The Snowball Effect

"Today's forecast is total crap."
-Strong Bad (downloads)

Snowball…

Pretty much sums up the last week in any number of significant ways: circumstance, situations and weather.

Now might be a good time to explain condition purple; It’s a mood ring and it is the ultimate representation of how field progress is going and whether or not it is safe to enter the office. Ironicly lately we have been in a state of yellow. Irony indeed considering the shit that we went through.

I should begin by saying that we were in an emergency state.

No Bananas!

The monkeys were restless and they are all in camp for any number of reasons, but they all revolve around one core issue: The weather sucks, and it’s the worst kind of sucks. Low cloud, fog and the threat of freezing rain. 3 days and counting… This has led to a few problems. The helicopter pilot won’t fly; this results in all crew changes for the drill being done by snow machine. As well as crew changes trips to the drill to check on progress are also done by snow machine. Throw in roughly six trips a day and we begin to suck up the gas and oil at a surprisingly rapid rate. Which now leads us to… A fuel crisis.

On top of the fuel crisis was a cigarette crisis, and a beer crisis(ongoing), and a cooks helper crisis and the already mentioned banana crisis. All because the weather is too shitty to fly in… or is it?

So there is also a water crisis and a safety crisis out at the drill. This was for a moment one of the most puzzling aspects of the last couple of days. The drill foreman wouldn’t allow the guys on dayshift to work because there would be no helicopter support, but during night shift when it’s dark there are no issues? And no problems with the 40-minute ride 4 times a day over the tundra for the last 3 days? Now we are dragging water out to the drill because of the distance to the nearest water source but there is a fuel shortage for the supply pumps and then there is some kind of accident where one water tank falls off of its sloop and crushes another tank so now there are no holding tanks for the water and no fuel to pump it and because the helicopter hasn’t flown in 3 days now the drill has run out of diesel and absolutely nothing is getting done.

With all of this we are in condition yellow?

So we got a bit of respite, beginning with a new pilot. The last one was real cautious and the drillers weren’t to secure with the idea that he was going to be working above them. The new guy flew more on his first full day then the last one did in his whole tour. In fact we had a Twin Otter fly into camp when the last guy wouldn’t go at all… it looked a lot more like a float plane than a ski plane when taxing around here as the snow on the lake was getting a little soupy.


So we get the gasoline the drillers load up the snow machines and water pumps, and while coming back to camp at the end of their shift. Georges escape vehicle dies 8 km’s from home. They drag out another one the next day and it meets a similar demise. Now we have no shortage of gas but 50% less machinery to pump it into. And still no cigarettes! Desperate days to be a driller and profitable if anybody had any left of their own supply.

The snowball keeps getting bigger because now it’s too soft to drag the drill anywhere and now we are starting to move it with a helicopter and the weather goes back into the toilet. We did have a little bit of good news though as eventually the boys did get their smokes.

For a little bit of chocolate sauce on our giant snowball… the new pilot got himself a little bug on the jet to Rankin. Worst cold he says he’s had in 20 years. Out there trying to move the drill with a foggy head and at the same time it is literally in the clouds. The drill hasn’t moved too far as a result and with so much time spent in camp the last couple of days he has sprinkled the camp with his infection.

Mmm… Sars

Looks like we are going to have another shitty morning. With so many bad things happening we have no choice but to drink away the evil…Again.

How does a Buckleytini sound?