Monday, May 28, 2007

Back In The Day

A blast form the past care of an old friend.




Yes Its Me.

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Northern Lites Small stuff


The items that inspired this post were, firstly this evenings choice of music, the compete Bach Cello Suites and a lost photo of some moss and lichens taken last summer when found my self stuck between a cliff and a small puddle of a lake. I have a weak spot for Cellos in general and for some reason I have come to associate that peace of music with writing.





Yet again I go back in time rather then report on recent events. In the hope that some one will read this here is a recap of the last month.

Get up, eat, look at rock, make some notes, eat, look at more rock or, go out and bring in more rock to look at, eat again,repeat as needed. Should I be found to not be doing any of these things I am either sleeping or killing time at a computer or near the the TV, thought he TV has lost some appeal with the hockey play offs in full swing.


Not having anything to do with the north I took a picture of a spider last summer and well the theme here is small stuff I had to add her.


Sunday, May 13, 2007


The Sanest Place on Earth.
Ravens

Going back to late February early March to the core hauling project up at Nicolas Lake. When that project started the days were short and we were starting the day and ending it with the sun being down. The temperatures were at least -25 not counting the wind. Adding to the fun was the lack of shelter or fire on the first few days. Over the coarse of that enterprise conditions improved as we built a wind brake out of an old core rack and added fire to our set inventions. Our working conditions improved and our presences was quickly noted by the locals.




The locals are black, evil looking critters with attitudes as big as their wing spans.
Sitting in the twisted sticks that pass for trees in these parts, the would watch looking at you asking for food, while you can see in their black eyes that they would just as much wish for you to drop dead for a feast of fresh eye balls and end trails but they are note a awful fowl. Intelligent and curious but perhaps more the craftyness of a petty criminal rather then the charm and wit of an evil genius.



Their never ending quest for food lead to numerous attempts to break into the rubbermaid bin I was storing various bits of kit in. The first time this happened I had left it on a table and when I came back it had some claw and beak makes and when that failed to open in they had left their opinion in guano twice.




We took to feeding the out of borden just to see how close they would come to to use for food, the answer is very. The best was when sitting in the truck I through some peace of cookie out the window and birds would swoop down right in front of the truck to grab the goodies. Matt (a newfie) had gotten the idea in his head to try to chase the birds away, he would hide behind the truck door and once the birds were down he would run out and try to shoe them away. I swear that the birds just treated him like one of their own, all be it not a friendly one. That same day I saw one of the bastards having a dust bath in snow.




Ravens figured they owned everything there, sitting on the trucks looking for a way in. In one case a bird nearly worked its way into our landcrurser, the window was open and the bird progressed form standing on the roof looking down to to standing on the side view mirror to ultimately standing on the edge of the glass leaning in. Had there been any food in there we would have had a shitty situation as the bird would have been trapped and would leave behind several strong opinions. Not to mention the the fun of letting out a big bird with a bigger attitude and a beak to match.






Next post will feature some of the people of the north

Tuesday, May 1, 2007

Ice III The Life and Death of Rupert

The Life and Death of Rupert

Rupert the pet glacier, was born of geology but will die from global warming. I have posted before on the subject of both ice and the artificial glacier that had formed out side my work space. To recap the rock saws use a lot of water, the rough estimate is some where between 1600 letre to 2000 letre a day. The water just pass through the saw and onto the ground out side, and in winter it would flow and freeze.



Ice part I showed Rupert at the peak of its health, growing fast and as hard as some rocks. Ice part two was the start of its decline, thinning and with streamlets decorating its surface. Now a week or two later, Rupert is in its death throws, no longer a smooth unbroken surface with the ground hidden form sight.






Rupert is now patches separated by the mud that was once part of the ice by way of the cuttings from the rock saws. Miniature hydraulogies play themselves out producing deltas and canyons that with out a scale could be as big as your hand or a hole cost line. An experimental landscape escaped from the farthest reaches of BLDGBLOG.




Only in its decline however is Rupert's true depth shown. Some time at the beginning of March or the end of February our drilling contractor brought in a few truck loads to stock for the year. A few of the pallets were placed at near the toe of Rupert. It did not take long for the goods on the pallets to get frozen into place by the expanding glacier. Now thanks to the shade from the pallets there are a few small mesas, which show just how thick the ice was.