James Bay Trois- THE EXPEDITION

A group of five trucks, all members of the Land Rover Adventure Association of Toronto, embarked two days ago for the third winter trip to cold James Bay. Starting out on Friday morning, at the Pennzoil dealer in Montreal, courtesy of club-member and friend Patrick Findlay; we changed all our fluids to cold-weather synthetic oils. First day otherwise was uneventful, other than the partying that took place at our first day's destination of Val d'Or, in Canada's province of Quebec.

Second day was a short drive stopping at Amos, Quebec in the middle of a winter festival surrounding the great high-domed cathedral which dominates the city. The festival included children's outdoor fun (sledding etc.) and a traditional Quebec treat - hot maple syrup poured into snow, which quickly froze into a tasty treat which all of us enjoyed.

We ended up the day in Baie James municipal region for the real start of our winter saga.

The overall mission of the trip is to visit several northern Cree communities, sample indigenous local culture and cuisine, participate in exciting outdoor activities and visit the huge Hydro Quebec generating facility at Le Grand Dam, which provides great wealth to northern Quebec communities. These native communities were all previously Hudson's Bay trading posts, some established as long ago as 1670, with the last trading post closing as recently as 1970.

The usual multi-stops at various Tim Horton's took place, much to the chagrin of our American colleagues who were not dependent on Tim Horton's coffee as away of life.

Today's temperature started out at -26 Celsius (-15 F), but warmed up a great deal to -14 C (6 F). Tomorrow we make our way to Wemendji, on the James Bay coastline, a trip of approximately 600 km (410 miles).

Steve Hoare, Land Rover Monthly's North American editor from the Philadelphia area, driving a well-equipped Series II Discovery, complete with a Safety Devices roof rack, an ARB winch bumper with a Warn 9000 winch, a Rovertym rear bumper; he was accompanied by Kim Groenendyk from Peterborough, Ontario.
Jim Leach from Enfield, Connecticut, a veteran of African and several North American safari expeditions, driving a beautifully restored and expedition equipped 300 TDI 110 hardtop, with a roof rack supported by a Safety Devices roll-cage, a second interior heater, which independently keeps the cab comfortable at 75 F, a hot and cold water shower and whole bunch of other stuff. He was accompanied by Mike Ladden from West Granby, Connecticut, another veteran of "Drive the Globe" expeditions and himself an owner of a couple of early Series vehicles including a beautifully restored and expedition equipped 101.
John Cockell from Chelsea, Quebec, driving a 1998 Defender 110 300Tdi station wagon, a real tire-burner with up-rated fueling and high-ratio transfer gearbox that kept pace with the V8 Discos, even with a loaded Brownchurch roof rack.
Ted Matthews and Mary Kaye from Toronto, in Mary's Big Blue Discovery, the veteran of many off road forays, including this fourth northern winter trip, the most recent of which was a February 2005 trip to Tuktoyaktuk in Canada's Northwest Territories, on an island on the Beaufort Sea.
Peter Wood from Toronto, in his seasoned but largely stock Disco II, another veteran of past B2B trip to Colorado and Moab, long time Rover owner. Pete is currently fighting for the cause, defending trail access rights in Ontario through his activities on the Board of the OF4WD (www.of4wd.com).