Canadian Test Drive

03/09/22 First day on the road

To be honest, that's not entirely true. The journey unexpectedly started for four of us (Zaitsev, Gavrilin, Dubinin and Yelagin) last night. The fact is that after the loading of our all-terrain vehicles to the open platforms (local authorities did not allow us to drive 70 km on a public road) we had to follow them in a passenger car to unload them at the beginning of the winter road. There was no point in returning to Yellowknife, and the four of us spent our first night in our cars. 

The working day began at 7 am when the rest of our team members arrived. Light repairs, steering adjustments in the red car, trailer suspensions with a full load, and at noon we, accompanied by a local ranger, set off on the road. After an hour and a half our caravan picks up speed and by 6 o'clock in the evening we drive the planned 150-160 km along the wide winter road and get up for the night. 

In the morning there was a completely comical episode. Our hyper-responsible doctor, Sergey Alekseevich Larin, prepared the car for departure, bought all kinds of containers, formed four sets of them, one for the car. However, he did not have the opportunity to estimate the practical benefits of these bulky low-quality plastic boxes, or he simply did not think about it. It ended up us stuffing the content of one box, and there was nowhere to throw it away, as there are ecologically clean territories only. 

The solution is simple: distract the crew and shove this horror into the trunk of Larin's car. Sneaking like a pioneer who stole a pie in the dining room, I go to the back door and ... I come across nose to nose with Zaitsev, sneaking from the opposite side with a similar piece of plastic. We put both boxes in the trunk and, bending over with laughter, we each ran away to our car. I console myself with the fact that there was no criminal conspiracy so the sentence will be passed without aggravating circumstances.

The winter road is good, the nature is painfully familiar, the only unfamiliar thing is an absolute cleanliness both on the road and in the parking lots. 
The frost reaches -30*С, the breeze is light, the weather is invigorating. We stopped at 18.00. It would be good to drive about 300 km tomorrow and leave this private road with super-strict rules and finally leave for the expanses of the White Silence. 

So it goes. All the best, keep in touch. Yours, V.E.