The long drive up to Attawapiskat
It’s Ontario’s most northern road — so we drove it,
“You drove — that? All the way up here? Along the ice road?”
ATTAWAPISKAT, ONT.— People in this isolated native community viewed our Toyota RAV4 with wide-eyed surprise. The only road here is a six-hour drive on the ice from Moosonee along the shoreline of James Bay, and almost every vehicle is a pickup truck. Our cute ute betrayed that we were rookies from the south.
The RAV, however, felt quite at home on the slippery highway, equipped as it was with aggressive winter tires, seat warmers, satellite radio and a block heater for the extreme cold. Toyota lent it to the Star’s Jim Coyle and myself so that we could visit this community now that the winter road is open to light traffic.
To get here, we first had to drive north to Cochrane, a long and tedious 713 kilometres, and then put the Toyota on a train for the final 360 kilometres north to Moosonee. For most of the year, Moosonee is the end of the line, but for a couple of months in winter, an ice road is built to truck supplies up to the Bay’s three communities, as well as the local diamond mine.
In Moosonee, the sky was brilliantly clear and the temperature was a bonechilling 33 degrees below. Chained to an open wagon on the train, the RAV was caked in six hours of packed and wind-blasted snow, but its engine and seats warmed rapidly to provide us a comfortable cocoon in the harsh environment. We took the time for a tour of the small town and to buy some last-minute supplies before setting out on the ice road.
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The road, well signed, is patrolled by the OPP, though we saw no police during our northbound drive. We mostly came across road crews flooding, plowing and otherwise manicuring this ribbon of ice. Huge water tankers, wearing what can only be described as thick sweaters to insulate them from freezing, suck up water from the rivers using massive pumps. At the banks where the road dips down to the river, massive amounts of snow are needed to build up the incline to a gentle rise and fall.
The road is a “drive-at-your-own-risk” proposition, and in late January it’s still only open to “light vehicles.” The ice has an average thickness of 35 inches at the road’s river crossings, and it needs to be 43 inches thick before heavy loads of up to 45,000 kg are permitted onto it. This isn’t aconcern for us in the RAV, of course —we didn’t have to worry about overloading it with equipment and supplies. We also kept close to the speed limit of 50 km/h, though locals are known to drive much more quickly.
The winter tires proved themselves, too, gripping both the snow-packed road and the smooth hard-pack ice. Being bred-inthe-bone Torontonians, we don’t own a single winter tire between us, but up here, we became converts — I may actually invest in a set of these. It is amazing how relaxed you become behind the wheel when you know you have such control in winter conditions.
We stopped along the way at the First Nations communities of Fort Albany and Kashechewan before Attawapiskat finally came into view, pristine and welcoming on the north shore of the river, six hours after leaving Moosonee.
The Toyota Rav4 performed flawlessly, carrying without complaint enough camera gear, survival supplies, food and clothing to last us for a week here, as well as the return trip to Toronto.
It seemed to just sip fuel, which was just as well considering that gas here costs $2.40 a litre.
As if to illustrate the carrying capacity of this vehicle, I was asked to run a group of visiting MPPS out to the Attawapiskat airport.
We made for a total of five adults wearing puffy clothing and carrying bags, but we all squeezed in.
With half the back seat filled with supplies, words cannot describe the looks on the faces of certain MPPS as they were made to sit on each other’s laps — but they made it to the airport, and didn’t lose any bags, either.