Pulp and Paper Path Tour - Iroquois Falls

Abitibi-Consolidated Paper Mill is a major newsprint producer supplying many newspapers in Canada and the United States. The wood is broken down to pulp through a process called "TMP" (Thermal Mechanical Pulping), where wood chips are refined between rotating disks under pressure to make a mechanical pulp. You will see how wood is converted from logs through various processes to its final form as a sheet of newsprint. 

Polar Bear Express - Cochrane

There are only a few great rail excursions left in the world and this is one of them...the Polar Bear Express. Cochrane, where the Trans Canada Highway turns west, is the summer home of the Polar Bear Express and the departure point for this incredible 186-mile journey north to Moosonee. 
You'll travel along the Arctic Watershed crossing historic rivers like the Abitibi and Moose, once the highways of the fur trade. The Polar Bear Express will take you to a sparsely populated land of forests, tranquil lakes, and muskeg. A land living in near isolation from the rest of the world. 

When you arrive in Moosonee, you'll begin to understand the realities of a frontier community. People of this area continuously meet the challenge of taming this vast region. 

The Moose River rises and falls six feet twice a day with the tide from James and Hudson Bay. Giant tugs haul barge loads of building supplies for communities farther up the coast. Learn something of the unique regional ecology from the Ministry of Natural Resources and visit a quaint museum dedicated to the founders of the Revlon Corporation. Board a cruise vessel for an escorted trip to the edge of James Bay and maybe see a beluga whale, or pick up 350 million-year-old fossils. 

Along the route from Cochrane, the large viewing windows of the coaches fill with changing scenes of crossing the huge rivers of the fur trade fame like the Abitibi. 

Along the way, there are glimpses of life in outpost communities and giant electrical generating installations, all seemingly in the middle of nowhere! More than a manufactured tourist attraction, in Moosonee and Moose Factory travelers can experience real life on James Bay. The Moosonee waterfront bustles in the summer as giant barges are loaded with everything from staples to modular buildings for shipment to remote communities far to the North. 

Across the river lies the island of Moose Factory, best known as the main trading post for the Hudson Bay Company since 1673. A collection of period buildings and artifacts from the early days of the Hudson Bay Company is especially worth the visit to understand the history of this oldest English speaking community in Ontario. 

Set your compass on a summer adventure aboard the Polar Bear Express!