Gone Fishin'

Considering I wouldn't thank you to take me fishing on a beautiful, sunny, summer day down South, I don't know what prompted me to sign up for an ice fishing trip this weekend. I think I justified it as one of those things that I've got to be able to say that I've done. Oh, and I signed up on my way home from the bar last night at 12:30 :)

So, I woke up today at 11 to get brunch and hit the road. I banged on Byron's door too, because if I'm going to freeze in a little shack being miserable, you can damn well bet that he's going to as well! We and 8 or 9 other hearty souls piled into a BV and headed out for Lower Dumbell Lake and the fishing shack there. Luckily, I was the first one into the back of the BV, and scored the only cushion. Those wood benches are nasty for any trip longer than 24 seconds, and that's not cross country like we were going!

Once the generator was going for light and the power auger, we started drilling the holes. This time of year there was 3 feet of ice (which I take if from the actual fishermen there is a lot), but in a few months apparently the ice gets to be over 7 feet thick! The lake at that point was about 20 feet deep, and we were setting the lines at the very bottom. We baited our lines with some bacon (everyone knows that fish love bacon) and got to work. I actually got the first nibble of the day, and the first fish was scored in a matter of minutes by one of the other guys. All there is in the lake is Arctic Char, so it's only a matter of how big a fish you're catching. This first one was a good 4 or 5 inches long...pretty standard by the standards set earlier in the year.

What followed as a period of about an hour where nothing happened. We all sat around talking and occasionally jerking at a line. A few more little guys were landed....and then it happened. I'm not a fisherman, so I was just copying the technique of everyone else...namely, let the fish nibble a bit, then jerk the line and pray. I got my nibble, I gave my jerk, and VOILA!! FISH! While I will say that I 'caught' it, I was told by others that if your hook is not technically 'in' the 'mouth' of the fish, but rather 'stuck' through it's 'side', it's called 'snagging' :D Still, below is my fish. He swam away (definitely didn't sink out of sight) when I dropped him into the hole, so he was Ok :)

That put me one-up in my bet with Byron, and with the amount of fish caught so far I was feeling pretty good about my chances. That is...until the guy next to Byron got up to go to the bathroom. As soon as he left the shack, his line starts to dance. Byron grabs it and hooks the fish. He starts reeling and the pole is bent double! He pulls out a foot-and-a-half long fish that could have eaten my fish in one gulp. We were just taking pictures when the other guy comes back and realized just whose hook is in this fish's mouth :) Byron went on to hook one more reasonably sized char to beat me handily.

I have to say, fishing was WAY more fun than I thought it would be. If I didn't still smell like fish, I'd be ready to do it again tomorrow :D

Miss you all, but Christmas is just around the corner!

Graham

Mr. Clean

I guess that since I haven't posted anything for a while this counts as news...although in terms of pictures that really don't need to be on the internet, this is right up there.

So, on Tuesday afternoon I got my hair cut. Standard job up here, #2 all over, straighten out the back, done. That night at the bar, Nate and I ended up talking about how much shorter it was (I had let it grow for a while) and how back when he was in the military he used to shave his head.

Nate: Dude, you should totally Bic it
Graham: Bic it?
Nate: Use a razor...down to the scalp!
Graham: Hmm...

Now, let me make things clear. While alcohol was definitely a factor in making me CONSIDER to shave my head, I was plenty sober enough to not do it that night! I thought about it all day on Wednesday, even putting up a little Facebook poll and consulting with significant people in my life. Finally, I decided What the Hell. If you're going to do something crazy and stupid that you think is going to make you look like someone going through chemotherapy, what better place to do it than Alert with plenty of time for it to grow back!

So, we grab the clippers and the razor and go to town. I'd never used a straight razor on myself before in my life, so scraping 5 blades over my poor, pale dome scared the pants off me. I managed to do the whole thing (even the back) without a drop of blood...although I took about 6 times longer than Nate to do so. Anyways, without further ado...I give you Grahamuel L. Jackson!

I think my favourite part of the whole experience was bartending that night and watching the looks on people's faces as they came into the bar and looked around the room. They'd glance over me, but then their eyes would invariably snap back to the glowing shine that was my bare scalp :)

It was also pretty weird to feel the wind on my head. I'm used to having a chilly head outside, but walking over to the gym for the first time without a hat showed me a new level of cold! I'm thinking that my next look will be the shoulder length one...keep the ears and neck warm as well :P

Now, before you post comments or e-mail me...I KNOW it looks horrible :D It was just a one-time, for-fun deal and won't happen again (unless it's a bet for the appropriate amount of money).

Grahamuel L. Jackson

Arctic Adventure

You know the phrases 'From bad to worse', 'Couldn't get any worse' and 'And to top it all off'? Well...take your pick. Friday was an adventure to say the least.

It all started with the fact that we have a tech up right now for a week. He's just here to calibrate and perform routine maintenance on our Ozone and Mercury instruments. The next piece of the puzzle was that Byron and I have put off/been unable to go out to do our monthly permafrost measurements and needed to do it ASAP. There...the stage has been set.

Act 1: We drive Patrick out to the lab first thing in the morning and then leave him there to go do permafrost. The weather wasn't as bad as it was on Thursday (-21°C, 75km/h winds, -55 windchill), but the winds were still enough to rip the truck doors out of our hands and buffet us around a bit. We got through that part of our day just fine (if a little windblown) and returned to Station for lunch.

Intermission: Lunch. Byron attends fire team training. Graham sleeps on office couch.

Act 2: Byron and I head out to the lab to do our normal Friday checks and filter changes. As we had some compressed air cylinders to take out there, we decided to drive all the way into the lab. Normally we stay 600m away to avoid contamination, but with the hurricane winds directly from the South we could have had a bonfire on the North side of the lab that wouldn't have been registered by any sensors :D I drove us in, and then backed up into the lab. The normal large drift had formed near the doorway, and as I drove up we kind of slipped sideways along it. We didn't think much of it at the time... **ominous set-up music**

Act 3: 5:30, the end of a long day at the lab. We are scrambling to get home for Friday supper (pizza, wings, etc) and we're cutting it close. We figure that since the truck is at the lab and we don't have the 10 minute walk out to the TX that we'll be fine. I hop in, start it up, and then as we try to drive out while sloped 15° to the side we sort of stay in the same position while the tracks dig themselves into the still semi-fluffy drift. Below is an older picture of our truck, so that you can envision it better. We're on the top of a 5' drift. Each of those tracks has just dropped a foot straight down. We're resting on the undercarriage of the truck. It's at this point that Byron mentions that he had just realized it was Friday the 13^th.

Act 4: Now, Byron and I are much too proud to call Recovery and anyways, it's the middle of dinnertime on a Friday. We grab the shovels and get to work. We dug out the better part of the drift and then tired again. We didn't dig out 'enough' of the drift. Instead, we just dug ourselves in another few inches. At that point, I radioed Site Manager to get a BV on the way out to pick us up. Keep in mind that we are literally as far from Station as you can possibly get. Now that we know help (and extreme ridicule at TGIF) is on the way, there's nothing left to do but keep digging. Eventually we knew that help would arrive, or we'd just dig out the entire 5 foot drift.....well, it took about 45 minutes to scramble a driver and for him to get to us. Two strapping young lads can move a lot of snow in that amount of time (even when the smaller, more Geography-centric one had just got his H1N1 shot that morning and couldn't lift his left arm). Finally, with bare dirt visible under the truck, and the light of the BV on the horizon, we give it one final gun of the engine... **queue triumphant victory music**

Act 5: We BURST from the perfectly truck-shaped hole we've dug into the drift (see below) and keep driving until we're out into the flat where the snow is harder. There are many unique situations in life that provide tremendous adrenaline rushes: The birth of a child, winning the big game, your first kiss......getting a truck unstuck through 2 hours of manual labour is right up there :P

Dénouement: Of course, with having to radio back to Station, everybody knew what had happened. So, even though we didn't 'technically' need recovery, I felt obligated to ring the bell for Recovery of the Week. That night I also won Frozen Chosen for my help to Byron with the Olympic stage, so I figure 'complete embarrassment' and 'triumphant recognition' cancel each other out and yesterday was, karmic-ally, a draw :D

Graham

Remembrance Day

I know that I just posted a long rant about the Torch this morning, but major events are few and far between in Alert (usually) so when we did the Remembrance Day ceremony today I thought I'd write about that too. Now, don't expect anything else for 2 or 3 weeks :P

I've only ever done Remembrance Day at school before, and back then it was just a boring assembly that interfered with my birthday celebration. Living on a Canadian Forces Station staffed approximately 50% by military, the ceremony was quite different. While nowhere near as grand an ordeal as I'm sure it is at a bigger Base, there was still a good deal of pomp. Byron and Bill laid the wreath for EC in the theatre ceremony. Afterwards we all went down to the end of the runway to visit the cairn memorializing one of the crashes that had fatalities here. As Bill didn't arrive, Byron (red) and I (blue) laid the wreath at the real site.

I had also thought that I'd slipped under the birthday radar (intentionally), but then someone called out a, "Happy Birthday" across the mess hall at lunch. It then got crazy, culminating with Byron starting everyone on Station singing Happy Birthday to me :) Those of you who know me, know how much I must have liked that :P

Miss you all,
Graham

Post Torch Run Wrap-up

Well, the Olympic Torch has come and gone, with the 7 long months of planning and preparation finally coming to fruition. Before I start with the stories, I'll get out of the way what 95% of you came to see....me with the torch :)

It's a bit blurry due to the cold and the camera (and maybe the sheer speed I was moving....alright, maybe not) but above is definitive proof that I helped the Olympic flame on its journey from Greece to Vancouver. It's kind of just now sinking in how special the moment really was...at the time I was pretty sure that I was smiling, but my cheeks were a bit too frozen to tell.

Backing it up a few days, prior to the torch arriving Station staged it own mini-Olympics. Five teams, representing all the Olympic mascots, were selected to compete in a variety of sports and challenges. For some reason someone thought that I had 'spirit', and so I was made captain of Team Sumi....the little goat/chipmunk looking one :P I won't bother boring you with how my awesome Captaining led our team to many victories (it didn't), but we did get bronze in floor hockey, so at least we placed 'somewhere'.

The Sunday that the torch was slated to arrive (at 6pm) Byron and I were designated the unofficial Heavy Lifters on Station. I'm pretty sure that the CO and AdminO basically had us moving anything not permanently bolted to the ground. The biggest challenge was the stage the Byron built for the gym. Technically the sections were built to fit through the door...but in reality, trying to manoeuvrer the 4 x 8 x 1.5 foot, 175lbs monstrosities was a real pain in the...back :P I'm very proud to say that I cut about half the legs for the stage, as well as drilling on the hooks for the screen :D Byron did a wicked job with it and it held up like a rock, even with 11 people from the choir standing on it.

As we sat down to our early supper, we heard that the plane was delayed 45 minutes in Resolute Bay. It just goes to show, Olympic Flame or not, NOTHING runs on time in the Arctic! We were finally shuttled down to the runway in our tracksuits to meet the flame. We got a quick lesson in passing it off, how to hold it ("High above your head...be careful of your face in the flames"), and how we'd be marching up to the main building of Station. The walk (yes, walk...you don't run in the Arctic) went way too quickly. Everyone got a good 50 or 60 feet with the torch, which was very cool. The sentimental highlight of the run was when Gilbert, an old, soft-spoken mechanic that walks with a cane (but was too proud to use one for the long 1.5km walk uphill from the runway) received the torch and broke into a stilted jog for his short leg of the route.

Above is a picture of the whole team at the Alert sign at the beginning of the run, as well as one outside of the gym where the temporary cauldron was lit upon its conclusion. I know that we all look pretty much the same, but if you enlarge the pics I'm under the W of NWT and 5 left of the cauldron.

Luckily, upon lighting the cauldron outside we sang Oh Canada, which counted as our warmup for the choir. We walked in from the cold and literally sang our song the second we'd gotten out of our tracksuits. Honestly?...we rocked :D We weren't amazing or anything, but if you heard our first practice 3 weeks ago (when we were "better than nothing") you'd be mightily impressed! From what I've been told, the CTV vignette didn't have any clips of it...which is just as well :)

The finale to the evening was the fact that I was bartending for the meet-and-greet in the bar. Let's just say, Sundays are usually dead, but we made more in 3.5 hours than we did in 7 hours for TGIF. New people are always fun in Alert, and we'd gotten 39 all in one go.

They all left the next morning at 8am, after being in Alert for only 13 hours. In case you're wondering how the flames moves around the country while not in the possession of a torch bearer, the lantern above is the answer.

Was all the planning, lead up, stress and backache worth it for an event that was over in the blink of an eye?

Absolutely.

Please Remember those who fell today,
Graham

Olympic Torch Run Today!

Well, as you can probably guess from the lack of blog updates these past few days, things have been steadily ramping up towards today. The Olympic Torch is scheduled to arrive today at 5pm!! All the events are planned, the stage that Byron had the build is done (I cut some wood and was the official Assistant Lifter of Heavy Objects), I've got the bar stocked for the Meet and Greet tonight with all the media and the Minister that's coming up and we've had our last choir practice.

As exciting as this all is....I can't WAIT for it to be over and for life to calm back down!!

I'll put up as many pics as possible in a few days. Watch for any coverage likely on CBC or CTV.

Graham