The Daniel Johnson Dam and Manic 5 Hydroelectric Generating Station

Ok, I know many of you are wondering what the heck has happened to the blog and I do apologize.  Roger and I have had a nasty string of bad luck but I think I'll leave most of that for a later post.  Just know that opportunities to post have not been plentiful up to this time and bad news is not fun to post. 

What I would like to share is a little about the Daniel Johnson Dam and the Manicouagan 5 (or Manic 5 for short) hydroelectric generating station that Roger and I passed a few days ago. 

Located 214 km (130 miles) north of Baie-Comeau, Quebec Canada on route 389, its most remarkable feature is the Daniel Johnson Dam, the largest buttressed multiple arch dam in the world. 

Rising to a height  of 214 meters (703 feet) and extending 1.3 km (4,311 ft) long, the dam's construction consumed 2,900,000 cubic yards of concrete making it the largest of it's type in the world. 

Completed in 1968, it is capable of producing 2,656 Megawatts of power.  Let's see.........that's enough to run....well.........at least a dozen sets of those running lights on the front of our bikes.  :-)

To prevent seepage in the dam's foundation, a grout curtain was injected into the bedrock and a drainage network with 2,400 ft of tunnels was constructed just downstream of the dam to collect water that may seep through.  Roger must have worked in hydroelectric power production at some point in his life as I caught him in this next photo apparently "checking for a leak" at the base of one of the large buttress towers.  

If you look closely in the first picture above, you can see where the road winds up the hillside and right into a tight turn nearest the dam.  That's where these pictures are taken.  Its also where the pavement ends and the start of the gravel (and unfortunately, our troubles) began.