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Deane and Norm's Motorcycle Trip to Northwest Territories & Nunavut | |
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August 17 - Hay River, NWT to Manning, AB - 325 Miles |
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We finally saw a Moose today! We've been watching and hoping for many days, but with no success until today. And that reminds me that we haven't given the "Wild Life Report" in the last few days, so we'll catch up today. Today's ride retraced our route getting up into Northwest Territories, since there is only one way in and the same way out. It was another beautiful day, with moderate temperatures just perfect for riding, and sunny blue skies. We went through the transition area where heavy forests in the north turn to scattered forests as we came south. Grain fields again dominate the rolling hills. All in all, a great riding day. We've been meeting Gold Wingers as we go along. Yesterday as we stopped for an ice cream cone in Enterprise, NWT, the lady owning the ice cream store told us that she and her husband had a Gold Wing and had traveled quite a bit in the US. Today in the town of High Level, Alberta, we met another Gold Winger, Peter Siemens, and enjoyed chatting with him for quite a while. Now for the "Wildlife Report". Today's gem was seeing a cow and calf moose. Deane spotted the cow moose's head sticking up just above a group of cat tails, and turned his motorcycle around while alerting Norm. The cow moose had a baby moose with her. The two moose were in a sort of backwater from a fairly deep stream. Mama Moose decided to take Baby Moose farther away, and the two of them swam down the stream for maybe 50 yards (moose are good swimmers - and apparently teach their young early). They found a good place to get out and promptly disappeared, but we had fun watching them. We also saw a doe deer with two little fawns, standing in the cleared area a ways from the road. I wrote about the Bison we saw yesterday, near Hay River. The bison were quite shy, and if given the chance, they disappeared into the forest quickly. One lady told us that since being protected in the sanctuary, they are rapidly multiplying, and are being seen over about a 150 mile stretch of forest around the Great Slave Lake. On the previous day, riding from Manning, AB to Hay River, NWT, we first saw a cute little Red Fox, just a few yards from the roadway. Then we saw one deer, and then two more, all at the edge of the forest. The other thing we saw was several beaver lodges. On the way back today we saw several more beaver lodges, so the beaver seem to be doing well here. Now about trucks, forest products, gold mines and diamond mines. We had expected the single road going into the NWT to be heavily traveled by trucks, and it is. Being curious as we are, we've been talking to truckers and others to find out what they are carrying. The biggest trucks are 30-wheelers, carrying oil or forest products. What are 30-wheelers? They consist of the typical diesel truck tractor, but pulling two trailers, with 3 axles in between the trailers. So, they have the two front wheels, two axles with 4 wheels each on the back of the truck, three axles with 4 wheels each between the trailers, and the normal two axles with 4 wheels each at the rear of the second trailer - 30-wheelers. And, they carry very, very big loads. Imagine a big moving van, and mentally add a big moving van trailer behind it. Those trucks are called "chip trucks", and they haul wood chips from "out in the bush" logging operations, to pulp mills in northern Alberta. Those 30-wheelers are enormous, and there is a steady stream of them. Then there are the 30-wheelers hauling oil. They are enormous too. They are carrying oil and oil products from the lower oil-producing part of Alberta, north to the mines and other operations. There are gold mines in Yellowknife, NWT, and diamond mines north of Yellowknife that have no roads into their areas because of the freezing and thawing of the tundra. So, during January, February, and early March, a trucking company in Yellowknife constructs a road that relies on frozen lakes to run the trucks over. That is the major time of the year for trucking supplies to these far locations. And, that increases the traffic up the road we took into NWT. We had a trucker who drives that tell us that this two lane road handles "thousands" of trucks during that 3-month period, and someone told us it was 7,000 trucks last year. Another type of 30-wheeler is one which has a tank especially made to haul cement to the mines. Still another 30-wheeler is designed to haul oil north and plywood south. Quite a combination. Then in the summer, many of these trucks go to Hay River, where the supplies are loaded on huge barges. Tugs then pull/push these down the Mackenzie river to the mines and other industrial concerns. As we were in Hay River, the last of these tug/barge shipments had just been made (about August 10th or so) because the Arctic Ocean ports are freezing up! The tugs are in dry dock until next year. Well, that's probably more than you want to know about the Canadian northland, but we had a good time finding out about these things. |
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