You Will learn Nothing Useful With This Post

Hi Folks - It's time for a new post as the last one has generated 225 comments and is causing Blogger.com to act a bit strange. The problem is I am seriously tied up with some real world activities at the moment and don't have time to write anything useful so I thought I would give you an idea of what life is like in the middle of the Canadian wilderness.



The photo above (click to enlarge) was taken from the front deck of my Fishing Lodge and shows the end of a 380km winter road that winds through eastern Manitoba's Boreal forest. The road is built each winter across frozen bogs and muskeg in order to supply remote areas like my Lodge and several Indian Reserves with a years supply of Gas, propane, building materials and dry goods. I construct a 35km road across my lake in order to meet up with the main winter road built by the Province. The road lasts from mid January until the end of March but recent years the time frame has been as low as two weeks. Global warming perhaps?

I have about 1200 truckers pass by on their way to the Indian communities located nearby. As you can see these fellows are delivering a mobile home to a community located about 100 kilometres north of me. The trucks weigh in at 85,000 lbs and yes - they are on the ice. The ice road is about 6 feet thick at the moment which is plenty for these semi tractors - they need 33 inches of ice to travel safely on it.



The photos above and below are of the main winter road which is little more than a path pushed through the forest with a bulldozer. The clearings are for microwave towers used to transmit telephone signals from the north - there is a tower every 40km.



We have a gravel runway located on one of the islands for our main transportation year round and lots of water for float planes. The lake is about 100km end to end and approximately 60 km wide. We have close to 5000 islands to navigate around and yes I have been lost a few times...






The lake begins freezing over mid October and usually thaws in May. During these times we travel by helicopter.




Ok. I Lied... we use the chopper all year round. (It's a pretty cool way to travel) Check out some of the photos below taken from the chopper...

A winter's sunset.


Rocky and Bullwinkle


On Donner and Blixen and where the heck is Santa - a herd of Reindeer or as we call them - Woodland Cariboo


The lake freezing over near an Indian community 20km down the lake from the lodge.



Oh btw, it's not always winter in this part of the world.








We sneak in a little fishing from time to time...





Have I mentioned I have a few dogs - Alaskan Malamutes





oh... and a wolf named Max



and this would be the boss...



And there you have it - a new post so stop asking and I didn't mention "Make Money Online" once.

If you're a first time visitor then you are as confused as hell - sorry about that.

Cheers,

Griz




Don't you just hate it when you try and catch a few minutes of sleep and someone sticks a big slimy Lake Trout in your arms... And people ask me why I don't have a photo on my blog!


Update: One of my readers Wayne of Adventures in Trucking has some wonderful photos he and his wife took while traveling the Alaska Highway. Click the link and check them out - some really great shots.