The James Bay Road has several claims to fame. With a terminus just short of 54 degrees latitude, it is not only the one of the remotest roads in eastern North America, but also its most northlerly continously paved route. The James Bay Road is owned and maintained by Hydro Quebec, which requires drivers to register at the south checkpoint just past Matagami. The 2 lane road has a freeway-like cross-section and generally high geometric quality, allowing the utility to post the road at 100km/h (60mph), normally reserved for controlled-access freeways in Quebec.
Built in the 1970s, the central purpose of the highway has always been to service the enormous dams of the James Bay Hyrdro Project. Several Cree villages many tens of kms away on the coast have been gradually connected by sideroads. The service centre at km 381, featuring gas pumps and a cafeteria, are just about the only buildings located along the entire 617km route. Fortunately, emergency microwave telephones are placed along the route approximately every 100km or so, but overall the route is among the most spartan on the continent when it comes to human presence.
The James Bay Road starts at Matagami, a village of about 1000, established in the 1960s as a copper mining centre. Matagami lies at the end of R-109, itself one of Quebec's more remote routes, and it is the last place to get gas and other supplies before heading out on the road. Not long after the checkpoint at km 6, the route will leave the Canadian Shield and enter the Hudson Bay Lowlands. Compared to the Shield, the Lowlands are fairly flat with fewer outcrops, but still characterized by numerous lakes and large rivers such as the Rupert and Eastmain. Along the way to the northern terminus of Radisson, the road passes through hour after hour of taiga, or spruce forest with occasional larch, and later, jack pine.