Winter road to Fort McMurray

We followed the rules… mostly.

This past weekend, Leanne and I decided to make a trip to Fort McMurray via the winter road – 280 kilometres of groomed ice and snow between here and there.

We loaded up Van Morrison (our 1995 Plymouth Voyager) with various emergency supplies, snacks, topped the tank up with gas, topped our travel mugs with fresh coffee and headed off around 8 a.m. on Saturday morning.

Sunset over the Athabascan Delta (Photo by Leanne)

Since I had never driven on this winter road before (and Leanne hadn’t been on it since we lived in Hay River a few years back), we took a pretty cautious approach to our trip down. I must say the road, for what it is, is in great condition. The first part is mostly straight stretches of road over the frozen muskeg (bog) with a few river crossings, afterwards it starts getting more windy and hilly as you drive through the woodlands.

I drove, of course.

After about three hours of this you come out onto a logging road, which then becomes a two-lane paved highway and finally a four-lane freeway once you reach the (in)famous oil sands.

Syncrude, a spectre in the distance, greets us as we approach Fort McMurray. (Photo by Leanne)

It was my first time seeing the oil sands up close. Without sounding too Greenpeacey, I’ll say this: I have a hard time believing that industrialization of this scale can’t or won’t have a large impact on the region’s ecology. /activism

I have no photos of Fort Mac to share. We were too busy shopping and meeting friends and, also, it’s just not that pretty of a town. At least not at this time of year.

So after our two unrelaxing days we hit the road back home. This time Leanne was actually kind enough to drive halfway on the winter road so I could unwind.

Leaving Fort Mac on Sunday with the sun at our back.