Where to Stay in Moosonee: There Is No Road In

You cannot drive to Moosonee. The town’s own website puts it plainly: “Our uniqueness is characterized by no road access,” and “all travellers arrive in Moosonee by train or plane.” Everything about booking a bed here follows from that, so settle your travel before you settle your room.

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Getting there

Two ways in, and most guides only mention one.

• The Polar Bear Express, run by Ontario Northland from Cochrane. It leaves Cochrane at 9am and arrives at 2pm; the return leaves Moosonee at 5pm and gets in at 10pm. Five hours each way. From the end of October to June it runs Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. Ontario Northland describes it as an essential service used primarily by residents of Moosonee and Moose Factory, so treat it as transport rather than a tourist excursion.
• By air, with scheduled service from Air Creebec and Thunder Airlines, plus local charter operators. The town lists this alongside the train, so “the train is the only way in” is not correct.

You may read about a seasonal winter road. We could not confirm one from any official source, so we are not telling you it exists.

Where to stay

All of these come from the Town of Moosonee’s own accommodations list.

• Super 8 by Wyndham Moosonee, 21 First Street, Moosonee, ON P0L 1Y0. Phone 705-336-0087. The only chain hotel, and confirmed on both the town list and Wyndham’s own site.
• The Regular Stop Hotel, 4 First Street, Moosonee, ON P0L 1Y0. Phone 705-336-6020.
• Moosonee Lily Pad, a two-bedroom unit. Phone 705-336-6728.
• The Wynne Guesthouse, a two-bedroom apartment with den, kitchen and laundry. Phone 705-207-7519. The town list gives no street address.
• RNR Lodging. Phone 705-336-8197. No street address published.
• Suite Riverview. Phone 705-336-8439. No street address published.

Given the train runs four days a week for much of the year, book your bed and your seat together. Arriving without a room is not a problem you can solve by driving on.

Moose Factory and the Cree Village Ecolodge

The Cree Village Ecolodge on Moose Factory island appears in a lot of travel writing. We could not confirm it is currently taking bookings: its website partly loads but the contact and rooms pages both return errors, no rates or booking function are published, and it does not appear on the Town of Moosonee’s accommodations page, which lists no Moose Factory properties at all.

That is not proof it has closed. It does mean you should telephone before building a trip around it, and it is a poor idea to arrive somewhere with no road out on the strength of a listing we could not verify.

Where else to stay in Canada — every guide we have for the region.