Fluffy

Clouds
There is something about a flat landscape that goes against part of my being. I have lived much of my life in places where the sky starts where the mountains stop. In such a place weather comes at you all at once with little warning. Out where I am in a land scape that is on the average flat, every hill seems to be matched with a lake of a depth to match the height of the hill. I imagine that if all the hills could be ground flat and all the lakes infilled the north would turn into a knee deep mud puddle. The advantage of this terrain is the weather can be seen coming.

Fronts come and go, not jumping out from behind the mountains but as a feature of there own working its way across the plains. So yesterday I failed to go for a walk, but feeling fuzzy I stuck my head out side into the court yard of the camp.

A steady wind from the southwest was bring in new weather, changing it to a cooler wetter state. But as it was changing the clouds got interesting, the last of the thunder heads were dying as the front moved in and the setting and adding beautiful light.

A Long time Ago on in Island Far far Away

I have in the past ranted against face book. And by and large my old views still stand. I was lucky enough today to trip a cross some photos from a ways back that where tagged with my name in Facebook. Photos I copied into my library as I had non from that time and place my self.





About 4 years ago and a pack of other students some academics and friends went on a semi educational trip to Hawaii. Where we Spent much of our time on the Big island. At that time I had only a film camera and I had some troubles with it. The short version is that I managed to double expose a role. The images that were over printed were less important then the ones that they got over printed by. I over printed a party at a surfer shack with images from the top of Mona Kea. Because the Mona Kea trip had the fewest people only three of use when there there was not the overlapping set of images. So Here then are some found images taken of my by others on that trip. Its lunch time now so I will not fill in all the details of the context just yet. With luck I will get to that later.




Hawaii

Foot work.

This tail end of summer has been good up here. Yes I did come up here to find the place with air so thick with smoke I could not see Yellow Knife, but it rained a few days later clearing up that smoke and making room for string of nice days full of sun and some times getting too hot. The bugs have been largely absent. We have not been with out interesting weather. A Thunder storm some time around 4am on the 11th took out the internet connection for half a day and the phones were another day in the repairs. That was the end of the string of hot weather we had after I arrived, after that it rained for a day and a night. I was not going to start looking for cubits and gofer wood but it did make me go from need cool showers one day to need a hot shower to warm me then next. Its funny how this place is.

So we are back in to a string of clear warm and sunny days. So its back to the walks. This evening I took a long walk over a ridge that goes behind two of the lesser lakes behind camp. Its a good walk as much of it is in the open and high up keeping the bugs at bay. For fun I actually ran. Not the yuppy jog of some one trying to keep up a heart rate, but a child like dashing about. Often up hill. Running normally bores me, its only when I move on to interesting irregular surfaces that it becomes something worth doing. It was good to let my legs get a work out, all this standing and lifting core boxes has left me with strong arms and weak legs some thing off the opposite of my life time norm. After making record time along that ridge I found my self at a cliff top that I had wished I had my camera with me the last time I was there. It looks out over a little valley that in a land scape of bumpy hills managed to look like a valley, not just a swamp between hills.

After that I worked my way down to the lake and took the time to watch the clouds, since my readers have there own clouds to watch I took the time to photograph a few of them as I can not organize an NWT cloud watching trip for my fans.

Moving Day

Yesterday was a Thursday. For those on the out side that might be a non event but out here in the wilds is one of the few days stands out. Thursdays are plane days, we bring in new people and take out old ones, refreshing the atmosphere here. A good thursday is less productive but good for the spirits. As some people are leaving and t here fore in a good mood and those returning are not yet tired. For me it means I have less then a month left, as that marked my two week point in this rotation, leaving me with just under 4 weeks to go. Four week too long but that is a separate post.

Along with the frenchies rushing to get out the door for a much needed vacation there was the drill move. One of the drills was being moved from a property south of camp to a site north of camp to look in to a fuzzy blotch on a geophysics map. Because of the move there were two helicopters in our air space and some times the crew change plane. Crowded airspace.

The second Chopper was a Bell A-Star, a luxury bird compared to the Hughes 500 stationed in camp. We needed it to move the larger parts of the drill as the long distance made it near impossible for the Hughes. The Hughes is able to move the drill the few hundred meters between drill set ups on a single property but not the 20 plus Km between the properties. The birds made many trips back and forth, stopping to refuel here nearly every trip. I only took the time to shoot it when it came by with the largest and heaviest kite I ever did see.


A Hughes 500, from last spring.


The A-Star, was able to lift up the whole of the drill shack, all four walls in one lift. A thousand pound plywood kite. The A-Star's extra power must have come in handy for over coming the drag from such a large load.


A Bell A-Star





The move.

The slow life

After my 21 days of living the slow life of good food and company I returned to work. Within a few days of that I got a close hand look at a critter that seemingly has mastered the slow life. The Porcupine, my boss had observed two munching on some fire weed behind the transformer box. Here is a critter who's life is to eat sleep and some times mate, while not trying to be a trouble to any one.






And Lastly the best view of Edmonton I can think of from the air leaving it

Summer Vacation

As one or two readers have pointed out I have been some time with out a post, okay that was a week ago, but I have been silent for some time prior to that. I was away, away from the north a way from the Internet and far to involved in real life to take the time to write. Thankfully I have fodder to write about. Three weeks of summer vacation. From July 10 to July 30 I was free from the pressures of work and enjoying the good company of family and friends.

I spent the majority of my time off some where near Trail. From there several little adventures took me and some times the dog to various local lakes and parks.


A Happy Boomer Dog with a Stick

Highlights include a stop at Kooteny pass where a dead moose was spotted at the side of the road. Twenty minuets before the dead moose was a live but shaggy big horned sheep with small horns. There was a brief stop at the glass house on Kookeny lake that I have not seen since I was a kid. The sunset with forest fire from the Kooteny lake fire was beautiful.






Other details, I did two years worth of movies, having gone out to see, Wall-e, Hell Boy II and Dark Knight. All of which are good movies though I have a soft spot for Wall-e, its a Disney film but with a dark twist on the end of the world, the Garbage Apocalypse. I had a birthday where in a break with the unofficial tradition of the last few years it was not ignored.

After 10 days and one car accident, everyone came out fine but the Jeep had its last day, I headed over to Nakusp where, I went mad and managed to clean up two thirds of the upper half of the old log house. I also took my nephew to the beach and for the second year in a row managed to make sure he did not drown.

Now I an back in the north, is hot right now and I do wish I was back in the south, the company can be better down there.






EnJoy.

Albertan Albertan

There is a well known problem on BC roads in the summer. It arrives some time in late may and thins out in late august. Its Red menace that slips across our long and unprotected boarder unchecked. Every year thousands of red on white license plates bearing the signature of wild rose country migrate west. I am uncertain for the motives of these creatures, perhaps its like Salmon, they swim up stream to to spawn. I have not attempted to assess if this is a spawning habit, but it can be seen that they have more akin to Atlantic salmon in that they do manage to return to their homeland after there mountain voyage. This odd creature is the tourist from Alberta.

I found my self suck behind then on a few occasions on my vactation, each time I was faced with the same pattern, common to many native BCer's. The Albertan will fly over any straight stretch of road well over the the speed limit. Unfortunately for them straight roads in BC are slightly more common then math genius supper models and they will be forced to brake. They will then go through the corner slower then needed and regain their speed on the next straight stretch. The net result of the pattern is that it is hard to pass them and annoying to behind them as you are unable to drive the road according to the conditions but according to the Albertan instead.

This inspired a silly rhyme

Albertan Albertan, why'd you come out west
You Can't drive our straightest roads even at your best
Albertan Albertan is driving in the mountains some kind of test
So you can come home and tell your buddies that your are the best.




No actual photos of Albertans driving, the best time to get a photo of them is the worst moment to try to take a shot, on a zig or or a zag on a mountain road.