As a young and naive teenager I hitchhiked from Enschede to Breda in the Netherlands.
At one point I was dropped off at the flyover intersection between two freeways in the middle of nowhere - inasmuch as that is actually possible in the Netherlands.
I stood there with my thumb up for quite a while and looking around me considered just how much humanity had interfered and interacted with the landscape, roads, lights, fences, dikes, pastures, crops, all around as far as the eye could see.
In stark contrast, I now live in Australia and you can drive between where I live in Perth and an inland city, Kalgoorlie, about 600 km away. Pull over on the side of the road between towns and walk 50m off the road and there’s a good chance that you’re the first person to stand there in a century, if not a millennium or ever.
Same in Canada.
…
Suddenly I really want to take my car and drive away.
There is a lake on Victoria Island in the arctic archipelago that I am reasonably sure has never been seen by a real person, and it is unnamed. Furthermore, the lake has a small island on it. One of my life’s goals is to see this lake and island someday.
There’s a ton of lakes in Nunavut that have no names, and a lot have islands, but I imagine you’re talking about this one which is unique in that it has a lake on the island. Which is in a lake. Which is on an island (Victoria island).
I’m not impossible that someone had been there though, it’s only about 200km from Cambridge Bay, and that terrain is actually quite flat and easy to travel over. They also travel all over Victoria island all the time hunting, lots of times very long distance, so it’s entirely possible someone has gone there.
Lovely spot! However, the location I’m looking at is far from where you showed me.
Ah, gotcha. I hope you get there one day! Really, anywhere in the arctic is a great experience in itself.
Do it! Unless you have kids, don’t stop, don’t second guess, don’t think of any of the reasons you shouldn’t, just get. in. the. fucking. car. and. GO!
(a little tongue in cheek, perhaps, but it’s a massive country that’s more than a little wild, and too many people don’t explore it like they should. Seriously, go for an adventure at the first opportunity - life’s short).
Weird to see a mention of perth and Kalgoorlie out here in the wild.
Pull over on the side of the road between towns and walk 50m off the road and there’s a good chance that you’re the first person to stand there in a century, if not a millennium or ever.
You don’t understand how long a century / millennium is. People pull off the road to pee all the time, plus people were obviously there when the road was built. Add in hikers and stranded motorists and I bet every piece of ground near that highway has had a person step on it (except for something on the side of a mountain or something).
No, you don’t understand how big and isolated some parts of the world are.
Anyone who’s ever driven through Western Australia would absolutely agree with you. That whole state is like another planet dotted with a few towns here and there. WA is literally the size of one-third of the entire contiguous United States and has the population of <1% of the contiguous United States - it’s mostly barren desert and beautiful coastline.
and you don’t need to go 50m off the road to pee.
The answer is likely when that barricade was installed.
Where I live all barricades get regular inspection, cleanup and repair/maintenance where needed.
God damn that’s dirty
17776 by Jon Bois explored much the same content for a moment.
