Seal Balls

Again it has been long time since I last updated the goings on of ultra rural life. Not much has happened that is worth bitching about. And what is the point of a blog if not to complain? Today I had planned on typing up a little blurb about the joy of the departing drill crew. But that will have to wait until tomorrow...or the next day, but thanks to Sister Sarah I got myself a honest to goodness rant prepared for you today.

Sister Sarah has brought to my attention this little site about how to kill polar bears without a rifle. I suggest opening that site in another tab using Firefox or Safari , so you all can follow along. I feel the need to address the issue for all the molly coddled city dwellers and “ bloody foreign treehuggers from the UK”. Who I assume are rather quite charming but misinformed. I will bring to the fore many points with regards to the rifle-less camp defending method.

- Seals don’t swim in fresh water.
- Human beings cannot survive on salt water without some serious desalination.
So our camps are built in-land.
- Given the choice between prime rib, Thai/Indian curry or seal. I know which one I would eat.
-I am not going to sit motionless on the ice…its fucking cold when the lakes are frozen! And real fucking cold when the ocean is frozen!
-There isn’t a lot of wood up here to make a fire.

The most contentious point: Waiting for the Polar Bear

We don’t want to wait for the polar bear. We don’t want the polar bear. We are lower on the food chain than the polar bear. And yes the dogs will notify you that the polar bear is nigh but then there will be silence because the dog team is all tied up so they don’t run away and therefore easy pickins’.

My favourite part. After the belly is poked: “Track the bear with the dog team until you find its carcass. This may take up to a week.”

After a couple of appetizing seal balls, one week leaves plenty of time to snack on the rest of the camp and campers! Thankfully I know how to fly so I am out fast if one of the pilots becomes a main course.

Sure the big white-and now red-bastard may have a little upset tummy cuz of the ribs poking through his intestines, but he is just going to chalk that one up to heartburn! He may not eat for another week regardless of the fatal seal balls but if there is food about he/she is surely going to dine until he/she goes into that great beyond. And I sure hope that I am not on the menu.

And finally: The Traditional Inuit Method.

Ha ha ha!!!

That’s the best line I’ve heard all week! Todays traditional methods don’t involve dog teams, harpoons or seal balls. Horsepower(wheels or skis) large calibre firearms and lead is more like it.

The last words from our Inuit bear watcher today was; “Just wait till you see the gun I am going bring back after my break!”

Essentially the traditional methods have gone the way of the Dodo and efficiency is key. The Inuit get cold too. We are not out here to make friends, resource extraction is our mission and damned be the big white bastard that gets in our way or cookshack.

And if you got a problem with resource extraction…

So should you feel the need to be more sporting while defending your property have a ball. Just not a frozen seal ball, they’ll kill you.

Air Rage

Well here I am again. You would not believe what I returned to in Rankin and then camp itself. Wind and lots of it. Who would have guessed? It would only get worse as the night progressed, but I will get into that later.

I just love travelling. Waking up early, last minute packing, the ride in the taxi that smells worse than the Pacto I will be dealing with when I get to camp and then there is the airport itself.

What a day. First off was of course the obligatory travel headache generated the night before and then the crippling gas also a result of the same evening. Upon arriving at the airport the cabbie screwed up with the visa machine not once, twice or three times but the fourth time with a Master Card he managed to figure it out. I am checking my account on an hourly basis to be sure that I am not going to be charged all four times.

So then when I enter the domestic building it is over stuffed awith people and there seems to be more chaos than normal. Lines going every which way but not to a wicket of any kind. Then when I finally figure out the best way to deal with mess is to just point and shoot my way to the shortest actual check-in I am stuck behind the family of five with four bags each, no boarding passes and no intention of giving up their spot to someone-me- who does until wife/mom figures out how the express check in works. Then they have no picture ID for any of the kids over 16. More chaos ensues.

So the guy behind me asks. ”When’s your flight sir? Because mine’s in 15 minutes”

“9:00, sure go ahead.” So then the guy scans his boarding pass at a blocked-read don’t use me please- baggage tag scanner and procedes to crash the computer.” 15 minutes later, thankfully security was a cake walk, I am sitting down for a quick bite to eat.

Now my flight has been delayed from Edmonton. No big deal I got 40 spare minutes in Calgary. Well wouldn’t you know it 40 minutes late we finally begin to make our way to the taxiway. The flight itself was uneventful but of course something was bound to go wrong: “Ladies and gentlemen, sorry for the delay but we can’t shut down our left engine until we have auxiliary power and as a result we can’t disembark the plane until the engine is shut down. We have informed all connecting flights.”

So now I am waiting and I really got to have a leak…so when we are finally freed I find a toilet and just as I settle in “Paging Winnipeg bound passenger Deanoh, this is your final boarding call for flight…” Not exactly in a position to hurry things up I can only hope that the gate isn’t too far away. I do make it on board but there has been so little time between my last two flights I am convinced that there is no way on earth that my baggage will be joining me to Rankin this week let alone today. Not exactly a transportation hub.

So 5 hours later my third flight of the day arrives in Rankin Inlet and I am pleased to see that one of the camp helicopters is sitting on the apron. The first good news I have had all day. I won’t be spending the night in the Rankin at the crew house and as it turns out it would have been 3…but more on that in a second. The second bit of good news was that one of the cooks who was leaving for her break on the flight I just arrived on will be returning to feed us in two weeks. The third piece of good news: one Action Packer containing 48 ales, 40oz of fermented potato juice and warm clothes for the flight to camp circling on the baggage carousel! So I finally make it into camp and I am instantly dropped into camp guy mode. Can’t even get a good sleep before I get my hands good and dirty.

Batten down the hatches, cuz she is going to be a wild one, which was the word from Environment Canada. There was going to be at least 48 hours of crummy weather coming our way and this time they weren’t wrong. The tent shook all night long and then it rained like I was back on the North Shore in November and when I finally decided to pull the earplugs from my skull and get out of bed the next morning I had a hard time finding the kitchen because the visibility was next to nothing and would stay that way for the next 2 days. Kind of crummy for the guys stuck out at the drill as it was the second time in as many weeks. At least this time they decided to save the survival food for a survival occasion this time as apparently they had been using it previously as lunch until they did get stuck out for three days with nothing. Ha ha ha!! The graphic image for aviation showed an intense low with a band of clouds circling much the same way a hurricane would, the satellite image montage was equally impressive. The clouds finally broke but the wind picked up when front passed. As I type this out, there is still a wind warning posted for Rankin Inlet. I think I can deal with it…for now.

There's no place like home!

Kansas dancing shoes

So much for happy thoughts, this place licks serious balls!

Oh how I had planned to post a doozy of a bitch yesterday. Shitty god damned weather yet again. I had all these plans to post the aviation bulletins and point out the eminent scattered shitties coming our way. Like this one. Let you all know that it was fucking cold but not yet freezing! I was also going to post a graphic illustration from the same source. Followed by more commentary:

“What is with the “New” bull shit? And QS? Quasistationary? That’s crap. Essentially what it says is that for the next 12 hours I am going to be in a foul mood.”

Well it wasn't far off, it was actually 18.

Well the wind died then it rained all night and I woke up to the prospect having to wade my way through the saturated moss sponge to the kitchen for breakfast. Had a couple cups of coffee and then it got quiet. We cheered, opened up the door and were then presented with this pleasant sight.

Three god-damned more sleeps and I am out of here. And I can just see what is likely to happen. The wind will stop as hoped and the bugs will come and instead of only the 12 hour respite from the gales we will get 2 weeks and the only clouds obscuring the sky will be the mosquitoes and black flies. Hate to rain on your parade but when I am back home I might have to step on every spider I see, mind you I think that could also be done in Calgary and Winnipeg on my way back to camp.

On the positive side, I attended a going away party Thursday night for one of the cooks and went to bed sober. Which means any headache that may have been incurred was due to the diesel that spewed all over the floor because I forgot to light the stove for which I turned on fuel flow. Oops!?

Damn those girls can party!

More good news, the alcohol has almost all dried up and it looks like smooth sailing until I get back to the big city and jump right back into the monkey cage!

Well having gotten the bitch out of my system, the wind has died yet again and blue skies can be seen poking through the horizon offering just the faintest bit of hope for tomorrow.

Did I mention 3 more sleeps?