Sunrises

My room faces the south east here in Ft. Smith, so I have had the opportunity to see some pretty amazing sunrises.

The first is from yesterday and next two are from this morning.




Enjoy!

Questions Comments Concerns

If you have any questions, comments or concerns, fire me a message and I will try and check it out. Anything about the North, the airline I work for or flying - I will be more than happy to go explore for and get the real low-down of what up

Can't wait until I can see those Northern Lights - apparently you see them almost always in the fall & winter!

Coffee.... ERR My First Day

Ft. Smith Airport

Well, My first day was full of many new adventures and being exposed to many new things.
The day started out with a Monday Morning Coffee break, as soon as everyone 'punched in'. I've never seen so many people with a case of the 'mondays'. It was funny because I actually love mondays. Who doesn't love the start of something new?... like ... a new week!?

Lance giving me the tour around Northwestern's 3 hangers, showing me all of the scheduled service maintenance hanger, the charters hanger, as well as the Admin Building. The Scheduled service hanger was filled with Jetstreams and AME's (aircraft mechanics) working on them.

Jetstream 31 sitting outside the hanger on a brisk September morning

The Charter hanger had many of the 'bush planes' both inside and out. Many different machines like the Beech 99, the Otter and the Beaver (which were both on floats). These airplanes go down into the bush dropping off passengers or cargo in remote places, which is only accessibly by float plane in the summer or ski plane in the winter.

Beech 99

Otter (On floats in the summer, skis in the winter)

Along the tour, Lance was instructed to introduce me to all the other employees. I think I must have met about 90% of the staff within the first hour! The fun part is trying to remember their names the next time you see them! By the time the tour was finished, it was about 10 o'clock, which meant coffee time! I have never seen so many people swarm around a coffee pot the way they do constantly around here! It's similar to a pack of ravens attacking a carcass on the ground! Funny enough, this was the first morning in about 6 months where I hadn't actually had at least a single cup of coffee, and the way it was being consumed made me a little repulsed by the whole idea. I will see how long I can go without having any desire to drink a cup of coffee.

Proceeding our second break of the morning, they send me off to various people to complete different parts of the training for the airline operations. It varied from many different things, which included Cargo Screening, WHMIS (Workplace Harazadous Materials Information System [...I believe?]) training, and tests on the Jetstreams and Beech 99 - allowing me to do elementary maintenance on the aircraft (I didn't think I would be doing any of that ever, but its pretty cool!). The list of different types of training I had to do goes on, but will be completed over the following week or so.

One thing which really stuck out throughout the course of the day was during my WHMIS training, where the 'Quality Assurance Manager' named Marcel gave me a longwinded lesson on all the dangerous chemicals we ship, use and store. Showing me how to find information on the products and what to do if someone accidentally ingested it, or became covered in it. Marcel is a funny little man, and likes attention and absolutely loves talking. Throughout the day, he was assuring quality everywhere by taking his cup of coffee and talking to anybody and everybody that would listen to him speak! I am going to try and get a picture with Marcel sometime soon, so I can post up for you all to see. Anyways, at the end of our training, he talks to me, letting me know that he could be my 'home-away-from home' dad and that if I needed someone to talk to or a ride home from the bar or want advice on a girl - he was my go to guy. I didn't even know there was a bar for several hundred miles!

By the end of the day, the majority of the office staff had 5 coffee breaks (not including the lunch!)

I was able to make it to the gym, where at a 'peak hour' there were 3 people, one of them being
myself. I think I will be pretty lucky, if I continually get a gym with nobody in it!

Localized fog over the runway in the early AM

House Pictures

Thought I would post up a few pictures of the inside:



Unfortunately there are no lights in our 'living room' - thats OK though, I don't know how much time I will be spending in there.

Rent here is fairly cheap $800 a month, split between 3 people. The funny thing about these Northern places is that every house and every building uses an oil heater. I've never heard of it in my life, but to give you an idea of what it costs to heat it in the winter, is approximately $7-800 a month! That's double the rent! You would have thought they would have some more efficient way of heating places in these parts, where the cold is literally Bone-chilling.



Sleeping is a pretty good gig here. When the lights go out, there are no need for blinds (in the winter) - It have never seen a place so pitch black outside with the stars shining so bright

Not 1, but 2 Parkas: Impressions of Ft. Smith

Just about to depart Edmonton with Parka 1 and my lunch

Well, after a very long day of travelling (4:00 EST wake-up for a 6:30 flight to Edmonton), and yes, hauling up 2 Parkas, I finally landed in Fort Smith, NWT around 15:00 MST still questioning myself on my decision.



The 2 hour flight almost directly North from Edmonton was uneventful. I was met by my new boss, Lance Roberts. Very friendly guy originally from Timmins, Ontario, but spent most of his days working in the Diamond Mines in the North. He was my lift to the 'crew house' where the company is putting me up for a few weeks, while I settle in. The first thing he asked me was 'got your winter stuff?'

On the way to the crew house, Lance showed me around town, where all the 'hot spots' were, including the Pizza place, the Recreation Center and Hockey Arena, Grocery Store and Bank. Many thoughts were floating through my mind, figuring out how I will adapt to the changing environment, coming from living downtown Montreal and Burlington, which had large populations, compared to Fort Smith, home to 2500 at best!

Upon arrival at the crew house, I met the two other guys living there: A mechanic from Calgary, AB and another rampie, hired two weeks prior from Abbottsford, BC. I unpacked (Seen Below) and proceeded to do a second (self-guided) tour of the neighbourhood err.. town.



Up in the North, apparently there are only 3 seasons; Spring, Summer & Winter. At the end of summer (which gets up to a very dry 32 degrees Celsius) it drops off pretty quickly and it turns into winter before you know it. Last week I was told all the guys were out wearing their Parkas. Luckily I made it in on one of the very few days of 'fall' 12 degrees with all the leaves changing colours. (Word on the street is that they are predicting the first snowfall to be by the end of next week :s )

The first stop on my self guided tour was the Recreation center - where I could get back and have a feeling of what being in the south was like. Anyways, friendly staff of 3 people running the place, with more things than you could ever imagine for a town of so few. Very nice and refurbished weight-lifting room, Squash courts, Olympic size swimming pool (with hot tub, 20 foot slide, Dry Sauna and Steam room), martial arts school, yoga studio and Curling Rink (this is apparently where the greater majority of the town spends their Friday nights; Curling and drinking cold beverages in the lounge upstairs - Haven't figured out why people would be wanting anything more cold, when its -54 C outside!)

Next stop was the Grocery Store. There are two right across from each other. There is one thats the 'highly superior', however it closes early on Sundays, so the other will have to do. I'm pretty surprised how stocked they were with meats, fish, fruits and vegetables, however significantly more expensive than back at home $9 for 250ml of Olive Oil!

The last stop for the day was the Great Slave River (pictures below- sorry for the crappy quality, my phone was zoomed in all the way. I will be sure to get some better quality ones before the snow starts falling). And beside it I found this weird burial ground. All the graves looked like the bodies were right on the surface with a bit of dirt and a bed of flowers covering them. Will have to inquire about that one....

Im pretty sure they were just placed right on the grass...

Finally, the way home proved trickier than I had imagined. Although there is one main street in Ft. Smith, many of the housing complexes look similar to mine, so it took some time before I saw the familiar cars parked outside..

First Stop - Fort Smith, Northwest Territories

Well after 11 months of job hunting, $60,000 worth of Pilots licences and an Instructor Rating. I have finally landed my first job in the aviation industry!

First Stop - Fort Smith, Northwest Territories. Located in the southern Northwest Territories, on the Great Slave River and about a kilometer away from the Alberta Border.


As you can see from this not so detailed map, that is indeed a fair bit further North than I have ever lived. About an hour's flight south of Yellowknife and home to the great Aurora Borealis (I'll let you look that one up...)

I've been hired with Northwestern Air to work on the ramp, loading and unloading aircraft's until a First-Officer position becomes available. Low time pilot's typically get hired onto the ramp for the company to get to know the pilots and trust them with their million dollar machines. Being chosen to become a First-Officer is done by senority (how long you have been with the company); as spots open up, the most senior 'rampies' get moved up to the flight deck, and the others move up in line. I am number 5, meaning that the 4 guys who started before me will be promoted first. I am told it will be about a year and a half - two years before I see the flight deck. I feel its a good step in the door, and great way to experience a part of the world which few people actually get to see, not to mention live in.


Northwestern has a fleet of a 8 Jetstream 31/32's, which are pressurized turbo-prop aircraft holding 19 passengers. NWAL does a significant amount of scheduled and charter work from Fort Smith, connecting Edmonton (and Alberta) to Canada's great North

Jetstream 31 with its Nacelle covers on