Fort Albany, Saturday January 21, 2012

A few of us left Albany just before 8am for the two and a half hour drive over the winter roads to Moosonee. We were perfectly timed to watch a unique orange and gold sun rise over the muskeg. The skies were clear all day leaving plenty of oportunity to see a couple partridge, and owl, sparrows and even an owl. The tree line was the most enjoyable aspect of the scenery though; peaceful and relaxing.

Any signs they had posted were nailed to trees and although most of them depicted curvy roads or told us to go SLOW there were a couple warning us of nocturnal moose crossings and to 'Drive Defensively'.

We saw much more traffic than I thought we would, including several road workers. They go back and forth constantly scraping, spraying and plowing. In the picture to the left, the truck's filling up with water at one of the streams. It was almost entirely covered in a thick layer of ice itself, I'm not sure the trucks get much down time.

Any time there was a waterway crossing the road, they've built a snow bridge. It's exactly what it sounds like. They just pile the snow on, pack it down, pour wate on top and keep doing that until it's frozen as solid as the rest of the road. They usually have signs prior to one of these crossings as well as bright orange tape tied on the brush either side of the bridge. It was a little freaker driving over them once I knew how they'd been made. haha.


Once in Moosonee we stopped by the Sky Ranch resaurant for breakfast and a chance to warm up our toes (the needle was sitting at about -35C when I got up and the truck just didn't want to warm up quickly). After that we joined a huge que to fill up on gas. I've heard that it's over three dollars a liter in Albany so I guess everyone had the same idea.

Cree, English, French -
The only sign I've ever seen with all three languages -
what else brings us all together so easily?

The Northern Stores in the other communities aparently hike their prices once the winter roads open so it was still a bit more expensive than I was hoping for but really the day was more about getting out of Albany for a bit rather than stocking up so in that light, it was well worth the entertainment value.