Took this ride over the July 1st long weekend.
http://www.multistrada.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=33857
http://www.multistrada.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=33857
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Toronto to James Bay
- Thread starter Goocati
- Start date
Splash
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Here's another link, this one may work? for the map. https://maps.google.ca/maps?saddr=S...8yxM-yl11kXOnhEGTTH6R3487QVYVg&t=h&mra=ls&z=5
If not just google map your location to Chisasibi Quebec. Once there the locals will give you directions, or even escort you there. Only 8 km or so of gravel, but the James Bay Rd. is quite bumpy due to frost heaves. Can't imagine doing it on a sport bike.
it only works with a username / password for multistrada.net
Oh cool. It was Moosonee I was thinking of. I guess I just assumed if you can't drive to Moosonee you can't drive to anywhere on James Bay. I was wrong.
This may have worked
What started innocently enough with, "Did you know you can ride to James Bay?" I casually mentioned to my buddy KLR Steve, after a pint or two at our favourite watering hole. A month later it's 5:30 AM and I'm leaving to meet up with him to begin the 3 400 km roundtrip.
Before I left I decided it was a good time to adjust the valves, this was the bike 3days prior to leaving. Yikes!!
Vertical cylinder was straightforward:
Horizontal had to come off this time for me to complete:
You guys and gals notice the custom made head torquing tool? I provided the sacrificial wrench and socket, my local mechanic bent and welded it for me. Thanks Rob!
Got it back together, had to test run and adjust the timing belts, off by a tooth.
Packed and ready to go first thing Friday morning:
If you look closely you can see a new clutch slave cylinder in black aluminum that did not come with a new banjo bolt/bleed nipple. I broke off my stock bleed nipple a couple of weeks prior while bleeding the stock clutch slave, again, it was leaking and would only hold pressure for a thousand kms or so. Received the new slave with no new bolt nipple combo and had to get one from Wisconsin, Pegasus Auto Racing Parts had one that fits, go figure.
In case anyone's wondering and can't be bothered to google map it, James Bay is approx. 1 700 kms NE of Toronto. It is the smaller bay at the south end of Hudson's Bay, which is the huge bay on maps of Canada. Technically it's part of the Arctic Ocean, it is brackish? water, mostly salt but there are a ton of freshwater rivers feeding into James Bay so not 100% salty. More on the rivers later.
Picking up KLR Steve, fellow rider and all round adventurer. He's ridden across Canada and up to Alaska, South America, been to Machu Pichu, Everest base camp, Iceland, this guy gets around. To clarify, he has ridden through N. America and some of S. America. He has visited Machu Pichu, Everest base camp and Iceland etc.
First stop Hunstsville, a couple of hours N of T.O. a brand new Timmies with a pretty nice view for a donut/coffe shop.
Quick coffee/breakfast stop and on the road again.
Next photo op at the Ontario Quebec border, the Ottawa River. You know you're starting to get further north when the pulp and paper mills start dotting the landscape. In the words of those southern boys from Alabama, "Ooooo that smell, can't you smell that smell?" Yup, didn't smell a thing until we were downwind but boy did we smell it then.
Once you get a few kms beyond the plant/mill the smell is gone and the area is lovely again. Temiscaming is the town across the river in Quebec, and beyond that to the East is a huge lake system called Kipawa which is fantastic for boating, fishing camping. Very little development there means very few people and pristine water conditions. It's all upstream from the mill. We head in a Northerly direction on our way to our first nights stay in Matagami.
La Belle Provence
Not long in we stop for gas:
Not a bad view from the gas station:
and lunch in Ville Marie:
The trip so far has been about two and a half hours of slab riding and the rest secondary roads about 3 hours or so. The secondary roads are good, well maintained somewhat scenic but not overly twisty or technical. Lots of long sweepers and elevation changes but not Dragon type roads.
I decided early on to let Steve on the KLR lead as he could set his pace and I would just keep up. Had the roles been reversed I'm quite sure I would have been waiting for him on a few occasions. Not that he rode slowly, the limit in Ontario on secondaries is 80 km/h and we were doing 120, in Quebec where the limit is 90 km/h we would hit stretches up to 130.
Timmies sign in Rouyn Noranda 'Toujours Frais':
Our final gas stop was in Amos, before we reached our destination for the day at Matagami. It is 183 kms between the two towns and there is SFA between the two. A little sign of things to come.
Friday nights destination Hotel Matagami, approx. 900 kms from our starting point.
We had some nice company, V-Strom, Varadero and a couple of Beemer 1600s, not sure what the cruiser was.
Like most northern towns Matagami was built on logging and mining. Downtown has a nice public square celebrating this past:
After a long day it's time for beer and dinner!
This is venison tenderloin, superb and a good deal for the price fixe menu 21 bucks for soup, main and dessert:
After dinner we had a couple of beers and made a plan for departure in the morning after breakfast, then it was off to bed.
To be cont'd.
What started innocently enough with, "Did you know you can ride to James Bay?" I casually mentioned to my buddy KLR Steve, after a pint or two at our favourite watering hole. A month later it's 5:30 AM and I'm leaving to meet up with him to begin the 3 400 km roundtrip.
Before I left I decided it was a good time to adjust the valves, this was the bike 3days prior to leaving. Yikes!!
Vertical cylinder was straightforward:
Horizontal had to come off this time for me to complete:
You guys and gals notice the custom made head torquing tool? I provided the sacrificial wrench and socket, my local mechanic bent and welded it for me. Thanks Rob!
Got it back together, had to test run and adjust the timing belts, off by a tooth.
Packed and ready to go first thing Friday morning:
If you look closely you can see a new clutch slave cylinder in black aluminum that did not come with a new banjo bolt/bleed nipple. I broke off my stock bleed nipple a couple of weeks prior while bleeding the stock clutch slave, again, it was leaking and would only hold pressure for a thousand kms or so. Received the new slave with no new bolt nipple combo and had to get one from Wisconsin, Pegasus Auto Racing Parts had one that fits, go figure.
In case anyone's wondering and can't be bothered to google map it, James Bay is approx. 1 700 kms NE of Toronto. It is the smaller bay at the south end of Hudson's Bay, which is the huge bay on maps of Canada. Technically it's part of the Arctic Ocean, it is brackish? water, mostly salt but there are a ton of freshwater rivers feeding into James Bay so not 100% salty. More on the rivers later.
Picking up KLR Steve, fellow rider and all round adventurer. He's ridden across Canada and up to Alaska, South America, been to Machu Pichu, Everest base camp, Iceland, this guy gets around. To clarify, he has ridden through N. America and some of S. America. He has visited Machu Pichu, Everest base camp and Iceland etc.
First stop Hunstsville, a couple of hours N of T.O. a brand new Timmies with a pretty nice view for a donut/coffe shop.
Quick coffee/breakfast stop and on the road again.
Next photo op at the Ontario Quebec border, the Ottawa River. You know you're starting to get further north when the pulp and paper mills start dotting the landscape. In the words of those southern boys from Alabama, "Ooooo that smell, can't you smell that smell?" Yup, didn't smell a thing until we were downwind but boy did we smell it then.
Once you get a few kms beyond the plant/mill the smell is gone and the area is lovely again. Temiscaming is the town across the river in Quebec, and beyond that to the East is a huge lake system called Kipawa which is fantastic for boating, fishing camping. Very little development there means very few people and pristine water conditions. It's all upstream from the mill. We head in a Northerly direction on our way to our first nights stay in Matagami.
La Belle Provence
Not long in we stop for gas:
Not a bad view from the gas station:
and lunch in Ville Marie:
The trip so far has been about two and a half hours of slab riding and the rest secondary roads about 3 hours or so. The secondary roads are good, well maintained somewhat scenic but not overly twisty or technical. Lots of long sweepers and elevation changes but not Dragon type roads.
I decided early on to let Steve on the KLR lead as he could set his pace and I would just keep up. Had the roles been reversed I'm quite sure I would have been waiting for him on a few occasions. Not that he rode slowly, the limit in Ontario on secondaries is 80 km/h and we were doing 120, in Quebec where the limit is 90 km/h we would hit stretches up to 130.
Timmies sign in Rouyn Noranda 'Toujours Frais':
Our final gas stop was in Amos, before we reached our destination for the day at Matagami. It is 183 kms between the two towns and there is SFA between the two. A little sign of things to come.
Friday nights destination Hotel Matagami, approx. 900 kms from our starting point.
We had some nice company, V-Strom, Varadero and a couple of Beemer 1600s, not sure what the cruiser was.
Like most northern towns Matagami was built on logging and mining. Downtown has a nice public square celebrating this past:
After a long day it's time for beer and dinner!
This is venison tenderloin, superb and a good deal for the price fixe menu 21 bucks for soup, main and dessert:
After dinner we had a couple of beers and made a plan for departure in the morning after breakfast, then it was off to bed.
To be cont'd.
Part Deux
Breakfast was the usual fare eggs, bacon, home fries and toast with one sweet surprise:
any culture that provides spreadable caramel for breakfast is ok by me
The James Bay Road
It starts just outside Matagami and ends at Radisson 620 kms away. This road was built back in the 70's at the beginning of a HUGE hydro electric project started by the province. It is paved but very frost heaved, think speed bumps every few hundred meters. Some sections are better than others but the overall experience is one of constant bumping for many kms. Something I was a little concerned about, but shouldn't have worried as the Multi took it in stride, even at 120-130 kms/hr.
There is only one gas stop on the road at 381 kms, which means we both took extra fuel. A 10 litre jerry can fits perfectly in the Ducati hard bags.
It's Saturday morning, we're checking in at km 6 of the JBR, everyone has to check in and out. We have a reservation in Radisson for tonight and tomorrow. We planned on just getting to Radisson today maybe do a little exploring, dinner and bed.
That would give us Sunday to ride up to James Bay another 100 km, in the morning and get back to take a guided tour of the Robert Bourassa Hydro Electric complex in the afternoon.
Check-in:
A lot of this:
The speed limit is 100 km/hr, had I been travelling alone or with a faster partner, I could have easily done it at 150. As it was we managed a pretty quick 120-130. Steve was complaining about the KLR in the corners over the frost heaves being a bit bouncy and uncontrollable at higher speeds. I didn't have the same complaint.
Slowed down in places like this, where a forest fire had been through 3 or 4 years earlier:
Not nearly as buggy as I thought it was going to be. Killed quite a few:
But they got worse the further North we went.
As I mentioned before, gas and lunch were waiting at km 381, I ran out of gas at 340 kms, about 20 kms further than I have ever gone on a tank of gas. I guess doing a relatively steady 120 km/hr for the entire tank makes a difference in fuel economy. Steve had put his bike on reserve about 15 kms earlier so he figured he had another 30 km or so left.
We both topped up and made it the final 40 km to the gas stop hungry and tired.
The cafeteria and all other buildings here are very utilitarian. Food was good but getting more expensive the further from civilization we got.
Local wildlife:
Carried on after lunch and gas top up at 1.60 a litre. That's expensive for Canada and The States from what I remember my last trip down.
Rupert River
From the bridge over the Rupert, the land mass on the right is actually an island. The river is almost a km wide at that point.
As the river narrows it drops approx 10 meters and there are pretty impressive rapids, hard to see but the waves rolling off the rocks are about 5 meters in the air. Here is the kicker, this river was diverted in 2009 to power another hydro project further upstream, so what we are seeing now is only a fraction (one fifth) of the real power of the "Niagara Falls of The North" must have been quite something before the diversion.
Crossed the 52nd parallel:
Taking a little breather about 100 km from Radisson:
Arrived in Radisson quick stop at the info. kiosk:
Our home for the next couple of nights:
Time for beers, rest, a shower and dinner. The general consensus was the 680 km day was actually more tiring than the 900 km day. I guess the constant bumping takes it toll.
Dinner, this time caribou chops, very good, more gamey than the deer from Friday night but still delish.
Breakfast was good typical eggs, ham, home fries and this time,
Choice of peanut butter, caramel or cheez whiz, fantastic!
To be continued, still to come the bay itself and the incredible hydro tour
Left Radisson around 9 to get up to Chisasibi for 10. This town is where the pavement ends and we have to hit the gravel for a few kms.
Travelling light with no luggage I felt better about opening it up a bit . There is very little traffic on this road.
Coming into Chisasibi:
This is the closest indigineous town to the hydro complex. It appears that this place has benefitted from the deals signed 40 yrs ago. There seems to be decent infrastructure, relatively modern town hall buildings, can be seen in the distance mimicking a tee-pee.
People were friendly and we got an escort out to the bay on the gravel roads.
Probably the best moment for me happened a km or so before we got to the shore. It had been hot, 32degrees for most of our ride, however, at least a km from shore the temperature dropped by at least 10 degrees as the winds picked up the cold air off the bay and I knew we were close. Such a gratifying feeling to come to the destination that just a month ago seemed so far away.
To be cont'd.
Breakfast was the usual fare eggs, bacon, home fries and toast with one sweet surprise:
any culture that provides spreadable caramel for breakfast is ok by me
The James Bay Road
It starts just outside Matagami and ends at Radisson 620 kms away. This road was built back in the 70's at the beginning of a HUGE hydro electric project started by the province. It is paved but very frost heaved, think speed bumps every few hundred meters. Some sections are better than others but the overall experience is one of constant bumping for many kms. Something I was a little concerned about, but shouldn't have worried as the Multi took it in stride, even at 120-130 kms/hr.
There is only one gas stop on the road at 381 kms, which means we both took extra fuel. A 10 litre jerry can fits perfectly in the Ducati hard bags.
It's Saturday morning, we're checking in at km 6 of the JBR, everyone has to check in and out. We have a reservation in Radisson for tonight and tomorrow. We planned on just getting to Radisson today maybe do a little exploring, dinner and bed.
That would give us Sunday to ride up to James Bay another 100 km, in the morning and get back to take a guided tour of the Robert Bourassa Hydro Electric complex in the afternoon.
Check-in:
A lot of this:
The speed limit is 100 km/hr, had I been travelling alone or with a faster partner, I could have easily done it at 150. As it was we managed a pretty quick 120-130. Steve was complaining about the KLR in the corners over the frost heaves being a bit bouncy and uncontrollable at higher speeds. I didn't have the same complaint.
Slowed down in places like this, where a forest fire had been through 3 or 4 years earlier:
Not nearly as buggy as I thought it was going to be. Killed quite a few:
But they got worse the further North we went.
As I mentioned before, gas and lunch were waiting at km 381, I ran out of gas at 340 kms, about 20 kms further than I have ever gone on a tank of gas. I guess doing a relatively steady 120 km/hr for the entire tank makes a difference in fuel economy. Steve had put his bike on reserve about 15 kms earlier so he figured he had another 30 km or so left.
We both topped up and made it the final 40 km to the gas stop hungry and tired.
The cafeteria and all other buildings here are very utilitarian. Food was good but getting more expensive the further from civilization we got.
Local wildlife:
Carried on after lunch and gas top up at 1.60 a litre. That's expensive for Canada and The States from what I remember my last trip down.
Rupert River
From the bridge over the Rupert, the land mass on the right is actually an island. The river is almost a km wide at that point.
As the river narrows it drops approx 10 meters and there are pretty impressive rapids, hard to see but the waves rolling off the rocks are about 5 meters in the air. Here is the kicker, this river was diverted in 2009 to power another hydro project further upstream, so what we are seeing now is only a fraction (one fifth) of the real power of the "Niagara Falls of The North" must have been quite something before the diversion.
Crossed the 52nd parallel:
Taking a little breather about 100 km from Radisson:
Arrived in Radisson quick stop at the info. kiosk:
Our home for the next couple of nights:
Time for beers, rest, a shower and dinner. The general consensus was the 680 km day was actually more tiring than the 900 km day. I guess the constant bumping takes it toll.
Dinner, this time caribou chops, very good, more gamey than the deer from Friday night but still delish.
Breakfast was good typical eggs, ham, home fries and this time,
Choice of peanut butter, caramel or cheez whiz, fantastic!
To be continued, still to come the bay itself and the incredible hydro tour
Left Radisson around 9 to get up to Chisasibi for 10. This town is where the pavement ends and we have to hit the gravel for a few kms.
Travelling light with no luggage I felt better about opening it up a bit . There is very little traffic on this road.
Coming into Chisasibi:
This is the closest indigineous town to the hydro complex. It appears that this place has benefitted from the deals signed 40 yrs ago. There seems to be decent infrastructure, relatively modern town hall buildings, can be seen in the distance mimicking a tee-pee.
People were friendly and we got an escort out to the bay on the gravel roads.
Probably the best moment for me happened a km or so before we got to the shore. It had been hot, 32degrees for most of our ride, however, at least a km from shore the temperature dropped by at least 10 degrees as the winds picked up the cold air off the bay and I knew we were close. Such a gratifying feeling to come to the destination that just a month ago seemed so far away.
To be cont'd.
Last edited:
Third and final part
We had to get our feet wet so we did, one at a time to facilitate the photo op. One of the locals, William, who escorted us to the shore warned us that the icebergs had just left last week. We realized that pretty quickly.
The shore is used as a launching point for fishing vessels, large, wide flat backed canoes that can hold 4 people or a lot of fish.
It has little vegetation, mostly grasses.
It is not without colour:
If I wait for a couple of months I could ride this back down...
We reluctantly leave the Bay after over an hour of exploring and chatting with locals. It doesn't matter if we're in Radisson or at the Bay anyone who lives there, or is working there asks the same question why? Why would you want to come here? Tourist? You're kidding right?We were even making a couple of guys paranoid that we were up there to take their jobs!
We hit the road back to Radisson for lunch and our tour.
Stopped to take a pic of one of the many hydro installations we passed
Back in Radisson had lunch at Mika's sorry no pics of food, ate too quickly.
Time for the tour!!
A little back story, I learned from the JBR website that we should book a tour, especially if we want it in english. So I did.
It turned out there was me, KLR Steve and GS Tim who had ridden up late Saturday night. That's it! The three of us got a private tour of the complex. How cool.
The tour starts in the Hydro Quebec building, actually attached to our hotel, quite convenient.
Picture ID required for security purposes, more on this later. Because they are used to larger groups there is a visitors centre for people to look through while everyone registers, heres a couple of pics
This is what happens all the time in this part of the world
It also reminds me that every Dec. there is a caribou hunt out of Radisson. Just sayin'
There are a lot of displays in the visitor centre that tell the human history of the area as well as the geological past which makes it a perfect place for hydro power generation. I won't bore you with the details, but I will include this pic, which at first glance just looks like a backlit feature wall behind a counter. As I walked by and took a quick glance I had to chuckle and tip my hat to the designer. If you can zoom in on it you'll appreciate how clever it is
So the three of us finally got signed in and briefed on tour etiquette i.e. as many photos as you want outside, but NONE inside, oh and pee before we leave its a 3.5 hour tour!
Our chariot awaits
The drive to the Robert Bourassa Hydro Electric Generating Facilities is a 10 minute drive from Radisson. BTW the facility is named after the young premiere of Quebec, who in 1971 had a dream of hydro electric power that he made into a reality. He lived to see his dream come true but died just as Phase 2 was being completed. Two days after his death in 1996 the Quebec government announced they were renaming the whole development, dam, generating station and reservoir Robert Bourassa.
Our young tour guide was on her first english speaking tour so she had her cheat sheets out, used them liberally and did a great job, way to go Raphael!!
Our first stop was the generating station itself. No pics but basically we drove into the side of a mountain/steep tall hill and proceeded to drive down, after going through two overhead security doors. One opens and lets you in then closes behind you, you get checked out remotely by security and if you pass they let you in, if not they don't let you out and they call for back-up. There is also a guardhouse/gate that you have to drive through to get on the property before you come to the mountain doors. Up until a few years ago you could just drive onto the property and look around freely(not inside) but a journalist decided to drive around and see if he could get into sensitive areas then write a story about how lax the security is at this major generating station and now there's a gate.
So we drive down around 140 meters. Park and get our hardhats and safety glasses, walk through a man door and we are greeted by a huge cavernous hall that is 45 meters tall, and wide by almost 500 meters long. There is a constant hum and the tile floor is vibrating slightly. There are rectangular boxes above each of the turbines 16 in all and they each have control modules with dials, knobs and video screens. There are electric carts for driving around and tricycles for the more health conscious. It is like we have walked on to a James Bond movie set from the 70's. Keep in mind this has all been carved out of solid rock. It is massive!!
There appears to be some work happening on one of the turbines and Raphael informs us they are re-placing all the turbines, one at a time with ones that have an updated, more efficient design. We are standing in front of a model of a cross section of one of the generating units and she points to the model turbine making sure we notice the angle of the blades, then takes us a little further down the hall and points to an actual turbine waiting to be installed making sure we notice the different angle of the blades. This thing is 5 m in diameter and 3 m tall, it weighs in at 2 900 tonnes. There was a new shaft sitting there as well, it connects the turbine up to the generator and it was 3m tall with a diameter of a meter at it's thinnest point, probably double that top and bottom where it connected to the generator and turbine. Everything about this place was on a scale so large it was incredible.
Just when I thought it couldn't get any better we get the speech from Raphael, "where we are going it is quite... loud?, so if you have any questions wait until we get back up here. If it is too loud, you may come back on your own."
She then proceeds to take us down a couple of flights of steel stairs, it's getting loud now, pointing out the miles of control cables run through the place, down a short stone/concrete passageway, pointing up to three insulated tubes with viewing windows about 45 cm in diameter, yelling now, "we produce three phase power and it is through 'dese that it is transmitted up to the transformers, there is so much heat dat we can heat the entire place with it". We're at a double door that is on a pivot which swings open after unlatching, now it is thunderous. We are standing on a small catwalk, directly in front of us a spinning shaft approx 3.5ms away. Above our heads so close I could easily reach up and touch it, is the bottom of the spinning generator, it's approx. 7ms in diameter and 3 ms below us encased in rock, concrete and some steel tube is the turbine. We are at the heart of N. Americas largest underground hydro facility. There is water flowing below us at a rate of 270 cubic meters per second and above our heads there is a generator pumping out 351 million watts of power a year. Too say it was kind of humbling is an understatement. I've been to F1 races and experienced that kind of power relatively closely, but this thing develops about 30 000 HP on its own, the whole plant does 454 000 HP and we're standing right in it.
We make our way back up to the grand hall and start heading back to where the van is parked, Raphael pointing out the huge crane above our heads that runs on rails the length of the hall. This is for dismantling each generator/turbine unit for servicing. Get back to the van and there is security guard waiting for us, he was supposed to accompany us on the tour but was late or forgot there was an english tour that day. But he made it up by riding ahead of us for the outdoor portion.
So quick explanation, this complex works because they built a series of 29 dykes and created a 2 800 sq. km. reservoir. Then they funnel the water from the reservoir into the generating complex near the surface, it travels down the tubes 137 meters to spin the turbines and out the other side to rejoin the river.
Fun fact, if you took all the water from that one reservoir and put it in 1 litre bottles there would be 10 000 1L bottles for every one of the 6 billion people on earth.
Pics:
Looking across the top of one of the dykes with the reservoir on the left:
Fun fact, the longest dyke, pictured above is 2.3 km long, 150 m tall and 700 m wide at the base
This is the cut in the rock that funnels the water into the generators:
Fun fact, when they had filled the reservoir (which took 8 months) and wanted to open that cut, they filled the generator side with water 2 meters higher than the reservoir side so when they blasted that rock out, the water and debris naturally flowed out away from the generator until the water levels became equal, thus avoiding the debris getting closer to the station.
This is the spillway, so called in case the reservoir ever looks like it might overflow. This is how to control the overflow. It is 1.5 kms long by 200 meters wide. Each step is 10 meters tall and there are 10 of them. If you can zoom way in there is a human sized silhoutte painted just above the water in the centre of the rock at the bottom to give some perspective.
From the top of "The Giants Staircase"
This is from a viewing tower showing the river downstream from the station
This shows the spillway from a different angle and one of the roads we drove up on
One of the biggest obstacles when signing the deal for this massive project was convincing the local natives that Hydro Quebec would bring the land back to it's original state, where possible. After driving all over this huge complex it appears they kept thier word. They planted 80 million trees, and it shows. While driving back to the entrance the security guard that was escorting us stopped and pointed to the side of the road and disappearing into the brush was a tiny bear cub. No pic as the vans windows were tinted.
When we got back to Radisson there was some swag for each of us to take home, fridge magnet, dvd, pamphlets, they mailed a postcard for free for us all. Did I mention this tour was free?
This guy had arrived from Cali. while we were out
He'd done a bit of travelling and had an interesting hydration method
Never met the rider, Steve said he saw him and was in his seventies, good for him!
Time for beers, dinner at Mika's and packing up to depart in the morning
Our ride down the JBR to Matagami was a little faster on the way home. We stopped less and rode faster. Checked off the road at the info kiosk outide Matagami so they didn't send out a search and rescue team for us. Back at the hotel fairly early just in time before the skies opened up. Beers, dinner and bed.
The long ride on Tuesday from Matagami home started off rainy for the first 3 hours or so. But by the time we reached North Bay it had cleared up and warmed up so it was smooth sailing to home.
It was a heck of a ride, great destination, KLR Steve is an excellent riding partner, we had almost perfect weather and a good time was had by all. Can't wait for next weekend!! Off to do some local twisties and spend a couple of nights with a few more riding buddies. KLR Steve will become GSX 600 Steve for that one.
We had to get our feet wet so we did, one at a time to facilitate the photo op. One of the locals, William, who escorted us to the shore warned us that the icebergs had just left last week. We realized that pretty quickly.
The shore is used as a launching point for fishing vessels, large, wide flat backed canoes that can hold 4 people or a lot of fish.
It has little vegetation, mostly grasses.
It is not without colour:
If I wait for a couple of months I could ride this back down...
We reluctantly leave the Bay after over an hour of exploring and chatting with locals. It doesn't matter if we're in Radisson or at the Bay anyone who lives there, or is working there asks the same question why? Why would you want to come here? Tourist? You're kidding right?We were even making a couple of guys paranoid that we were up there to take their jobs!
We hit the road back to Radisson for lunch and our tour.
Stopped to take a pic of one of the many hydro installations we passed
Back in Radisson had lunch at Mika's sorry no pics of food, ate too quickly.
Time for the tour!!
A little back story, I learned from the JBR website that we should book a tour, especially if we want it in english. So I did.
It turned out there was me, KLR Steve and GS Tim who had ridden up late Saturday night. That's it! The three of us got a private tour of the complex. How cool.
The tour starts in the Hydro Quebec building, actually attached to our hotel, quite convenient.
Picture ID required for security purposes, more on this later. Because they are used to larger groups there is a visitors centre for people to look through while everyone registers, heres a couple of pics
This is what happens all the time in this part of the world
It also reminds me that every Dec. there is a caribou hunt out of Radisson. Just sayin'
There are a lot of displays in the visitor centre that tell the human history of the area as well as the geological past which makes it a perfect place for hydro power generation. I won't bore you with the details, but I will include this pic, which at first glance just looks like a backlit feature wall behind a counter. As I walked by and took a quick glance I had to chuckle and tip my hat to the designer. If you can zoom in on it you'll appreciate how clever it is
So the three of us finally got signed in and briefed on tour etiquette i.e. as many photos as you want outside, but NONE inside, oh and pee before we leave its a 3.5 hour tour!
Our chariot awaits
The drive to the Robert Bourassa Hydro Electric Generating Facilities is a 10 minute drive from Radisson. BTW the facility is named after the young premiere of Quebec, who in 1971 had a dream of hydro electric power that he made into a reality. He lived to see his dream come true but died just as Phase 2 was being completed. Two days after his death in 1996 the Quebec government announced they were renaming the whole development, dam, generating station and reservoir Robert Bourassa.
Our young tour guide was on her first english speaking tour so she had her cheat sheets out, used them liberally and did a great job, way to go Raphael!!
Our first stop was the generating station itself. No pics but basically we drove into the side of a mountain/steep tall hill and proceeded to drive down, after going through two overhead security doors. One opens and lets you in then closes behind you, you get checked out remotely by security and if you pass they let you in, if not they don't let you out and they call for back-up. There is also a guardhouse/gate that you have to drive through to get on the property before you come to the mountain doors. Up until a few years ago you could just drive onto the property and look around freely(not inside) but a journalist decided to drive around and see if he could get into sensitive areas then write a story about how lax the security is at this major generating station and now there's a gate.
So we drive down around 140 meters. Park and get our hardhats and safety glasses, walk through a man door and we are greeted by a huge cavernous hall that is 45 meters tall, and wide by almost 500 meters long. There is a constant hum and the tile floor is vibrating slightly. There are rectangular boxes above each of the turbines 16 in all and they each have control modules with dials, knobs and video screens. There are electric carts for driving around and tricycles for the more health conscious. It is like we have walked on to a James Bond movie set from the 70's. Keep in mind this has all been carved out of solid rock. It is massive!!
There appears to be some work happening on one of the turbines and Raphael informs us they are re-placing all the turbines, one at a time with ones that have an updated, more efficient design. We are standing in front of a model of a cross section of one of the generating units and she points to the model turbine making sure we notice the angle of the blades, then takes us a little further down the hall and points to an actual turbine waiting to be installed making sure we notice the different angle of the blades. This thing is 5 m in diameter and 3 m tall, it weighs in at 2 900 tonnes. There was a new shaft sitting there as well, it connects the turbine up to the generator and it was 3m tall with a diameter of a meter at it's thinnest point, probably double that top and bottom where it connected to the generator and turbine. Everything about this place was on a scale so large it was incredible.
Just when I thought it couldn't get any better we get the speech from Raphael, "where we are going it is quite... loud?, so if you have any questions wait until we get back up here. If it is too loud, you may come back on your own."
She then proceeds to take us down a couple of flights of steel stairs, it's getting loud now, pointing out the miles of control cables run through the place, down a short stone/concrete passageway, pointing up to three insulated tubes with viewing windows about 45 cm in diameter, yelling now, "we produce three phase power and it is through 'dese that it is transmitted up to the transformers, there is so much heat dat we can heat the entire place with it". We're at a double door that is on a pivot which swings open after unlatching, now it is thunderous. We are standing on a small catwalk, directly in front of us a spinning shaft approx 3.5ms away. Above our heads so close I could easily reach up and touch it, is the bottom of the spinning generator, it's approx. 7ms in diameter and 3 ms below us encased in rock, concrete and some steel tube is the turbine. We are at the heart of N. Americas largest underground hydro facility. There is water flowing below us at a rate of 270 cubic meters per second and above our heads there is a generator pumping out 351 million watts of power a year. Too say it was kind of humbling is an understatement. I've been to F1 races and experienced that kind of power relatively closely, but this thing develops about 30 000 HP on its own, the whole plant does 454 000 HP and we're standing right in it.
We make our way back up to the grand hall and start heading back to where the van is parked, Raphael pointing out the huge crane above our heads that runs on rails the length of the hall. This is for dismantling each generator/turbine unit for servicing. Get back to the van and there is security guard waiting for us, he was supposed to accompany us on the tour but was late or forgot there was an english tour that day. But he made it up by riding ahead of us for the outdoor portion.
So quick explanation, this complex works because they built a series of 29 dykes and created a 2 800 sq. km. reservoir. Then they funnel the water from the reservoir into the generating complex near the surface, it travels down the tubes 137 meters to spin the turbines and out the other side to rejoin the river.
Fun fact, if you took all the water from that one reservoir and put it in 1 litre bottles there would be 10 000 1L bottles for every one of the 6 billion people on earth.
Pics:
Looking across the top of one of the dykes with the reservoir on the left:
Fun fact, the longest dyke, pictured above is 2.3 km long, 150 m tall and 700 m wide at the base
This is the cut in the rock that funnels the water into the generators:
Fun fact, when they had filled the reservoir (which took 8 months) and wanted to open that cut, they filled the generator side with water 2 meters higher than the reservoir side so when they blasted that rock out, the water and debris naturally flowed out away from the generator until the water levels became equal, thus avoiding the debris getting closer to the station.
This is the spillway, so called in case the reservoir ever looks like it might overflow. This is how to control the overflow. It is 1.5 kms long by 200 meters wide. Each step is 10 meters tall and there are 10 of them. If you can zoom way in there is a human sized silhoutte painted just above the water in the centre of the rock at the bottom to give some perspective.
From the top of "The Giants Staircase"
This is from a viewing tower showing the river downstream from the station
This shows the spillway from a different angle and one of the roads we drove up on
One of the biggest obstacles when signing the deal for this massive project was convincing the local natives that Hydro Quebec would bring the land back to it's original state, where possible. After driving all over this huge complex it appears they kept thier word. They planted 80 million trees, and it shows. While driving back to the entrance the security guard that was escorting us stopped and pointed to the side of the road and disappearing into the brush was a tiny bear cub. No pic as the vans windows were tinted.
When we got back to Radisson there was some swag for each of us to take home, fridge magnet, dvd, pamphlets, they mailed a postcard for free for us all. Did I mention this tour was free?
This guy had arrived from Cali. while we were out
He'd done a bit of travelling and had an interesting hydration method
Never met the rider, Steve said he saw him and was in his seventies, good for him!
Time for beers, dinner at Mika's and packing up to depart in the morning
Our ride down the JBR to Matagami was a little faster on the way home. We stopped less and rode faster. Checked off the road at the info kiosk outide Matagami so they didn't send out a search and rescue team for us. Back at the hotel fairly early just in time before the skies opened up. Beers, dinner and bed.
The long ride on Tuesday from Matagami home started off rainy for the first 3 hours or so. But by the time we reached North Bay it had cleared up and warmed up so it was smooth sailing to home.
It was a heck of a ride, great destination, KLR Steve is an excellent riding partner, we had almost perfect weather and a good time was had by all. Can't wait for next weekend!! Off to do some local twisties and spend a couple of nights with a few more riding buddies. KLR Steve will become GSX 600 Steve for that one.
darryle
Well-known member
Did the James bay hwy in 2009 on a zx 14 the first 381 km were not nice,after waiting for the"Gaz boy" we found the last leg perfect, site thru the sweepers explored the limits of 6 the gear on a zx14.I was in heaven.the hydro tour is an absolute must don't miss it even if you get the French tour and don't understand. It's fantastic.i bought the wife some ear rings made by natives about 50$,similar earrings in toronto were 5 times the price
What's the ticket for? I couldn't translate it.
Motorcycle Mike
Well-known member
He crossed the road in Radisson without a helmet. Just from the hotel to the gas station. We had just remarked about how few police we saw up there when this cop rolled up.
Motorcycle Mike
Well-known member
How rough was the gravel on the Trans-Lab? I'm heading that way in a couple weeks and my biggest worry is hundreds of km of freshly graded gravel.
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