5 Days in Norman Wells

So it has been sometime since I posted an update and tonight time is what I got for I have been assigned the task of Flight Watch. The fancy new machine is making its way from Hay River to Inuvik with a brief stop in the Wells for fuel or perhaps the night if the crew is a little on the tired side. 1200+ kilometers of flying and I get to man the phone… waiting… for them to update with position and ETA until they finally arrive. Fuel them up if I am lucky drop them off at the hotel if I am not… In the meantime I type… and wait.

So not quite a week here in Norman Wells and I fear the blog may suffer… This place for me is a northern anomaly… It’s completely inhabited by normal people. I haven’t yet been asked to buy any carvings the dogs in town sleep inside their owner’s houses and thus far no Pamper trails anywhere. Thus far I have not yet witnessed anything that would make me laugh out loud. So here is what I can say

5 days into my latest foray into the weeds and I am left with quite the first impression of Norman Wells. It has just about everything a small town could possibly offer save for a few exceptions:

A road connecting it to the south… Except it melts out in the spring and then everyone has to wait until the river breaks up before any significant movement of goods returns, then the reverse when it gets cold.


A golf course… Except it only has three holes… Honest to goodness grass though.

Great local radio… Except the locale changes frequently at North West-Tel‘s discretion: one minute your listening to an Edmonton broadcast of Shania Twain and the next Bob Seger on Rock101 from Vancouver.

A spectacular view of the River and the mountains to the west… Except you have to be at the dump to appreciate it.

Sometimes I wonder if those hardened men of the Hudson’s Bay Company were playing some silly joke on the residents of the north when they were settling the land and establishing their trading posts. With the exception of Yellowknife so far the grandest vistas in all of the northern communities that I have had the pleasure of visiting have presented themselves while jettisoning some form of toxic waste at the local landfill. My guess is that the viewpoints started out just fine and then a few errant whiskey bottles at sunset resulted in rubber tires and hot water tanks 150yrs later.

This place even has a liquor store with a crazy daily limit that would lead to liver failure within weeks should one actually try to consume the limit on a daily basis.

Upon first glance the only thing this place lacks is vegetables. I think today was veggie day. Not a parking spot to be had at the “mall”. That or it was hot-wings at the Boiler Room, one of at least three legal drinking establishments.

All in all not it was not a bad introduction to my new summer home.

Hangar life isn’t so bad, thus far anyway; every pilot here gets assigned their own machine, here’s mine. Though I am not yet checked out on the helicopters I have been putting some quality time with the broom and mop. I might have logged near a 1.4 this week already. Somehow word got round that I know something about computers hammering nails gathering garbage and rolling drums. I assured them that my computer knowledge was limited but I have an excess amount of patience and I have no trouble with a hammer so long as I am not in bare feet. I was recently rewarded for my fabulous mopping and typing skills with a flight to Fort Good Hope where I rolled fuel drums and gathered garbage.

The boss like my work so much he gave me the phone tonight. Where I am still waiting…

The toilet was already cleaned today; I wonder what’s in store for tomorrow.