Last week, I was able to catch a ride with one of my roommates who is a mechanic at Northwestern, however this week and for the next couple of weeks, I'm working 11 - 8, which means I take his bike to work instead! It's pretty cheap transportation for the moment (free!) but I'm not sure how long it will be able to last! The ride from door to door is 12 minutes at balls to the wall pace. The funny thing about biking here, is anytime I ride, I'm always riding into the wind. Monday night, I rode home with the winds blowing from the east (the town is east of the airport), and this morning the winds had changed around and were coming from the west. Surely enough, as I left the airport after my shift tonight, the airplanes were landing towards the east (airplanes try to land into the wind as much as possible), so lets see what tomorrow morning brings!
The one downside to the bicycle is the ride home at night: A section of the road from the airport into town passes through WoodBuffalo National Park, where there are no lights, no road side markers or anything. Just ditches, two walls of trees and the pitch black northern sky! There is a construction company in town, paving all the roads, so they have not yet paved lines or markers defining the sides of the road, but hopefully they get to that soon! (Apparently they only come up once every 8 - 10 years) In that darkness, I can barely see my front tire! So even if there was a bear in front of me or little forest gremlins of the North chasing me, I wouldn't be able to tell! We will see how many afternoon shifts I have to work before I cave in and start looking for a cheap car!
At most places you work at, no two days will ever be the same. This is especially the case for the airlines! Today I was asked to go help out to load a medevac (air ambulance) flight from a lake about an hour North of Fort Smith (out in the real bush!). To give you a little pre-lude to this: This past Saturday, our company took up an 83 year old gentleman and his 12 dogs up to his camp for the winter. He has been going up for several decades, and is dropped off with supplies, food and his dogs and spends the winter in the true wilderness trapping animals, and has a pre-arranged flight to return in the spring when the lakes thaw and Float planes are able to get back to his lake. He lives in pure isloation, alone with his dogs and I was told he was one of the few 'true' trappers still left in Canada. He doesn't bring anything like TV's or computers or even a phone. Just the himself and the wilderness. I didn't spend much time thinking about it as I wasn't working on the Saturday to see him off, I only briefly pictured a man all bundled up mushing huskies on a dog sled; I didn't think too much about his camp. However, today sure opened up my eyes!
Anyways, our company got a call from his brother, saying that they needed an airplane ASAP to go pick him up as he got word that the trapper was in some trouble up there (he had a vhf radio), and he needed an air ambulance. Luckily, I had my camera on me so I could quickly snap a few pictures! Chances are I won't get to see this again ever! The pilot, myself and the trappers brother went up to the camp (the brother was going up there to look after the dogs while the trapper was coming back to the hospital).
As we arrived at the camp, it really put things into perspective on how he was living. (take into consideration that the first picture of the house is zoomed in. In reality, the door frame came up to my shoulders and I had to bend down while inside. It couldn't have been bigger than 10 x 8ft inside and had a small bed, a chair a wood fireplace and two of his bags. There was no stove or oven or sink even, just somewhere to sleep! (I now know that I can't complain about being cold inside an insulated and heated house!!)
The second picture is of his dogs who were howling away, while locked up in their pen. On the way back the Trapper said if he wasn't able to go back up (which he most likely will not) They will either have to be let go, or shot.
The Gentleman was not able to walk, in the 4 days that he had been up there, something pretty serious had obviously gone wrong if he was calling for help as he usually spends the majority of the year out there. He wasn't able to walk so the pilot and I had him sit in a chair, which we carried down to place in the a/c to get him back to Ft Smith as quickly as possible. On our way down to the water, I saw he had a large pot of water with a bar of soap in it.... right... the sink!
On the way back, I sat in the back and was able to take a few pictures of the true untouched Northwest Territories
I don't want to hear they shot the dogs. Why can't he have them brought back to town?
ReplyDeleteBecause they would have served their purpose. They aren't pets to him, but rather a mode of transportation. If he brings them back, he will have to charter another large aircraft to get them all in
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