15°

[footfootfoot]

Improved it or diminished it?

[orthodoc]

Originally Posted by footfootfoot

I assumed you were raised there and that led me to wonder how one could escape from a place as rural as that. I can only begin to imagine how many otter pelts it would take to come up with not only trainfare from the hinterlands but also a couch to crash on while you found a job.

I sense a fascinating, if chilly, story.

Neither fascinating nor romantic; I am no female Nanook of the North. Born in Sudbury, grew up in Ottawa; spent a year in Moosonee in payback to the government for a year's worth of loans during medical school. We had a choice of small northern towns but decided to pass on the CNR and Kimberley-Clark ghost towns along Lake Superior's north shore and go somewhere 'interesting'.

It was definitely interesting but not sustainable. A good experience for a year, though. Oh, and the Polar Bear Express (I kid you not, that's the name of the train that comes in three times a week) isn't the only way out. Seven-seater bush planes flew to Timmins regularly, and the 'big plane', the 47-seater, went once a week. The big plane was the only one that ever crashed.

Eta there were no roads in.

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by orthodoc

spent a year in Moosonee in payback to the government for a year's worth of loans during medical school.

I like programs like this, since rural areas would get zero doctors otherwise, but you have to imagine it's a little frustrating to have a new, fresh-out-of-medical-school doctor every year. No continuity of care, no sense of "This looks like nothing, but if you really knew my medical history you would know there's more here than meets the eye." On the other hand, if you get a shitty argumentative doctor, at least you know he'll be gone in a year and you get to try again.

[Lamplighter]

Originally Posted by orthodoc

<snip>
It was definitely interesting but not sustainable. A good experience for a year, though.
Oh, and the Polar Bear Express (I kid you not, that's the name of the train
that comes in three times a week) isn't the only way out.
<snip>

One of the most interesting (to me) TV programs on PBS
several years ago was about the 200 mile train ride north to Moosonee.

At the start, passengers were self-occupied with reading, sleeping, etc.
But as the journey lengthened, conversations between passengers began as you would expect.
The surprising thing was that gradually, the sound of one conversationwas overlaid with another.
It amazed to me that it was possible to follow the simultaneous conversations with no real trouble.
Then, even a third conversation was added to the mix.
This took some getting used to, but after a few minutes, it was again possible to follow all three conversations.
Granted, the topics were what you would expect among strangers, but the program was memorable.

The main line story after the train arrived in Moosonee
was the annual migration of polar bears through the town, and
I think it ended with nighttime scenes of bears at the town dump.

I've heard polar bears are very dangerous, more so than browns or even grizzles.
I've since wondered if and how the townspeople ever get used to the presence of their bears,
and just how dangerous they are in Moosonee.

[footfootfoot]

Originally Posted by orthodoc

Neither fascinating nor romantic; I am no female Nanook of the North.

I'll take my romance and fascination where I can find it.

[Sundae]

Originally Posted by footfootfoot

I'll take my romance and fascination where I can find it.

I've lost mine, so if you find some more do check it's really yours.

[Happy Monkey]

First snow of the season that stuck today. Enough that I had to brush of the car, but not much more.

[orthodoc]

The Polar Bear Express is definitely an experience. It was generally very sociable, as you say, and it would stop pretty well anywhere along the tracks if flagged down. Some people lived in extremely remote locations along the general vicinity of the tracks.

One story - my ex was asked one day to go in the medical helicopter to pick up a laboring woman whose husband had brought her from bush camp to a spot by the tracks and radioed for help. The helicopter pilot elected to land on a long high trestle bridge, in the center of the long span, because the bush was so dense everywhere else. They landed, shut down, and started walking toward the woman's husband at the end of the railway bridge, when the man began waving his arms and screaming. The train was coming.

There wasn't time for them to make it to the end of the bridge; they sprinted back to the helicopter, got it started, and pulled off the bridge JUST as the Polar Bear Express came through.

They did pick up the woman after that and she made it to the hospital on Moose Factory Island before delivering.

And polar bears ... they ARE the baddest bears. Not only are they the biggest; they fear nothing, and they won't just kill you if you surprise them or invade their territory, they will actively hunt you. Have you seen the documentaries on polar bears in Manitoba, where they take people to look at them in enormous tank-like CAT machines? You need a machine like that. The local people in Moosonee hunted just about everything but they stayed far away when the polar bears came around.

I have a phobia of bears and took my brother-in-law's shotgun to Moosonee with me. What an idiot! A bear would've regarded that shot as no more than black flies biting.

Fortunately we were never visited by any bears. They didn't come right into town the year we were there.

[glatt]

Polar bears are scary. Check out this series of pictures at the link.

Spoiler: The guy made it inside the red truck before being eaten.

[Lamplighter]

Scary indeed.

Whenever I see pics of people in dangerous situations, I think to myself:

"... and who and where was the person taking the pictures ? "

[jimhelm]

yeah... not many animals will attempt to kill something nearly their own size to eat.

Most bear attacks are territorial or cub protection. Polar bears are trying to EAT YOU.

like a Lion or a Shark. you're food, bro. get in mah belleh.

[Trilby]

It was clearly the man's fault.

He was on the bear's lawn.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Most bears see people as a danger, triggering flight or fight.
Polar Bears see people as food.

[ZenGum]

yeah... not many animals will attempt to kill something nearly their own size to eat.

I've seen a doco where some whales (several tons each) got trapped by shifting ice and had to surface to breathe at one small hole in the sea ice.

Polar bears gathered around, and as the whales came up, they would jump in and attack. Eventually, there was a dead whale, dragged up onto the ice, with a few bears feasting on it.



Aussie animals will generally sting you and leave you to die, but only if you piss them off by stepping on them or something. Sharks might bite you by mistake, but the only serious human-eating predators are the crocs, which can't hunt on land. We don't have anything that will actively hunt you down and kill you because it wants to.

Except Ivan Milat, and he's in prison.

[footfootfoot]

Could Ivan beat a polar bear in a cage match?