Northern Quebec Canada

[Deadly99]

Where to go for a week trip based out of Ottawa Canada?

The Trans Labrador highway was the plan but with its completion set for next year it seemed a shame to go and do it this year. So where to? Dan sends me an email with a link to the Trans Taiga from Wikipedia.

Trans-Taiga Road

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The Transtaiga Road.
The Trans-Taiga Road (French: Route Transtaïga) is an extremely remote wilderness road in northern Quebec, Canada. It is 582 kilometers (362 mi) long to Centrale Brisay and another 84 kilometers (52 mi) along the Caniapiscau Reservoir, all of it unpaved.
The road's northeastern terminus is almost at the 55th parallel, making it the northernmost continuous road in Eastern North America. Though the terminus is also the furthest point from any town (745 km or 466 miles from Radisson) via road in North America, it is nonetheless relatively close - 190 kilometers (118 mi) - to Schefferville geographically. It does not, however, provide access to it, as the intervening terrain is unpassable even in an all-terrain vehicle. The road's end is also close to the southern limit of Nunavik, Quebec's Inuit region.
The Trans-Taiga Road branches off from the James Bay Road (French: Route de la Baie James) at kilometer 544. It was built as an access road to the hydro-electric generating stations of Hydro-Québec along the La Grande River and Caniapiscau River. Several outfitters are established along this road, providing wilderness hunting and fishing expeditions, and some may also provide fuel, food and lodging. Otherwise, there are no services along this road.
While the Trans-Taiga Road is reportedly drivable by ordinary passenger vehicles for its entire length, Hydro-Quebec recommends use of 4WD vehicles for the section between Brisay and Caniapiscau, which is of a rougher grade than the rest of the road.
As the name of the road indicates, this road winds its way through Quebec's vast boreal forest, characterized by stunted spruce and pine, bogs and rocky outcroppings. Taiga is the Russian term for the same type of forest.



Within minutes I had replied to Dan saying count me in one hundred percent. A few emails back and forth and we decided to invite some folks from advcanada.com
This website opened up a while back as a way for folks from our neck of the woods to meet like minded people and to share riding areas with. Basically it’s an email distribution list that you can use to find people to ride with or to share new areas. A group ride usually takes place once a month and can have as few as 2 to as many as 15 people show up. It’s turned out to be a great resource.

Within a few days Stephen replied and said he was definitely in. Chris responded that if his trip to Morocco falls threw he is in (it did fall threw and he was in). John joined later in the month with an “I’m in” and Maurizio emailed the gang a week before departure and confirmed he was in as his planned trip in the spring didn’t materialize. We didn’t expect this response thinking maybe we would get one or two people at best. So there we are with 6 of us committed and ready to go.

Many, many emails bounced around for a few weeks on routes, times, camp locations, sites to see, departure dates and what not. A meeting over pints at a local pub was set and logistics were sorted out. Most of us didn’t know each other to well other than a few off-road days during the summer so everyone kind of got a feeling for who each other were.

The trip was determined to be a 7-9 day ride with a few destinations as the goal. The first goal being to dip our tires into James Bay which is a part of the Arctic Ocean. The second goal was to ride the Rue Du Nord (The North Road) which is a 400+km gravel road and camp at the Rupert River. The Rupert is one of the last free flowing big rivers in Quebec and is destined to be damned up this fall (the way of the world I suppose). The third goal was to ride to the end of the Trans Taiga road and back. This road is 666 km long, so a total of 1332 km’s of gravel.

In total the plan was for approximately 1900 km of gravel roads and 2700 km’s of pavement in one week.

Here is our proposed route









After much packing and planning we are set to go. Typically I am the kind of guy who packs the morning before leaving, but on this trip we are heading to some pretty isolated areas where buying missing items may not be feasible. That being said I forgot to pack a few items even though they were on the “to pack list”, arg.