On the coldest morning so far we embarked on a 665 KM'S (400 mile) portion of the epic journey to the northernmost parts of the Baie James region accessible by vehicle! But before we even began a group among our five trucks got lost in the one street town of Matagami, and those lost souls were unable to explain this phenomenon.
During the course of the trip that day we ran across several small groups of caribou which posed some risk to the group as we needed to slow down- then decided to shut the headlights off to lure them into the range of our ever willing camera shutters. These animals were a small representation of the more than one million caribou in this region.
We arrived just in the nick of time at the Wemindji Motel in the evening as this facility was closing for the night - we were luckily able to get our room keys- the next available accommodation was some 230 KM's (381 miles) distant. Before the usual consumption of our favorite beverages we made sure to plug in our block heaters as it was clear that the night was going to be even colder.
Because we missed the dining room dinner-hour, we were saved by our trusty crew from Connecticut who brought in their 'Meal Ready to Eat' (MRE's) and shared their plentiful bounty with the rest of the team. These somewhat interesting selections included chili and macaroni , beef frankfurters, chicken chow mien and sundry other items including an edible plastic product (AKA crackers) which were made only slightly more palatable by the addition of the supplied packaged peanut butter.
This day started out very cold and windy and only got worse as the day matured, hitting temperatures as low as -25 Celsius (-15 F) and winds whipping up the snow at speeds up to 60 KM/hr (37mi/hr). The wind chill factor was -39 C. The Defender vehicles struggled against the wind as snow and ice particles penetrated to the very interiors of those vehicles, reminding us of our brief photo session earlier in the day on the ice in the open of James Bay…
The trip of 230 plus KM's (143 miles) from Wemindji to Radisson went quickly notwithstanding the weather, and we were able make our appointment with the La Grande Dam tour director for an impressive tour of this huge Quebec hydro-electric project. This generating facility is the largest underground generating complex in the world. Unbelievably, the whole ,town of Radisson lost it's power as the Hydro Quebec mini-bus, with us on it, departed for the dam tour, and was not restored until some time after our return to the hotel… e