Road Trip
 

My brother and I decided it was time for a road trip before we start our harvest. Now, a 500 mile trip doesn't count, so we headed to Yellowknife. By the time we got back, we'd put on 3400 miles.
The first pic is the 60th parallel on the way home. There's 1600 pounds of stuff in the back of the S10.
In case anybody doesn't believe the stories about the bugs up there, the second pic shows the cloud around the face of a wild buffalo along the road.

Gordon Piro took us to a junk yard that had the remains of three CMPs. The 60 cwt is quite complete but the yard owner wants to keep it. I tried to get the winch but no luck.
The second was a chopped down HUP that was converted to a towtruck and the owner wanted to keep it too. Before being a towtruck it was used as the headgear for a small gold mine.This HUP had a square roof hatch and plastic steering wheel but round gauges and no hub lifting flanges. Quite the combination.
The third one was the chassis of a 1943 HUP. I stripped it and got the complete front axle assembly, a crossmember that's missing on mine, all the U bolts, rubber suspension bumpers, steering box, master cylinder, spare wheel, convoy light and switch and misc other bits. This HUP broke through the ice on Great Slave Lake in 46 or 47 taking the lives of five RCAF members. They fished it out of the shallow water (the lake's 2040 feet deep in the deepest spot) and it sat in one place for 40 years before going to the junk yard. After I stripped it they threw the frame in the crusher.

Nice work David
 

It's always interesting for us downunder to see CMPs in Canada - they are so much part of our countryside here, except for rarities like the HUPs.

There's something enormously satisfying stripping (and saving) useful parts from something destined for destruction.

Bet the locals love it when it gets too cold for the flying insects.

Thanks for sharing your trip.

Here's some vehicles in Yellowknife.
The first is Gord's F15A and last is his Alligator in the mining museum. The 6x6 is in the museum too and the Duck is elsewhere.
More pics later.

Enjoying this
 

Hi David,

I'm enjoying your trip too.

Regards

Alex

How's this series then?
When you see this at a Duck crossing you just have to take it for a swim!
That's me driving and my brother as co-pilot. This was at the end of the summer road.

We went several miles south on Great Slave Lake to check out the remains of a carrier. You have to pick your way in even with the jet boat. It really is quite inaccessible. The number painted on the hull is 42-1-8271 so it should be a Mark 1. All that's left s the hull and a few bits and pieces.A rain cloud moved in so we headed back in a hurry to avoid it. We hit some rain but at 50 mph it went over our heads. There wasn't much wind with it so we didn't get any big waves to contend with.

This cab 12 F15A and Stude 6x6 are at the wreckers in Grymshaw, Alberta. He's not too anxious to sell the cab 12 but the Stude stuff is available. It's mostly all there but the frame's been cut to make a manure spreader.

What a wonderful trip David. I hope some day to get up and visit Gordon but I will probably have to do it by scheduled airline. Just to illustrate to non Canadians I have figured some distances as the crow flies:
Europeans- it is the distance from Amsterdam to Ankara Turkey and back

Australians- further than from Melbourne to Alice Srings and then to Townsville and then to Sydney

Americans- Seattle to Atlanta and then to Buffalo and then to Houston

Also Dave didn't explain that part of the trip is by boat. If you don't get there in time in the fall you have to wait till the ice freezes on the lakes and take the ice road. In the spring the road is closed till the ice is gone and in the fall it is closed until the ice is hard enough to drive on. Gordon truly is at the end of the line.
Cheers,
Barry

Fantastic thread...
 

Wow, what a trip!!! I am really enjoying your pics and adventure. Well done and thanks for sharing. Cheers Rob

Here's what happens :giveup

That old Mackenzie River flows a lot of water. Where it flows out of Great Slave Lake it's about 1 1/2 miles wide and 25 to 40 feet deep and making 20 knots. When the spring flood hits it gets deeper and makes 30 knots sometimes. The ferry can't go this fast so has to shut down at times. The ferry keeps running at freezeup and keeps its route open until the ice is safe for cars to cross. The cars drive on the ice a few hundred feet from the ferry's route.That super bee full of fuel was crossing when the ice was placarded for 4 tonnes maximum but the driver knew better.
The bridge they're building is kind of a boondoggle. The powers to be started building it without it being approved until the shipping officials started wondering how the big loads were going to be able to get under it. Now they're finishing the piers while someone else redesigns the roadway with an approved design and some way to let the loads through. This spring there was a 7 story apartment building went somewhere down the river on a barge.
The tug and barge pix were taken in Hay River where they're based. That derelict tug shares the land with quite a few other abandoned boats.

David, we got our map of canada out to have a look where you've been, on our map not many roads lead from Yellowknife. It must have been a good adventure, when we first went to canada we thought we could drive in winter to Hudson Bay and have a look not realising until we were told that no roads go there, especially in winter.

Max

Max, the summer road just goes about 50 miles NE of Yellowknife and ends at a river. This is where the winter road starts that they show in the Ice Road Truckers show. In the winter the road is quite busy with a truck every 20 minutes or so.
That's Alexander Falls which is only a couple of hundred yards off the highway. The Hay River drops 90 feet here and another 40 feet a couple miles downstream. One funny thing, in southern Canada, you go down south and up north but in the NWT the rivers flow north so you go down north and up south. I'd never thought about it that way before.
The trees are stunted like that when you get north of the Mackenzie River. The barrens start about 80 miles north of Yellowknife but you can't drive there in the summer.
That buffalo walked down the road right beside us and came right beside the truck. We mentioned that in Yellowknife and were told that it was Buffalo Joe and he was looking for an apple. The truckers always feed him and called him that after Buffalo Joe who runs Buffalo Airways through the north. There's a 14 part series starting in the middle of October on Discovery Channel about that airline's operations. It should be pretty good.
The last pic is some "water squatters" on the lake. They get an old miners house from an abandoned mine and set it on an old barge or pontoons and anchor it by an island or just in the bay. That way they don't pay any taxes or the like but they have to make their own power. There's quite a few of them and they're all painted in bright colours. Can we sat old hippies?

HUP Chassis
 

It didn't take long for Dave to strip the HUP chassis, of course we have very little rust here, so he bolts came off rather easy.

David the photos you have posted on your northern trip are quite interesting for those of us who come from the dry continent, all that water you have is hard to get used to. The people in those huts, how do they survive when the lakes freeze up?

YOu should try a rescue for that carrier that's stranded, as it would be an interesting challenge. I wonder how many 44 gal drums it would take to float the carrier. How far across the lake to the carrier?

We are planning a blitz road trip next year and a couple of friends from Ontario are coming for the camping adventure.

Max

Max, I guess when the lake freezes up those people can walk around the front yard instead of swimming.
Here's some pix of the abandoned Ptarmigan gold mine a few miles out of Yellowknife. That pic of the headgear makes me wonder how good that HUP worked doing the same job.
There was quite a pile of diamond drill core samples there. I brought some home as curios and one of them has some visible gold in it.

David, you'd better buy a metal dector before your next visit, never know what you'll find.

One of these days we'll get back to Canada, we dream of driving through the rockies at sometime and maybe driving all the way to Ontario.

Max

Places to Visit in Ontario
 

There are many wonderful places to visit in Ontario, but the MUST visit location is Hammond: eastern Ontario's centre of the CMP universe.

On the way home we stopped in at George Mackenzie's for a couple of days. He has quite a bit of interesting stuff there. His Cab 13 ATT2 was made March 25, 1942 so it must be one of the earliest Cab 13s. This is the third ATT2 I've come across and none of them had the original box. I'd like to see where the holes in the box are for mounting the ATT equipment. George's has a 2C1 on it but I'd guess that it would have come with a 2B1 originally.
His Cab 11 F15A is quite complete. He's been gathering up stuff for the halftrack but still has a ways to go. That Stude 6x6 is quite interesting. The cab roof is made of aluminum of all things for an army truck. He has a wrecker body for that one.

... hmm, looks more like a cab of a Diamond T980 to me, especially the mudguards. Compare here.

http://www.wheelsofvictory.com/Wheel...ecker%2002.jpg

It is a Diamond T with the later open cab converted to a hard top post war and not a Studebaker. :)

Mr Hup where the ......... is Hammond
we stayed the night once in Renfrew, that was cold, Kathy learnt that you don't was your hair and then go outside as it froze, that was a good look.
Max

we have also stayed in Ottawa

Hi Chris you are write it is definitely a Diamond T but it is a 969. A 980 is the larger tank transporter.
I wish I was there!
Cheers
Jeff

Here's some more of George's stuff.

George is gathering up enough stuff to put together a Carrier. One of the two in the first pic came from Yellowknife. Even with those two he doesn't have a complete track system so we went to check out the third one. When he gets it home he'll be able to make a driveable one but there's still quite a lot of parts needed to finish it.

Here's some Buffalo Air airplane pics at the Yellowknife airport. Buffalo Joe (the owner) has quite a few of these planes scattered across the Territories. I think the Electra is one of the newest he runs. His two C46s are likely the only ones still flying. He also has a few Norsemen, PBYs, etc. He has a reputation of being able to get loads into places where other outfits can't and has made quite a business out of it. That series that's coming up on Discovery Channel should be interesting.

Trip
 

WOW, excellent trip, I am in a history that represents 1 Can Para so seeing those C47's is a sight. If anyone is coming to Northern BC, let me know, I am not far from the rockies and will gladly give a tour or would love to have coffee with fellow restorer's.

Hup
 

The junk yard is thinning out can finally see the old HUP