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Day 3: Radisson & Chisasibi At this stage of the journey we have completed two major drive days; the first pitch was 650 miles from Vermont to Matagami, Province Quebec, and the second day devoted solely to the James Bay Road. we stayed in the Auberge Radisson (Hotel Radisson) which is part of the larger Hydro Quebec dorm and apartment complex. The buildings are all interconnected by underground or elevated passages, so one can wander about the indoor community regardless of weather. It houses a hotel, restaurant, conference center, post office and visitors center, as well as housing for employees. Staff work an eight day on, six day off schedule, and commute by plane. Only a few hundred staff live and work full time in Radisson, which does have a school with about 60 K-12 students.
Sunrise over Radisson. The largest energy source known to man rises over the largest hydro-electric energy source built by man. It's all about power in Radisson.
The Radisson Hotel (Auberg Radisson)
The interconnected village of Hydro Quebec Radisson, with dorms and apartments for staff. It houses a community center, gymnasium and swimming pool as well. In a climate that reaches 40 below zero, it is best to stay indoors some days.
Hydro Quebec vehicles all plugged into block heaters. If you have such a device, you're welcome to plug in as well.
The community of Radisson is modular or trailer homes.
The school playground buried under snow.
The 000 Nunavut license plate is a cultural joke of sorts. Nunavut is north of James Bay, and has no roads. It does have Polar bears.
The Hydro Tour We were the only tourists in town on this day, and got a private tour of the hydro facility. It begins in a museum-quality visitors center, where we are greeted by a wall of electrical outlets, just in case we forgot what the end product was.
Visitors are taken to a 100-seat theater where a series of videos explain the project and chronicle the construction. The measurements defy comprehension - look at the map and try to understand the sheer volume of this watershed. The James Bay Project diverted the waters of the Caniapiscau and Eastmain rivers into the La Grande River watershed, submerged about 11,000 km² of boreal forest and substantially modified the water flow of the La Grande River. The project covers an area of the size of the State of New York and is one of the largest hydroelectric systems in the world. (from Wikipedia)
This exhibit is the focal point of the visitors center. We were a little surprised and struck by the inherent symbolism of this scenario, where, perhaps, one could suggest the caribou represents the land and the wolf represents Hydro Quebec. Perhaps I am too cynical?
A large aquarium serves as a wall to the inner complex, with a lonely walleye hovering inside. Hydro Quebec attempts to suggest the reservoirs are good for the fish, but we know that argument simply doesn't make sense. I wonder if this tank is even wide enough for the fish to turn around?
We were driven to the underground entrance, which is big red door barely visible above, in the center, with a spec of a truck visible on the right. The size of this facility is difficult to wrap your head around, everything is beyond big, even the name: La Grande Complex. Only 20 people are needed to run it, the majority of the staff are out in the field at the various substations and the other hydro facilities to the east.
No cameras are allowed inside the facility, and we were escorted by both a guide and a security officer. The tour is fantastic. This entire facility is carved out of solid bedrock, so every roadway, walkway and room has rough rock walls and ceilings. We were allowed access to some places that they cannot take a large group, such as down to the individual turbine generators themselves. The whole complex buzzes and vibrates as the water spins the turbines to create electricity. The engineering is simply amazing within the complex. Each unit generates about 333 MW of power. That's about 454,000 horsepower. (from Wikipedia)
After the internal tour, we are driven around the complex. This is the massive spillway built as a safety mechanism. It is only expected to be used once every 75 years. Again, the scale is hard to comprehend. Using a zoom, we were one mile away from this spillway. When we drove to the top of the spillway, it was difficult to see the site where I took this picture. Each of the 10 steps is 122m wide, 150m deep and 10m high. The length of the spillway is 1,500m. (from Wikipedia)
Approaching the top of the spillway. High winds were blasting across the hundreds of miles of frozen reservoir surface, which offer no protection. The blowing and drifting snow in such a remote landscape juxtaposed with this imposing manmade structure made this seem an other-worldly place. It was relatively warm, about 10 below zero F, but the wind gusts of 50 mph were enough to knock you over, and when it hits your face it burns.
An electrician would consider this a trip to Disney World. The substation is large enough to accommodate 100 football fields, channeling 735,000 volts into each of the six lines, and it has a transfer capacity of 6,600 MW. Hydro-Québec commissioned the world's first 735-kV line in 1965. Never before had such a high voltage been used to transmit electricity. In 2001, this breakthrough was named the technological innovation of the 20th century.
There is an underlying message in Radisson that clearly states man has control over this environment. The engineering marvel and fiscal machine that is Hydro Quebec remains the gospel of Radisson, a company town that only exists due to the power facility. Now that we had explored the culture of Radisson, it was time to visit the native communities of the Cree. It is the Cree who are most affected by Hydro Quebec, in many interconnected ways; from cultural displacement to political and financial arrangements. There is no doubt the Cree way of life has been radically altered by Hydro Quebec, but we wanted to better understand the dynamics of this relationship.
Chisasibi
Chisasibi is home to about 3000 Cree, and is a new village built largely from the settlement money with Hydro Quebec and the Canadian Government. It had to be relocated due to the hydro project, which fundamentally altered the geography of the region. Although we left Radisson under clear skies, a snowstorm quickly engulfed the area as we drove to Chisasibi, about 100 km away. As a result, I have no photos of the town, but you can check out http://www.mandow.ca/
The Chisasibi Airport - this would be the most northern point of our journey. We were hoping to drive out a few more miles to walk on James Bay, but that road wasn't plowed, and we didn't bring snowmobiles.
The drive back to Radisson was slow going in about 6 inches of snow and minimal visibility. Larger drifts from blowing snow would accumulate up to 18 inches or so and you had to be ready for them - we couldn't see them, we learned to feel them and react accordingly.
Back in Radisson we fueled up for an early morning departure. I've never had snowpack like this cling to the back of the vehicle - it was over a foot thick in places, and makes all the vehicles on the road invisible from the rear. The defrost only caught up once we had been stopped for ten minutes.
The Radisson Hotel restaurant was closed, so our first night we went to the only other choice, a small place across the street. The same menu we saw in Matagami greeted us, and we chose spaghetti with meat sauce, garlic bread and diet pepsi. It wasn't very good... borderline awful, and the bill was $60 Canadian. Ouch! We found the grocery store and put together a much better meal the next night, with fresh bread, fresh fruit and a bottle of wine. For half the price. Day 4: Radisson to Waskaganish
Day 1 - 2 of the James Bay Trip Day 4 - 5: Radisson to Waskaganish Day 8 - 9: in the bush with Oujé-Bougoumou Crees
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