Equipment found in the bush during the winter.

[245dlc]

Lately the weather has been less than hospitable by Western Canadian standards -40 degrees celsius etc. So getting fed up of being stuck in the house and have sweet FA to do I said to the wife lets go exploring so we drove almost an hour to our starting point a road I've always been curious about as it's the most eastern road you can drive here before Lake of the Woods and the Province of Ontario. Plus there is piece of the U.S. inside Canadian boundaries.....must of been something setup by brain dead politicians. But what happens is basically a good chunk of Lake of the Woods is on the Minnesota side and the rest is on the Canadian side. So for the Americans on this particular piece the only way of crossing back onto American soil without going across the border is by crossing the lake.

I'll let google maps show what I'm talking about.
https://maps.google.ca/maps?hl=en&ll...=t&lci=weather

So anyway getting back on topic we drove down a mostly gravel bush road and as we got further north closer to a town called 'East Braintree' (yes that's it's name and the end of the drive) we came across several sites where ice roads had been made for either hauling logs (not a lot of that going on anymore except for firewood) or providing access for peat moss harvesting companies to access the bogs and clear the marshy land for harvesting in the spring.

[245dlc]

In order to harvest the peat moss they have to clear large bogs of any standing trees and do a lot of drainage work as the peat moss is driven over by tractors with cultivating implements and then eventually it's literally vacuumed up and hauled to a processing plant either by a truck or a large tractor pulling several tall sided wagons. At the plant it's screened and processed and usually packaged into big or small bales for the Horticulture market, but the big part is getting heavy equipment in to clear the land as it can be difficult to walk on never mind drive on it with a bulldozer so that part of it is done in the winter. I don't know if they try to do any ditching in the winter though and most of these places had gates or the terrain was to rough to drive down with my truck so I didn't see any excavators or other equipment for ditching.

The one dozer I found was a Cat D6D but kind of a rare machine as it had a full cab on it and a logging winch.







I also found this rather dilapidated looking flex track thing that must be used to clear the snow off ahead of the dozer in the soft areas I would think.

[245dlc]

We also found this burnt out tractor that I think would of had either a stump grinder on it or a brush mulcher, either way it was well done.





The bush road that we found this little bunch of equipment parked at.


And here's a site where we found some harvesting equipment hiding but couldn't go any further as you can see by the signs. The first one is the actual vacuum machine.


Peat wagon note how the tractors have dual tires even the big wheel loader has dual tires and a really high capacity bucket.






What I think might be mined out bog already reclaiming itself.




Last but not least security.

[Wazza]

Thanks for posting the pics Bert ......How hard is it to get a tractor to spontaneously combust at -40

[Muz]

A fine read for a Sunday morning with a fresh coffee ... thank you fella

Over here peat reclamation has been outlawed because of the destruction to the wet land habitat, and due to the length of time it takes to form. The gardeners were none too pleased and now have to use all kinds of substitutes. Although west highland crofters still have 'cuts' where they harvest small amounts, then dry it out and then burn it , in the croft house. ... and what a fine smell it makes when its on the fire

[jackpreacher]

Thanks for posting the pics Bert ......How hard is it to get a tractor to spontaneously combust at -40

Possibly a wood fire under the fuel tank to unfreeze the diesel......but maybe it's petrol

Bert, my much better half wasn't interested in the plant and machinery, but she thought the Owl was cute

[B4D2USA]

Bert, I didn't know you were so close to the Arrowhead of Minnesota. I've been to the Marvin window plant there in Warroad, Mn. Our group was going to go into Canada to a casino but I decided to stay at the hotel. That was back in the day before 9-11, so we wouldn't have needed a passport.

Nice shot of the Grey Owl. That's the biggest owl in North America. Larger than a Great Horned. Their range is typically the tundra of Canada. Sometimes during winter, if there has been a particularly warm summer and lots of baby owls are born, it drives many further south in search of food. Last year we had an invasion of Snowy Owls for the same reason. My wife photographed some in the city of Chicago along Lake Michigan.

[245dlc]

A fine read for a Sunday morning with a fresh coffee ... thank you fella

Over here peat reclamation has been outlawed because of the destruction to the wet land habitat, and due to the length of time it takes to form. The gardeners were none too pleased and now have to use all kinds of substitutes. Although west highland crofters still have 'cuts' where they harvest small amounts, then dry it out and then burn it , in the croft house. ... and what a fine smell it makes when its on the fire

Well last summer there was a big stink on the news about peat harvesting in Provincial Parks or something silly like that. All the tree hugger and leaf lickers were up in arms because permits to harvest on crown (government) land were being given out. But the thing is nobody realizes that peat grows back with time, in fact if left for a long enough time it turns into coal!
Peat was never used as a fuel here but when I was young farmers in the next town over were clearing land and burning brush and the peat that lay there as well, it created all kinds of troubles with smoke and cars running into each other on the highway but the smell was really nice. The last twenty five years have been pretty wet so it's been awhile since we had really dry weather but the last two years have been pretty dry so hopefully this year follows suit and some of those smells of the forest will eminate again.

[245dlc]

Bert, I didn't know you were so close to the Arrowhead of Minnesota. I've been to the Marvin window plant there in Warroad, Mn. Our group was going to go into Canada to a casino but I decided to stay at the hotel. That was back in the day before 9-11, so we wouldn't have needed a passport.

Nice shot of the Grey Owl. That's the biggest owl in North America. Larger than a Great Horned. Their range is typically the tundra of Canada. Sometimes during winter, if there has been a particularly warm summer and lots of baby owls are born, it drives many further south in search of food. Last year we had an invasion of Snowy Owls for the same reason. My wife photographed some in the city of Chicago along Lake Michigan.

Yeah Minnesota is pretty much in my back yard here I'm only thirty or fourty minutes from the border on Hwy 59 and maybe an hour and a half from the one by Warroad. I'm hoping to get our passports in the next little while as I'd like to do some exploring in Minnesota and Wisconsin and eventually get into Illinois and beyond. It's a real shame we can't cross the border as freely as we once did I was kind of hoping that Obama would change it back as he seemed a little more reasonable than George Jr. Last winter Diane and I saw several Snowy Owl's going to her mum and dad's place. The farmland around there is very broad and wide open and very flat so maybe it seems more like the Arctic barrens to them I'll have to find the pictures for you. We also see a lot of hawks, Bald Eagles, and Golden Eagles. Last summer by mum and dad's place we saw a couple of Great Grey Owl's just as it was getting dark and they are big birds especially when you see those wings folded out as they go after mice and rodents. If you ever wanna go north Bruce you know where to go.