Weather is not Boring

My next trip was supposed to be Sep 6 to 12. Now it’s Sep 13 to 20.

This week it’s back to Yellowknife to help work on the airport weather system. It’s not really my department but the guy responsible for it needs help because there are a million billion steps.

This is the display at the baggage claim:

ok so here’s the plan: St. Albert has a sprint triathlon every spring which includes the Tri-a-Tri category. I’m gonna try a tri.. unless I die training for it. As it stands there’s a 50/50 chance.

Yesterday (Friday) we drove in to our penultimate site of this trip. Garden River is a small community of about 500 people just inside Wood Buffalo National Park. The most interesting thing about it is getting there. Last time I was there we drove on a corduroy road for the last 50 Km or so. This year they’re in the process of building a gravel road. This is the new, improved, under construction road:

This is the station from where we abandon the truck:

The actual work at Garden River went pretty smoothly so we decided to get Fort Vermillion done too. The station there is at the Agriculture Canada compound. It’s a great spot to work, it’s well maintained and things usually go smoothly.

Once we were done at Fort Vermillion we had to pick between: drive an hour back to High Level and have an 8 hour drive home Saturday; and drive 4 hours to Peace River and have a 5 hour drive Saturday, we went with Peace River.

We went the quiet back way between Fort Vermillion and Peace River.

This is Northern Alberta farmland (the camera was crooked, oops)

This one is the La Crete ferry across the Peace River

As it happens, Clint was headed to Peace River to visit his family Friday after work because this trip was initially planed to take until Monday. We’re done everything 2 days early and the level 5 tech I was with said he didn’t mind if I stayed with Clint so here I am in Peace River helping my in-laws build their new deck. Life is not boring.

We started our gradual trip home today. There are still 2 stations to hit on the way back but it’s nice to be going South. Here’s some of the stuff we saw today.

A herd of buffalo on the side of the road.

The ferry crossing at Fort Providence. The river is the Mackenzie.

Today (Wednesday) we took a Piper Navajo to the autostation at Lupin Mine. It was great to ride on a slightly bigger aircraft than yesterday. Compared to the Turbo Beaver, this one allows for legroom, it goes way faster (300km/hr instead of 180) and it can go higher (so the ride is a bit less bumpy). I forgot to get a picture of the Navajo though.

This is the mine as we circled to land:

We had some company as we worked today. There was a bird of prey circling us. I’m not sure what it was though. My best guess is a golden eagle.

There was also a young caribou who wandered past. He sure looked puzzled by us, well, when he wasn’t busy grazing.

Caribou!

Ok, so, I realise the picture doesn’t show it but when you’re walking up to it the rocks totally look like a miniature Fortress of Solitude

almost cool rocks

Some of the things we saw around Yellowknife:

Yellowknife from the air

We climbed up to see the Pilot's Monument

The monument itself

The view from the top of the monument

Float plane dock and houseboats

A VW with a vanity plate that says Audi. Weird.

Tuesday we took a Turbo Beaver on floats to Fort Reliance. We landed and docked at Trophy Lodge. They rent cabins and fishing boats. Some year I hope to try the fishing here. It looks like it would be a good time.

Turbo Beaver at Trophy Lodge

The view from the Fort Reliance autostation

The view from the roof

The beach near where we were working. The things I do for my job...

This is a video of the float plane taking off. Turn your volume off if you play it. The sound is horrible and I can’t figure out how to mute it.

Monday we did 2 stations, each one is about an hour from Yellowknife by helicopter. The first stop was Inner Whalebacks Island.

Inner Whalebacks.. yep, that's all of it.

The A-Star Helicopter

another pic of me in a helicopter.. hi Mom!

The view from the Lower Carpe station

The view of Lower Carpe station

There used to be more to this station but there are some curious grizzy bears in the area who kept destroying the other pieces so the guys stopped rebuilding the interesting bits.

Cable with bear chew marks

Sunday I flew to Yellowknife to catch up with one of the level 5 techs who has been working on the sites (sort of) near here. We’re doing 4 autostations in the NWT and 2 in Alberta on the drive home.