Thus equipped, we faced a totally unknown 90 mile gravel road. Turned out that it wasn't true about the gravel except for the first ten miles. It was a dirt road in the purest boreal sense of that term, a slightly upgraded horse trail which wandered through the bush generally taking the path of least resistance, meeting itself in switchbacks around swamps, skirting hills and ducking beaver dams with the best of them. Nobody lived along it, no farms, villages, ranger stations, nobody for eighty miles 'til you got to Desmarais.

I grew to know that road intimately over the next four years, in all its moods and in all weathers. On good days it was a beautiful drive through the northern forest across the Martin Mountain watershed, two hours to Slave lake and a form of civilization. On bad days it was truly ninety miles of hell on Earth, floods, forest fires, freezing rain, and mud, mud, MUD.

When we were moving from Wabasca in June of 1980 they were in the process of upgrading the road, taking out some of the major switchbacks, putting some gravel down, that sort of thing.

I started from Wabasca about 4 AM, with the Datsun loaded, pulling about a thousand pound trailer on a 700 lb. hitch and my 69 year old mother in law in the car. The sun was up, the sky clear blue, perfect day for a two way run. About ten miles down the road I ran into the first cloudburst and then the fun began. Past experience had shown that on that road, in the rain, if you stopped you stayed where you were, middle of the road or in the ditch, end of journey. This was especially so pulling a trailer with a track width greater than the car, two extra unpowered wheels making their own ruts.

For the next thirty miles it was ditch to ditch work, full crank on the wheel one way, recovery with the gas pedal and full crank the other way in another hundred feet, interesting but tiring, also not amenable to long conversations. We were making progress until we got into the midst of the construction zone and were doing all right riding the ridges for the first quarter mile or so. It may have been possible to make it but Fate dropped a front wheel into a rut, and there we stuck. Forty miles one way to help, fifty the other, in a mudhole at 5:30 AM. I climbed out and had my first cigarette since we started the slip slide and examined the situation.

Could have been worse, nobody hurt, nothing broken that I could see. The rain had stopped and it was the morning of what would probably be a nice summer day. Could have been better, I had my mother in law with me.

After about fifteen minutes I had resigned myself to wondering what the hell I was going to do. It was an open question whether anybody else would be travelling that day with the roads in that condition.

As sometimes happens, though, Fate was in a particularly jolly mood that day, due to the sunny weather no doubt, and came driving in from the Slave Lake end of the road in a four wheel drive pickup truck. He was in fine form because he also turned out to be an equipment operator with his Cat parked off the road not a hundred feet from where we had come to rest. He fired up his machine, I chained the Datsun up, he pulled gently but firmly while keeping his dozer blade in float position to smooth our path, and we were through the construction.

Chains off and rolling on our own it was back to the ditch to ditch wheel winding for another fifty miles, and yes, it did start to rain again before we were ten miles down the road. We didn't meet another vehicle from there to the Nipissi corner.

By the time we got into Slave Lake I was ready to wrestle a grizzly three falls out of three for a cup of coffee. When we hit the restaurant parking lot I finally had time to have a look at exactly I had done to the vehicle. Mud-caked didn't begin to describe the car, mud-piled was more apt. The side and rear windows were covered, only where the wipers had travelled was the windshield clear enough to see light through, the trailer had gained a 2-3 inch layer overall and was probably three hundred pounds heavier.

Interesting stuff that clay, dry it out and it made dust clouds that would shame a Sahara sandstorm for opacity and persistence, wet it down and it became the most incredibly greasy, slippery substance in the whole world while retaining the power to stick car wheels immovably to the road. Dry it out in the wheel wells and it became like concrete, impervious to any known removal technique.

Man, that coffee tasted good.

So my friend, if you want to emulate a true northern adventure story from the historic year of 1980, get hold of an old Datsun with smooth tires and an overloaded trailer. Find a good stretch of muddy twisted road through the bush, get the rain gods to work, and off you go.

And don't forget your mother-in-law.

P.S.- They paved the whole road a couple of years later.

Standard rules of Northern travel applied then (don't know if they still do). If anybody was parked by the road you stopped and asked if they needed help, and supplied same if you could. When you met a big truck on a muddy section you gave him the middle of the road even if it meant you took the ditch, he could, and would, pull you out. You couldn't do a damn thing for him except call for a tow when you got to town. You always came prepared for an overnight stay should that be necessary. Sleeping bags, shovel, axe, firestarters, first aid kit were all in the trunk.

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