to get a glimpse of the huge embankment dams that helped to form the La Grande Reservoir. Radisson is a small town of about 500 people situated near the Robert Bourassa hydroelectric power station on the La Grande River. Despite its remoteness, Radisson has plenty of services for its residents and travelers. Two fuel stations, a hotel, motel, campground, and general store, restaurants, gift shops, a school, and a hospital. It is also home to a huge Hydro-Quebec employee facility servicing Canada's largest hydroelectric power station and the largest underground power station in the world. Rising out of the forest wilderness of Quebec is one of the biggest power projects ever undertaken by man. Of a multi-dam engineering feat that will harness 7 million horsepower almost a mile long when it is completed and back of the dam complex will be a man-made lake covering 800 square miles. 30,000 bags of cement are needed for an average working day as more than 3,000 men rush work on what will be Quebec's key resource to a more prosperous future. It is planned that the first power will be fed from the site in 1970 and the new industry attracted to the province will improve the standard of living as it creates thousands of jobs. Power means progress in the province of Quebec. Tours of the Robert Bourassa Dam can be arranged but we decided to drive up to a spot where you can overlook the reservoir and drive over the Legrand River spillway. The reservoir has a surface area of 2,835 square kilometers 1,095 square miles and is formed behind the Robert Bourassa Dam that was built across a valley of the Legrand River. This dam is 550 meters or 1800 feet wide at its base. It has 23 million cubic meters or 30 million cubic yards of fill. There are another 31 smaller dikes keeping the water inside the reservoir. That was kind of neat we just took a drive across the big dam here in Radisson and right now it looks like there's no overflow at all they've just got everything staying in the reservoir but pretty impressive feat of engineering. The reason the road was built the reason the town was built and all that and the road we're about to take the Trans-Taiga was all built for generating hydroelectricity and it's amazing what they've done but also I spoke with a fellow from the Cree Nation and it really affected their life as well so in northern Quebec there's a love-hate relationship depends who you talk to some people talk about the power of the rivers and the electricity it generates and others talk about all the damage that was done when you know thousands and thousands of acres were flooded when these dams went in so anyway we'll keep exploring the area and we'll take you with us. All right we're at the start of the Trans-Taiga we just pulled off the pavement and it's dirt from here on out so not too bad the first section they say but then after that it gets rougher. We're running at 40 because we're going on highways but now I'm probably going to drop it down to about 25 or so. Okay we've dropped the tires down to around 30 psi that should give us a bit better ride. I'm just going to roll up the hoses and go. The Trans-Taiga road is so named after the Taiga arboreal forest that it travels through. The Taiga forest has been called the world's largest land biome and covers about 17 million square kilometers or 6.6 million square miles which is 11 and a half percent of the earth's land area. The largest areas of Taiga forest are located in Russia, Alaska, and Canada. The forest is made up mostly of spruce, larch, and pine which are stunted in their growth due to the permafrost in the ground beneath them. These massive forests are home to magnificent animals including moose, caribou, black bear, and the Canadian lynx. The seemingly endless lakes and rivers are teeming with fish and the forests are alive with many species of birds including magnificent eagles and other large birds of prey. After several hours of travel it is time to find a spot for lunch and to stretch our legs. We're about 50 kilometers into the Trans-Taiga and we saw a little pull off to a camp so we pulled in here to make some lunch but as you can see behind the route's been washed out so looks like in the spring they had some damage it's impassable it's blocked off so we just turned around we're parked on the side of this little driveway here and making some some lunch. The garbage. Okay pretty cool at the end of each of these little camp spots that they've got all along both the James Bay Road and the Trans-Taiga there's always garbage bins at the end. Pack it in, pack it out, and then you don't have to carry it. We also just had a delicious lunch Carol somehow always pulls off the unthinkable. We had pizzas on the side of the road just amazing. All right so we've been pushing pretty hard we're at kilometer 200 and not quite as far as we thought we'd go today but it's a dusty road and Lando really wanted to get out so we just thought we'd stop here there's a gorgeous camp spot right beside a big river and we can fall asleep to the sound of the rapids over there so it's a good place to get a little hike in down to the river and we'll get some food going. So tonight's dinner is meatballs with ravioli and some fresh basil and I found this tomato sauce I think I threw it away one sec and it was amazing so if you guys are ever up here and you need tomato sauce get this it is really really good and I just added some shallots to it made it really simple but I think it's a super nice to be able to get a cozy meal like this and then just go into the inside of a jeep to be able to sit I think you can really see me but uh we have these chairs that are designed for sitting inside of tents they're nice low chairs this is I believe a helenox so same sort of style and then you can just sit in comfort no matter the weather Dan could go up into his room sleep I stayed on here with that sleeping pad that's why that's a mess over there I'd just pull that down and then put my pillow over there and move that shim on to the window and then I'd be set set for sleep but uh yeah it's actually a really nice system for just keeping a base jeep pretty much you just extend it by 14 inches add a full live-in camper and then it's pretty much a whole new vehicle all right so we've been staying at these nice little camps all the way along the trans taiga here and at some of them they have bathrooms and garbage disposal areas and stuff so it's always nice to leave a little bit of a tip they have a little mailbox where you can kind of donate to the camp so then they can keep it clean and keep it running nicely so that's what we are doing it wasn't a camera rolling I wouldn't have done that but you know now that it's filmed and people would think hey what a good person so that's why I did it so now we're just gonna continue on with the journey and I think tonight we have I think we're staying at a lodge of some kind so it might be nice to get a full shower and stuff like that yeah here we go we're just driving along the road and it's pretty neat yeah it looks like we're coming into probably just a mine that's a pretty big airstrip there right yeah what do you think the airstrip's for the mine or you know what I mean it's hydro and mining they probably fly crews in and out of here every couple months the Legrand 4 airport is a small airfield exclusively used by Hydro Quebec serving the Legrand 4 hydroelectric generating station and other Quebec hydro installations in the area as we travel on down the road we notice an overlook where we can get a great view of the huge containment walls that were built on this crazy he heard the blue jeep and so he was going and giving her just as fast as he could up that whole hill I thought his little legs were gonna fall off well he can barely breathe yeah it's quite the view up here of the deer let's go check it out looks like they have a observatory there well maybe your legs are on crazy there's still ice out in that lake over there it's chilly so this whole road was built for the hydroelectric project and you can see huge dams in the background there they dammed up the rivers and created these reservoirs we're getting way out in the middle of nowhere but it's funny every couple hours drive you run into these areas where there's activity we continue on along the trans taiga until we get to kilometer 358 and the mirage outfitters this is the only fuel station on the trans taiga so we will need to make sure we have enough in our tanks to drive to the end of the road and back this wilderness outpost is open year-round and is a hot spot for anglers and hunters it's a great stop along the way for fuel food and a hot shower i think this is the last fuel stop um we had an awesome shower it's nice and hot for about five minutes so that was great always a bonus um but yeah so we're just gonna keep on heading up and see how far we get lando you driving well we just got all fueled up both jeeps we got our auxiliary tanks full this uh blue jeep also has a 10 gallon fuel caddy on the back it's an aev it's part of the aev tire carrier you can also get a 10 gallon fuel caddy on there so we've got as much fuel i think as we need we'll definitely have enough range this is kilometer 381 last fuel stop as well as a full on lodge you can eat lunch like what we did dinner and shower so we just took a quick shower and ate grabbed some fuel and now we'll be heading up it's a it's about 750 clicks i think right to the very end of the road i think it says 666 kilometers of all things but uh it it is a further 751 right to the edge of where we're going so we definitely have the range to make it the roughly 500 clicks uh that it'll take to get there and back so i think we're good let's make it to the end of the taiga after another hour or so of driving we noticed a little offshoot and set up camp for the night yeah sure i don't think it goes too far but um it'd be good in here i think yeah we haven't seen a single car and if there is one there's probably like one yeah this is pretty remote up here join us next episode as we continue deeper into the wilderness of northern quebec and attempt to make it to the end of the trans taiga the most remote road in north america