January 13, 2010The End of the Road – Part I – Intro

Ever look at a map of Quebec and wondered about all those little towns, way up North, shown only as tiny dots? Who lives there? What’s it like? And what’s in those wide swaths of empty map space in between?

Ever wondered how far North you can drive, and what the world looks like at the end of the road?

For a while now, I had been wondering exactly these things, obsessively staring at the northern corners of the province on Google Earth. So when I found myself with a bit of free time last August, I booked some last-minute vacation and impulsively set out to find the northern end of the Quebec road network.

I decided I would simply take the 15 North until the road stops. Once I had set my mind to it, it took less than two hours to get ready. I packed my tent, some warm clothes, a jerrican full of extra gas, food, stove, GPS, and, for good measure, my canoe. Wherever the road took me, I hoped there would be some good wilderness camping to be had. I also packed a satellite phone rented with overnight delivery from roadpost (www.roadpost.ca) and the phone number to Nordair, which I thought still flew bush planes in the North. Waiting for the sat phone took the longest, but it’s a potentially life-saving asset, and besides I would need it to make sure I can be flown back to my car if I found a river to paddle.

Given the absence of foreplanning, I half-expected the trip to be a complete failure. I realisitcally imagined that the driving would be monotonous, and that I’d eventually get lost on some increasingly obscure roads, and return no wiser for the experience.

I couldn’t have been more wrong. It was an epic trip, and a relatively cheap one that I can recommend to anyone who likes adventure.