How To Snowmobile Moosonee for Ultimate Adventure…
Abitibi Canyon Base Camp Photo © by Craig Nicholson
Related: More Backcountry
Why not go snowmobile Moosonee Ontario? Especially if you’re looking for a real wilderness adventure with fabulous snow conditions for your next Ontario snowmobile tour or snowmobile vacation. This info comes from an #ontariosnowtrails snowmobiling article I wrote for a snowmobile magazine. It tells about the remote back country snow machine tour from Cochrane, Ontario, Canada, for Moosonee snowmobiling on James Bay in Northeastern Ontario. Meanwhile, if you’re interested in other Ontario snowmobile tour destinations, check out the rest of my Ontario ride articles.
Ontario snowmobiling is primarily about riding groomed OFSC snowmobile trails. You can go ride over 30,000 kilometres (18,000 miles) of marked, mapped and maintained trails in Ontario. But if you want to try something totally different, plan a trip to snowmobile Moosonee.
Snowmobile Tour Overview
Located on the southwest shore of James Bay, Moosonee began as an outpost for the Hudson Bay Company in 1637. Now it is thriving, albeit remote community. This Ontario snowmobile tour covers five distinct experiences. It includes groomed OFSC trails, powder riding, river running, sight seeing and boondocking. Where else in Central Canada can you do all of that in one tour? And get a close up view of the northern lights?
Moosonee
Your snowmobile Moosonee Ontario tour launches from Fraserdale, It’s a hydro outpost about 150 kilometres (100 miles) north of Cochrane on TOP (Trans Ontario Provincial) Trail A103 in the Northern Corridor. This is the northern-most point of the trail system operated by the Ontario Federation of Snowmobile Clubs.
It’s also where your Moosonee guide, Extreme Tours, has its Abitibi Canyon Base Camp, with food and fuel. From here, you’ll be riding north into the wilderness, so a guide is absolutely essential as are multiple snowmobilers.
Guided Extreme Tours
Our Extreme Tours guides were avid snowmobilers, experienced and personable riding companions. They are well organized, well equipped and qualified for any situation that may arise. Organized snowmobile Moosonee tours have been running since early 2000. So these guys know what it takes to give their clients great value on every tour. With them taking care any of worries, you can ride with total peace of mind. Do nothing but enjoy your backcountry adventure of a lifetime! Okay, so you also might have to dig out your snow machine.
After arriving by trailer or sled (you need your own snow machine for the Moosonee tour), Cochrane is a great place to stay over the night before. Several establishments are very snowmobile-friendly, with trail access and plenty of parking for your tow vehicle and sleds.
Onakawna
You’ll make an earlier start your first morning, riding north to the Abitibi Canyon Base Camp at Fraserdale on your own. Your guides will meet you at the base camp. From there, it’s off into the Great White North. The next stop is Onakawna, where William Tozer built a half-way camp with lodging, food and fuel for your stay over.
William was the original guide based in Moosonee. He knew the Abitibi and Moose Rivers like the back of his hand. This is a very good thing, because the last 100 kilometres (66 miles) or so into Moosonee are river running on ice and snow.
There and Back
After arriving in Moosonee next day, you’ll have lunch and ride about the historic town of Moose Factory. If conditions are good, you’ll also snowmobile out onto James Bay to the edge of the ice pack. Here, frigid salt water smashes and sprays. Then it’s back to Onakawna for the night.
James Bay
Day three of your snowmobile Moosonee tour is a full day’s ride back to Cochrane, about 360 kilometres (238 miles). Along the way, less experienced riders can take a different route back to Fraserdale with their guide. Meanwhile, experienced riders are free to go boondocking in the Abitibi Canyon.
For those unfamiliar with “boondocking”, it’s a mountain riding term. It means something like “playing around aggressively over hill and dale”, mostly with your heart in your throat! If I hadn’t seen Abitibi Canyon for myself, I would have been sceptical that anything resembling mountain riding existed in Ontario. Much less in the Northeast, a region not renown for its precipitous terrain.
Playing in Abitibi Canyon
The Abitibi Canyon is a topographic anomaly. It’s laced with steep hills, deep valleys and oodles of powder snow. Almost as if the Disney people had recreated a reasonable facsimile of mountains for flatlanders wanting to test their hill climbing, side hilling and rapid descent skills. Except this excitement is free!
The route has several scary drop-offs and steep climbs. It also passes through enough challenging hills to keep most adrenalin junkies fixed for several hours. The only way to know for sure that you haven’t suddenly been transported to the Rockies is the absence of mountain peaks towering in the background. Otherwise, the Abitibi Canyon offers some of the best ‘mountain riding’ in Eastern Canada!
Whatever your return route of choice, by the time you get back to Cochrane, you’ll be exhilarated and satiated. But I bet by next morning, you’ll be itching to ride again. And if so, there’s no better place than on the “World’s #1 Trails” groomed by Cochrane’s Polar Bear Rider Snowmobile Club.
For the been-there-done-that crowd, a journey to James Bay is the cat’s meow. It adds a unique element of excitement to riding the Northern Corridor area. No doubt about it, the trek to snowmobile Moosonee will be one of your most unforgettable Ontario snowmobiling memories. So book your Ontario snowmobile tour today!
Ontario law requires a snowmobile entering an OFSC Prescribed Snowmobile Trail to display a valid Ontario Snowmobile Trail Permit.
Riders should reconfirm the routes and services mentioned in this article as they may have changed since publication.