October 08, 2014

Trip Planning: To Mid-Canada Line Site 060... and back.

New Post Falls
Photo: Andrew McLachlan
Here is the plan for the next trip.

Mid-Canada Line (MCL) sites are rather hard to get to, for me anyway, since the majority were placed along the 55th Parallel.  There are, however, a few sites which stretched South, to bounce the information gathered by the MCL to North Bay.  Those sites were, of course, the troposcatter repeaters stretching South from James Bay.

The Southmost troposcatter repeater is Site 070 (Kempis Mountain, or Mount Kempis) which I've seen before, but hope to see again on my next trip.  It is fully remediated, but provides a fantastic view.

The next hop in the former troposcatter network is 200 km away at Site 060, in Relay, Ontario - a now-non-existent place which once housed diesel generators and radio equipment.  That's where I want to get to. I've never been, and it's pretty much as far North (the 50th Parallel) as you can get in Northeastern Ontario without a canoe.

I will, however, push farther North than that, and aim to get to the Otter Rapids Generating Station, New Post Falls, and see the Abitibi Canyon Dam on the way back.

Two stops in North Bay are planned, and I will document them extensively after they happen.

I had originally been planning to see several of the air strips which were created or upgraded as part of the Pinetree Line project in the early 1950s... however, I discovered there arent many original buildings left at any of the sites... so why bother; sorry to say... My objective was to go somewhere few others have been, and fewer have photographed or documented.  MCL Site 060 at Relay, Ontario fits that bill.






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