Lunch Time Quickie #1

Well its time for a break with the tradition of infrequent long posts, I am going to try to bring out a few more short quick and dirty news reports more often. Also in a break with tradition I am going to swear.

Its Fucking Cold out. My computer told me Yellow Knife was at -45, which out here is -50 since we don't have Great Slave Lake to add extra heat. As a result, breakfast was reduce to toast and microwave oatmeal. Why was breakfast reduced to such basic food stuffs, from the usual eggs, pancakes and french toast. Because the Propane in the line feeding the kitchen had turned to jell. Let me replete that the Propane turned to JELL. Or at least a rather thick liquid. This falls under the heading of FUCKED.

This morning I was heading inside for my coffee break and a raven flew by, it was so cold that there was frost covering its head making it look like the bastard child of a raven and a bald Eagle.

I'll wrap things up with a Poem I got this morning in the email


" WINTER "
a poem by Abigail Elizabeth McIntyre




" SHIT, It's Cold ! "

The End

Oh The Games We Play

Northern Lights Entertainment report.

This will be a departure from the traditional entertainment report for I will not be talking about media I have brought with me to work for my enjoyment. This rotation I tried to keep the media load light in the overly optimistic view that if I have less to distract me I will do more writing. That is failing so far as I picked up on my last day in town a new tech toy, the
iPod touch. It is more hand held computer then iPod, and if itunes would ever let me down load the new software update it would be even more of one.

Tech toys while fun and distracting are not my focus. Rather it is what was done on my time off. First the short summery: Some last minuet shopping in Kelowna a few days before Christmas, Madness. A good Friday night drunk to shut down from that madness, coffee with some of the old K town crowd. Kelowna was followed with a trip to Nakusp, which was framed with interesting drives over the mountains. Thankfully I have Serenity, which handled fine even at Deep Creak proving that Subaru are Suberb (Blame Aimee for that one).




Christmas was in Nakusp where I had to cut down a tree on Christmas Eve day because on one else in the family was in the mood for one. In a break with tradition the better part of the gifts under the tree were from me. All of which went over well, including and much to my surprise, socks. Which were accepted with all the appearance of joy. The latest news is that the socks are still being worn and have aided in the distracting of board mind.

The last gift was delivered late, on the 4th of the New Year unwrapped and unexpected. The package, the Settlers of Catan it is board game the goal of which is to build your civilization. Now civilization-building games are not new to me but tabletop forms are. This is a game type I have always played on a computer.



Catan proved to by addictive, which is ultimately why I picked it up I was already addicted from Christine's introduction over Christmas time and I know it would go over well with Risk playing crew in Penticton. I had underestimated the appeal. The first night there we played four games almost non-stop till nearly 2am. The second night was not as long but almost worse as we had started to add the expansion packs. By the end of the weekend our maps had grown to huge proportions and the game play was fast and chaotic. At times it felt more time was being spent setting up the map then playing it. The beauty of the Catan franchise is that every one is active even if it is not your turn you are still involved as trade between players can happen at nearly any time, you can improve you out come next turn with a good trade.


Oh the Games We Play.
It was my intent to deliver a fun present instead I spawned an addict, I am sorry, but I will join a game the next time I am in those parts.

So this year I learned trust the gut, give gifts that feel right even if they are a little silly and gaming is good for your mental health.

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

The Seasons of a Geologist

It is winter



It has been winter for a rather long time and will be winterish for some time more. Every thing is still white; the lakes are all covered in ice, with the occasional traffic. There is a lot of traffic in and out of camp as we host crews for the winter road and others. The newest development is the hauling of the 20 year old core form the neighboring camp of Nicolas Lake to here so it can be relogged and all sorts of other fun stuff. 900 down 3 or 4 thousand to go.



It is the core hauling that is the origin of this posting, the work it self is hard and dull, dig out boxes, label, wait for truck, warm up in truck and repeat. I had my camera with me that first day which I used to produce a self-portrait of a geologist in winter. Which is best compared with the other season out here Bugs, or as the optimist would have it summer.







The geologist of winter, note the thick beard, and emerging glacier from the sinus cavity. The ice extends much of the way up to the brain.







The geologist of the other time of year and the frequently found cloud of mosquito’s black flies and occasional orbit of horse flies. Missing from this photo is the less then frequent enough fighter escort of Dragonflies.



I will return with word on my adventures on night shift, and the joys of crushed rock

Crystalizing Trees and other winter oddities

Winter



Climates can play tricks on a person. Canada is stereotyped as a frozen waste land and for at least part of the year this is true for the majority of the country. Huge areas of this nation are part of a polar desert. The old Discovery town site is near the souther edge of this climate. Souther edge or not winter is serious out here.




Here in a surreal land of stunted and twisted jack pine, naked rock waring a thin fig leaf of snow to hide its naked and possibly sinful geology, the temperatures have been for the last few weeks hovering around -20C or in more absolute terms 253 K. Kelvin makes every temper seem some what warmed with its ability to remind you of just how much colder it could get. In the last week the temperature too a drop down to the upper edges of the -30 domain. Down in that domain plastics become less so, synthetic fibers and linings can become stiff resulting a winter coat that feels brittle, gloves are traded in for mittens by the more sensible types and if you were not waring long johns before then you are now. Non of that is remotely surprising what comes as a surprise is two things beauty and temperance.




The beauty comes from the wonderful clear sky, the salmon sunrise/sets, the slowly crystalizing trees, the delicate patterns of snow drifts on the frozen lakes. There is the subliming beauty of the snow flakes themselves which through a quirk of this desert climate from large near perfect hexagonal crystals rarely seen out sided of text book illustration. All of this is in the process of being photographed.


Beauty as side the abuse of the work temperance stems from a recent warm day. The extended colder temperatures augment the feeling of what warm is. Yesterday was one such day the Hg rose to -8 C. Up in these temperate reaches, snow starts to have some stickyness, loosing its lighter then nanotech whipcream texture, naked skin can almost enjoy being removed form its gloves, beards stop farming icicles. The comfort of relative warmth comes at loosing sun light. With the sun rising at 10 am and setting not much after 3 pm any lose of sunlight is felt.

Solar Shots II

Winter is upon use in the north and has established a strong foot hold in the rest of Canada.  The sun's daily camios between late morning and early after noon provide enough light to prevent complete insanity and add delicate complex colors to a land scape that other wise would be little more then white on white.  So enjoy the winter, perhaps this locations best looking seasons. Having only gone through 2 and a half seasons here that could be too soon to tell.