This article recounts a journey on the Temagami First Nation ice road, highlighting the unique experience of driving across a frozen lake. It discusses safety precautions, ice conditions, the road's importance to the community, and the science behind maintaining this vital transportation link.
I am about to drive onto the most southern ice road in Canada .
On the Temagami First Nation website it says “Friendly reminder when entering and exiting the road reduce speed to 20 kph and while on the road 40 kph is the maximum.... and “Be further advised vehicles travelling off the marked ice road do so at their own risk.” Stopping for a quick photo opp a vehicle speeds by,- too fast - you hear the rolling dark rumbling, like thunder, of the underwater wave approach – a little disconcerting. Yikes – quickly back and into the car with the door open.
Ice master An enlightening conversation was had with John Charyna, Community Infrastructure Lead for Temagami First Nation. He knows the science of ice making and has been looking after the road and the boat shuttle for about nine years . “Global warming continues to affect the time between winter freeze up and spring break up.” Last year the ice road did not open until February 3 and was only available to the community for ten days. At the time he showed an Elder an ice core with an abundance of air bubbles. The community member, who traditionally checks the ice, said this was rare and was an indication of weaker ice, not what they wanted.
Nazneen Mehdi is a contract nurse who has been working at the Doreen Pots Health Centre on Bear Island for three years. She relies on the winter road and the three-season boat shuttle to get to work. She says the beauty of the land as it moves through the seasons is captivating. Making a backyard rink is one thing, constructing an ice bridge suitable for cars and trucks to cross 210 metres of the Abitibi River, with a current, under northern weather conditions, is another skillset worth appreciating.
How is it built? Through the procurement process, an independent contractor does it. When there are 14 inches of ice fourteen cables , equally spaced, from a spool, are unravelled all the way across the river. Then subsequent flooding quickly makes more ice on top of the suspended cables. It is like putting rebar into concrete for additional support.
During the coldest months of the year, the communities of James Bay are connected to Ontario’s highway network by the Wetum Road — a frozen road that stretches about 170 kilometres from Otter Rapids on the Abitibi River to Moosonee and across to Moose Factory. The beauty of Wetum Road. is that you start within the boreal forest and transition to the Hudson Bay lowlands. From Smooth Rock Falls on Highway 11 you travel north through mixed-wood forests of jack pine, balsam fir, tamarack and eastern white cedar, along with intermittent deciduous species of poplar and white birch. North of Abitibi Canyon to Otter Rapids you transition to black and white spruce.
How to get there. Your journey starts at Smooth Rock Falls between Cochrane and Kapuskasing and north of Timmins. It is 73 km to Fraserdale and you turn right or NE towards Abitibi Canyon another 3.5 km. You cross over the Ontario Power Generation dam and it is another 45 km to Otter Rapids and the start of the Wetum Rd.
ICE ROAD TRAVEL CANADA FIRST NATION SAFETY COMMUNITY WINTER
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