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Photos were edited and computer-enhanced nightly
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All kinds of bridges |
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One of the very few ungroomed areas. |
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Ski-Doo is made in Quebec. |
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Widetrack utility sleds are very rare in the US but seemed to be fairly common in Quebec. They ain't as sexy but they get you where you need to go under all conditions. |
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Gas is very expensive in Canada. Regardless of brand, most long-distance touring sleds seemed to be powered by newer-technology four-stroke engines.
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An unscientific observation... The next runner up brand seemed to be Yamaha but not by much. These are some token Yamahas. The white sled on the right is a specialty long-track sled for off-trail mountain riding. When owned by locals, brands were trailed by Arctic Cat and and lastly Polaris. Most Polaris sleds seemed to be owned by Americans and we did see plenty of those. Perhaps the brand affinities are different in the other provinces.
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Both sleds had UHF GMRS two-way radios which are legal in Canada and the US. The VHF 2-meter ham radio was tied into mountaintop repeater stations of which we heard several. Jonquiere alone had six. The VHF radio also provided us with Canadian government weather reports in both French and English. The GPS was also helpful but GPS's are still rare on sleds. Considering the low cost of a GPS and a high-cost of a touring sled, it makes you wonder why you don't see more GPSs on the remote trails. Is all of this electronic crap common on snowmobiles? No. 'nuf said.
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The external antenna dramatically improved communications range.
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If we had time to try it out, the Blackberry 3G high-speed
internet (USB cable to the Netbook PC) may have worked in some
remote areas. Home service was by Verizon Wireless but when visiting Quebec, one can request international CDMA service. The cost was far less than the 69-cents per minute when roaming. We did not have GSM service in this particular phone. The Blackberry automatically collected all incoming emails whenever we were in range of a tower. No email was lost. It just worked. Amazing.
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The picture may seem blurry. It is not... Those are multiple cables you are looking at. Hydroelectric power generation seems to be a big industry. Power lines were everywhere.
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