Do You Know The Names In San Jose?
If you want to skip the NHL playoffs’ second round this weekend and make a pilgrimage to Jonathan Cheechoo’s hometown, you’ll have to drive eight hours north from Toronto to Cochrane, Ont., hop the Polar Bear Express for the five-hour train ride to Moosonee and then, because of melting ice on the Moose River, catch a helicopter to Moose Factory. This community of 2,700 off James Bay is the oldest English-speaking settlement in Ontario, dating to the 1670s. It’s an old fur-trading outpost that is home to the Moose Cree First Nation, Cheechoo’s tribe. The five-mile-square speck of land and history has an indoor rink and a Pizza Hut but no paved roads. It is a place where the mosquitoes are the size or Learjets and where boys’ dreams were stunted until Cheechoo began scoring for the San Jose Sharks.