James Bay Motorcycle Trip - Day 6

Not a lot of miles today, but a lot of activity. Today we toured the Robert Bourassa hydroelectric plant, rode to James Bay, and visited the village of Chisasibi.

Robert Bourassa Hydroelectric Plant

In the 1970s, Québec made a big commitment to hydroelectric power, shunning the popular move to Nuclear power. Today that decision seems to have been the right one as their series of hydro plants produce a lot of clean electrical power. They even produce a surplus that they sell to the northeastern United States. They manage to do this because the US and Canada have alternating peak power usage periods. Québec uses more electrical power in the Winter for heating and we use more in the summer months for cooling. In the summer they sell their surplus to us, primarily in the New York state area.

The natural lake terrain up here in Québec is called the Taiga and Québec operates a series of eight hydroelectric plants in this region. There are many more plants further south, including the Eastmain project that will reduce the powerful Rupert Rapids to a trickle next year. The water for these eight plants runs downhill from the east and hits all eights plants in series. There is a fairly impressive distribution system to get all this power down to Montreal and Québec city.

After a short video presentation in the media center, we rode a bus into the power plant. The Robert Bourassa plant is an underground power plant, literally cut into the bedrock of the Canadian shield. Our tour guide led us into the plant where we were treated to an extensive tour of the 16-generator plant. The plant uses a large reservoir as a controlled water source. The water is gravity-fed into the turbines 137m underground to produce power. The water supply is further regulated as required by an very large spillway. There are pictures of this below. We saw the spillway from both the top and bottom. The pictures may fail to portray how very large this structure was.

James Bay

After the tour we saddled up and rode out to James Bay, passing the village of Chisasibi, a Cree village just east of James Bay. Don's wife had provided us each a small bottle to hold water from James Bay. James Bay is technically part of the Artic Ocean, and since this is as close as any of us are likely to get to the Artic, we all brought a souvenir home. There was little excitement riding on the 10 mile gravel road from Chisasibi to the bay, but everyone keep the shiny side up.

Village of Chisasibi

As soon as we pulled into the Chisasibi cultural center for lunch we stopped and asked a local man a question. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the Cree do not speak French. They speak English and Cree. They have maintained their native tongue and use an alphabet developed in the 1800s. He had no accent at all, and could have passed for an American easily. It was the first time we had heard English spoken without a French accent in days. I later found out that the relations between the Cree and the Frenchies is not a rosy as the people in Radisson had lead us to believe. I did have one uncomfortable moment when two small Cree girls took the tip from our table and followed me outside the building to ask me for more money.



The top of the spillway. The lake at the top of the spillway is 30m deep. It is comprised of ten steps in the form of a staircase. This picture was taken from the bridge that runs across the top. The bridge sits on top of the spillway water release gates which allow water overflow from the reservoir to flow down the staircase. The staircase formation dissipates the force of the water so it can flow smoothly into the river below.

Here I am talking to the tour guide.


Standing at the bottom of the spillway. There are ten steps cut into the hill. Each step can comfortably hold two complete football fields.


Parked at James Bay.


A shot of me after we arrived at James Bay.


Finally!!!


Here we are in formation on the way back to Chisasibi. This road is a little more treacherous than it may appear.


A stop sign written in Cree.


Raphael and I standing in front of the Chisasibi cultural center.

Trip Stats
Date:	Aug 23, 2006
From	Radisson, Québec
To:	Chisasabi, Québec
Miles Today:	159
Total Miles:	1,618

James Bay Motorcycle Trip - Day 5

No riding today as we were rained in. The plan was to head for village of Chisasibi in the Cree Nation along our way to James Bay, but the weather did not cooperate. After all the riding we have done in the last 4 days, no one was up for a rainy and rather windy ride today.

We had dinner at one of the local restaurants, where I had Caribou which was very, very good. We spent quite a long time at a local native craft store, where I purchase an Inukshuk sculpture. We also scheduled a tour of the power plant tomorrow. We did run into some Americans all the way up here. Two hunters from Michigan were headed 300 miles North by helicopter for Caribou hunting.


Parked for the day.



It is unlikely that Radisson will ever see such a combination of good looks, style and sophistication again.


Local road sign. Check out the distance to Washington, 2350 km (1460 miles).



Inukshuk located outside the local Native American craft store.



This display was inside the hydro plant media center. The stuffed wolf in the picture was enormous, easily pushing 200 lbs when he was alive.

Trip Stats
Date:	Aug 22, 2006
From	No Travel
To:	No Travel
Miles Today:	0
Total Miles:	1,459

James Bay Motorcycle Trip - Day 4

Today began the real reason for the trip. Today we began our journey on the James Bay Road. The short description of thise road is that it contains the second longest service free stretch of paved road in North America. The first part of our journey begins on this 236 mile (381 km) segment. Service free means no gas, no stores, no commerial entities. There were rest stops and camping grounds, but that's it. If that were not enough, the section of the road after the sole gas station is another 150 miles to Radisson.

We are traveling through the Municipality of James Bay. This city covers 350,000 square kilometers. To put this in perspective, the country of Germany covers 357,000 square kilometers. Despite the size in area, total population of the Municipality is 30,000 people. 13,000 French Québec, and 17,000 Cree Indians.

We made a stop at the Rupert River to see the rapids. A Hydroelectric plant project will damn this river up next year, so this is the last summer they can be seen. The falls were very impressive and cannot be described in a picture, although you will find a few in this post, just to try an convey how rough the water actually was.

I had to gas up at the Rapids so I could make it to the service station. Once we got there, we had lunch in the cafeteria. The entire complex at kilometer marker 381 was comprised of pre-fab buildings and memories of Adak, Alaska came flooding back to me.

Today I listened to Dad's shuffle for the entire trip. This made a big difference and made the day-long haul much easier to take. Today's trip was so long that we were able to see the differences in the tree line as we pushed North, including huge sections of the northern forest burned out. Strangely, there were very animals to be seen at all. All I noticed were a few birds and some roadkill, nothing else.

We arrived in Radisson this afternoon at the Auberge Radisson and can truly say we have reached the end of the road. The road literally runs into a tunnel to the enormous Robert Bourassa plant. There is nowhere else to go. We are as far North as you can go on a paved road in the province of Québec. We are so far North that the weather reports in Ottowa don't even bother to report the conditions up here.

Of special note was the huge power substation we passed on our way into Radisson. This is easily the largest substation I have ever seen, and produced so much electrical interference as we passed by that several of the GPS units began to go haywire.

We caused a bit of stir when we got here. Bikes rarely come this far North and certainly not in groups this large. Every motorcyclist in the village sought us out. The good news is that the Hotel staff speak very good English. Tracy called them and it was a little eerie how fast they transitioned from French to English when she called.


This group photo was taken at the beginning the of the James Bay Road, better known as the Route de la Baie James. We had to check in the visitor's center with our names. This helps them identify the bodies if something bad happens.



Here is a closeup of the road sign at the beginning of the road.





All the pictures above were taken at Rupert Rapids. The pictures fail to capture how impressive they were.


After the rapids, it was time to fill up for the final stretch to the service station.




Here I am at one of the 5-star rest stops along the way.


Here we are at the service station. There were no other customers.


Just filled up. Regular unleaded only and 6$/gallon!



The end of the line. Radisson, Québec. This village is here to service the workers at the Hydro Plant.



Rode hard and put away wet.

Trip Stats
Date:	Aug 21, 2006
From	Matagami, Québec
To:	Radisson, Québec
Miles Today:	411
Total Miles:	1,459

James Bay Motorcycle Trip - Day 3

Today we entered French Québec. We left Ottowa in a downpour. This was easily the most rain I have ever ridden in. The good news was that once I was geared up, the rain really wasn't much of a problem. The 40 or so miles we traveled before we ate breakfast wasn't much as physical change, but the cultural change was immediate. French became the language of choice and it was time to dust off my ancient high school French vocabulary. Unfortunately it was not up to par, and conversations with Joe Public were trying at best. When Tracy called me at the Caribou Motel in Matagami, it took the desk clerk a few minutes to find someone who could speak English. This was an especially impressive task when you realize that the desk clerk is also the hotel manager, and bartender.

Today's destination is the mining town of Matagami. The major industries in this part of the world are mining and lumber. This is the first stop where we began to see Cree Indians.

As for me, this was the hardest leg of the trip thus far. In addition to being the longest run yet, the monotony of the road is getting to me. Tomorrow, I am going to use Dad's iPod Shuffle to liven up the ride a little bit.

Here we are in the bustling city of Matagami headed for dinner. This was a short walk to another hotel in town that had a restaurant.


This picture needs a little background. To fully understand what is happening here you need to understand that Dusty has strived to ensure that he stops as little as necessary when rides. This goal manifests itself in many ways. For example he has fitted not one, but two additional fuel tanks on his Honda Gold Wing to greatly increase his cruising range. Another less obvious customization is the installation of a "bladder relief" tube. Equipped with this device, he can eliminate those pesky bathroom breaks that force you to stop occasionally. In this picture, Dusty is demonstrating the handy features of his tube with his impersonation of a dog. You can't see the stream in this shot, but rest assured that this shot was real.


Here is most of the crew at dinner that night.


Linda and Dad in one of his more serious moments.

Trip Stats
Date:	Aug 20, 2006
From	Ottowa, Ontario
To:	Matagami, Québec
Miles Today:	444
Total Miles:	1,048

James Bay Motorcycle Trip - Day 2

Today was the first real ride on the trip. The planned daily mileage for the trip was about 400 miles, so here it where the trip really began. The route took us up I-81N through PA and NY into Ontario. We got our first rain as we rode through NY state. This was also the first day to pay serious attention to the GPS system. I did not know to recalculate the route, so I ignored it for the morning. In the afternoon, we got slightly separated and I had to guess at an intersection. I guessed wrong, and it that were not bad enough, everyone behind me dutifully followed me off course. After some quick maneuvers, we were back on track and met up with the lead group some 30 minutes later. At the next gas stop, the routes were recalculated to avoid another problem. Once the routes were corrected, navigation was a breeze.

Obviously the big news of the day was that we left the USA and entered Canada. Despite some apprehension on my part about the border crossing, I crossed the border without incident. The two biggest changes I noticed immediately were the sudden and complete appearance of the metric system. All distances on road signs were kilometers and all gas prices were per liter. At first glance, the distances appear much larger and the gas prices appear much lower. Until you get used to it, this can cause some confusion. For example, a typical price per liter was $1.09 for regular unleaded. This looks pretty good until you discover that this equals $4.13/gallon.

Another shock was the transition from rural to urban environments. Ottowa is a city very similar in size and population to Washington D.C. The shock was that a close as 7 km (4.3 miles) from the city, we were still in the countryside. Ottowa appeared very suddenly and in less than 5 minutes we were downtown. We stayed at Webb's motel,an older unit that looked a little rundown from the outside, but turned out to be very nicely redone inside.

The first Canadian I met was wearing a Jeff Gordon baseball cap, and he asked where we were going. When I told him that we were riding to James Bay, I received the first of my common reactions to our trip by Canadians, when he said "Why?" We talked NASCAR, drivers, and races. Just like being back home.

In this shot, Mike Kramer and myself are unpacking the bikes for the night just outside the hotel room in Ottowa.

This is a shot of Dusty's Gold Wing. Note the dangling additions to the rear of his bike. These would disappear the next day somewhere in Québec.

Trip Stats
Date:	Aug 19, 2006
From	Frackville, PA
To:	Ottowa, Ontario
Miles Today:	404
Total Miles:	604

James Bay Motorcycle Trip - Day 1

Today we started the James Bay Trip. I met Dad, Raphael Jones, Don Williams, Steve Klotz, and Mike Kramer in a parking lot of the NOVA Loudoun Campus. We are starting with a little 180 mile jaunt up to Frackville, PA where we will met the rest of our party for the trip into Canada. We ran into a little traffic along the way, including a huge motorcycle procession outside of Leesburg, but we made it to PA without any problems. We met up with the rest of the crew (Ron and Laura Jones, Kenny and Linda Dyer,and Dusty Collins) at Granny's Motel and Inn for our first dinner as a group.

I am riding Dad's BMW R1100GS for the duration of this trip. I managed to pack the bike a little too top heavy, so I had to repack the saddle bags for tomorrow's departure. Just before the picture taken at NOVA below,the bike actually started to tip over in the parking lot. The GS is very tall, so it will take some getting used to.

For those of you that do not know, this is the beginning of my trip with Dad to James Bay. Our route will take us to the farthest point in Québec that you can reach on a paved road. At 400 Miles per day, it will take us 3 days just to get there. Today's mileage was just to get to the meeting point. Tomorrow the trip begins in earnest.

First leg, leaving NOVA. Here I am talking to Tracy one last time.


Repacking the GS for tomorrow's run into Canada.


Granny's Motel and Inn.


Dad's R1200RT.


First dinner with the crew.


GS packed and ready to go.

Trip Stats
Date:	Aug 18, 2006
From	Home
To:	Frackville, PA
Miles Today:	200
Total Miles:	200

Picture Wall

I have started placing many of our favorite family pictures along one wall of the basement. The next time you are at the house, make sure you take a look.

Canadian Training

To acclamate myself to the BMW GS that I will be riding to James Bay this week, I took a training run out into the Virginia mountains yesterday. I took a 120 mile trip to get a feel for the bike and have no worries for the coming trip. I still have a pack and load the bike, but I now have a feel for the bike. My only complaint is the Bavarian insistence on placing turn signals, and cancellation buttons on both the right and the left. Right hands are for brake and throttle only.

Alaska in the Summer!

Last month, Kellie joined her Grammy, Grandpa, and Uncle Chuck on their Alaskan Cruise on the Norwegian Star cruise line. I can only tell you that Kellie had the time of her life. Apparently Chuck had a completely pimped out Suite and spoiled Kellie to death. Among other things, they went whalespotting, but Kellie regaled us with tales of the chocolate buffet, swimming in a salt water pool, towel sculptures, and shopping.

4-Wheeling

Molly (of Outer Banks beach house fame) has loaned me her Honda ATV for the summer. Our neighbor Jimmy has a couple of them and we have been tearing up the woods behind our house. Austin has been riding his TT-R90 back there as well. Nothing bad has happened yet, although I did manage to almost flip the #%@^ing thing trying to cross a creek.

Outer Banks

This year we had our family vacation somewhat earlier than usual, taking off for North Carolina the day the kids got out of School in mid-June. As you might expect, we went to Tracy's friend Molly's house for a week. Her place is very nice and you can't beat the price. Highlights of the trip included:

• The view from the Currituck Lighthouse

• Kellie's squeals when we saw the sand crabs feeding at night. (Very Funny!!) This might bear some explanation. Nowhere else on the East Coast where we have stayed, Myrtle Beach, Ocean City have we seen anything like the sand crabs on the Outer Banks. Very big, about the size of your hand, and very fast.
  

Pepper & Skeeter

The dogs are getting old. They have been with us forever, but their time is drawing nigh. Pepper is nearly deaf and Skeeter has a noticable lack of hearing. Pepper is also completely blind in her left eye and very soon she will have to be carried up and down stairs most of the time.

Deal's Gap - June 2006

Last month, I returned to Deal's Gap to attend the 2006 R1-Forum East Coast Convention. I went down with Dad, Uncle Mike, Ché, and James Locklear. Catholics go to Rome, Muslims go to Mecca, and the Clarks go to to Gap. All three are genuine religious experiences. Needless to say, the Gap did not disappoint. The bad news from the whole trip was discovering how painfully stock my R1 is, but I have already taken a few measures towards this problem as I have installed a new fender eliminator kit, and a new windscreen.

Update: Action Shots

Riding the dragon

Lean, baby lean!! - Stick that knee out and it's down.

Classic Hailwood form

Update: Loading up to go home

Tracy the Turtle Saver

So far this summer, Tracy has rescued two turtles from Virginia roads. We have been experiencing a lot of rain in the area, and this seems to have driven them out into the open. Tracy, however, thinks that these visits are a personal message from Spotted Turtle.

Her first rescue mission involved stopping in the middle of Lake Jackon drive just south of Manassas, drawing the attention of a Prince William County police officer. He demanded to know what she was doing, and at her request moved the turtle to safety.

New Cheerleading Team

Kellie has left RAH! and is now a member of Cheer Dynasty. She has been with the new team for about a month now, and Kellie really seems to like the change. Her new team is somewhat older and has more members (~30 kids). It's a coed team and Kellie is one of the youngest members on the team. It appears to be a step up as far as the level of competition goes, but she is handling it well. This will not affect her standing for the Hawaii trip.

Brooks & Dunn

Brooks & Dunn fly a hot air balloon during their concerts. Apparently they fly over the concert venue and then try to land somewhere. For their recent show at the Nissan Pavilion, that Tracy attended, they landed their balloon very near our house. Look at the picture below and see if you recognize anybody:

BTW, if you want to check out the other pictures, go to the Brooks & Dunn website and click on the Bristow, VA link under 'Balloon pics' to see the rest.

National Junior Honor Society

Yesterday, Kellie was informed that she is being inducted into the National Junior Honor Society. Congratulations, Kellie and keep up the good work!