November Already?!

It's been a busy week, and time sure is flying by (It's the start of week 6 up here)! I shot few pictures of the sunrise this morning, which are below. I'm really curious about it, but I'm not sure whether its the dry prairie air or the lack of pollution which causes this outrageous sunrises and sunsets. Nowhere have I seen the sky such vibrant colours on a consistent basis (even on a cloudy day like today).
As you can see from the pictures, the white airplane in the foreground is off floats (oh yes, winter's coming!). It's now on wheels (looking a lot less intimidating without its large floats and will be put onto skis mid-December when there is about 6 inches of ice on the lakes and rivers for it to land on. Unfortunately since there is only a thin layer - too thick for floats, but too thin for skis, the smaller single engine aircraft's will be doing a lot of sitting around for the moment.

These single engine aircraft are also only certified to fly with passengers in the daylight hours under VFR Conditions (with visual reference to the ground), which means less flying in the winter as the short days are approaching rapidly. Its not before about 8:45 before the sun rises around here, and when it does, it sits fairly low in the sky. Its pretty hard to capture that on camera, but at mid-day you would think it was late-afternoon/ early evening by looking at how the sun is sitting next to the horizon. In another month, it will surely be even more pronounced!

This week, they are forecasting the weather to above freezing! I sure am looking forward to that as compared to the -10's we were getting last week! (This time last year, they had a foot of snow on the ground and it was 30 below for Halloween!!)
Above is a picture of me, fully decked out in my Highlighter orange jump suit, next to my new truck (I mentioned I bought truck right?!). Everybody has been giving me heat for wearing the winter coveralls, but I definitely prefer to be boiling hot than to be out freezing my buns off in the cold for 9 - 10 hours! This new beauty of a truck runs a little heavy on gas at times, but has been getting me to and from work without being chased by bears at 5AM!









Actually....

THIS is what the new truck looks like, sure saves a few bucks on gas (definitely not style though!)

Its a 1986 has only 175000kms and runs like a dream!

Last week, we had a few unfamiliar faces visit us here in Fort Smith, which I thought I'd share, as their journeys were rather odd. The first was Keewatin Air; a Beech 1900, which was chartered from Winnipeg to take two residents on a medevac flight up to Igloolik, Nunavut. Now for the most part, a 'Medevac' is usually an air lift from one place bringing them closer to civilization or a bigger city for medical attention (which you would imagine would be south-bound).

Anyways these two passengers and their medical supplies were loaded onto flight taking them 5 hours North of my position (which is much farther north than most of you!) a community of about 6-800 people.

This weekend, as I was glancing over the website www.avherald.com I recognized the registration (C-FJXO) which was the same registration that had earlier departed for Igloolik (http://avherald.com/h?article=432d1aff&opt=0). According to the report, on the way back to Rankin Inlet to reposition the aircraft. They encountered some serious crosswinds and were blown off the side of the runway!

The second unfamiliar face was that of Summit Air, another airline from Yellowknife, NWT. Now they don't normally fly into Fort Smith, but one of our Jetstreams had a mechanical (a minor problem with the aircraft, which must be fixed before it can fly again) in Yellowknife, after the early morning scheduled flight. Northwestern had to charter one of their aircrafts to bring back the passengers who were booked on our return flight from Yellowknife to Fort Smith, and subsequently fly our AME's (Aircraft Maintenance Engineers) up to fix the problem. Boy they must have been laughing!

Happy... Late... Thanksgiving!!

Sunset Thanksgiving Sunday (October 10, 2010)

Well, it's been a week since my last post and I apologize to my avid followers (never thought that would happen!) about not posting sooner, and a little more frequent. I have switched to the morning shift at work, so I am up by 4:30 every morning to make it to work by 6 by bike!

For all of you who emailed about the infamous trapper, who I went on a medevac to get: He's known as 'Pi' around these parts, he is 84 years old and has spent every winter except 1 in the bush for the last 76 years!! The poor guy had a stroke within the 3 days he was up there, and once back in Fort Smith, had another one the following day, so he was taken on another medevac flight to a hospital in Edmonton, AB. The last mention was that he had no feeling below the waist, so I am just wishing him well! Here is a link to the article which was in our local news paper the 'Slave River Journal' (http://srj.ca/index75.htm)

Pi being loaded into the Otter with the dogs on the trip out

His dogs were returned, and unfortunately I was dealing with scheduled flights inbound at the time, or else I would have plenty of pictures of his 12 dogs being unloaded (they returned safe and sound!)

This weekend was quite a fun one, I was able to go on quite the hike down by the Slave River around 'The Rapids of the Drowned' which is 1 of 4 sets of rapids around the town of Forth Smith, which connects Lake Athabasca to the Arctic Ocean. The 4 sets of rapids were impassible by the early settlers which is why Fort Smith was established; essentially a portage point to cross, then an outpost (of the Hudson's Bay Company). It was previously the capital of the Northwest Territories up until the 1960s and I have been told by several it is the most scenic and picturesque town in the north, all the trees here are originals and can date back 1000 years, as most of the other towns have very few trees, and if they do, they are more recent growth.

It's quite amazing to see how rapidly the trees have changed from a glowing yellow from the Birch trees to more green from the lasting ever greens.

In the next few weeks to come, I will be trying my best to make it out to hike the other sets of rapids and the caves, which I am told are quite amazing to see!

They may not look like much, but when you get up close there is
quite a large drop in the two levels of water

My Roommates girlfriend was up visiting from Abbotsford, BC this weekend for Thanksgiving, we carried some of the Thanksgiving traditions from the South up here and had our own dinner. It was quite a last minute thing, and unfortunately wasn't able to get a turkey to thaw in time. (Who knew the stores only carried frozen solid birds!!) Well, being the problem solving pilots we are, we figured we could get away with 4 large chickens instead (pictures below) and just hope nobody asked why there were 8 small legs from 1 turkey!

Roomate Tom and his girlfriend Kalina

We had one of the Aircraft Mechanics from Kenya named Sunny (fitting, no?) and Adam from Calgary who works in Operations over for a great dinner (... if I do say so, myself!)

Myself, Kalina, Sunny, Adam & Tom

This week I have been working mornings which has had me up well before the crack of dawn (and putting me to bed well before dusk!!) I much prefer the bike ride in the morning as opposed to the evening: The northern lights and millions of stars light up my path on my bike ride to work, which is quite nice! I haven't been able to get any pictures of the lights yet, they are still fairly faint. I'm told that as winter nears, they will become stronger and more vibrant, and more easily seen by my dinky camera.

Being at work a few hours before the sun actually rises has a few advantages (only a few!) The day goes by a lot quicker; most of the scheduled flights depart fairly early in the morning, meaning that the Jetstreams must be cleaned, taken out of the hanger and fueled, then brought down to the Terminal to be loaded and send off. By the time the last one is send off, there is time to take a quick break before the first one gets back from Yellowknife. With all the sending and greeting of aircrafts; there is plenty time spent outside, which has the most magnificent skies; whether its dawn, throughout the day or dusk. The sky turns almost every colour imaginable: Even in the middle of the day, the blue of the sky is so crisp as there is no pollution up here. (This is by far my favourite thing about being up here)

Early morning departure to Hay River, NWT

One downside to spending most of the day outside is that the temperature is starting to drop like a rock, it was about 15*C before the weekend, and has been hovering just around the freezing level. Below are a few photographs of a few frosty wings, which I had to brush off to send some early morning charters off.
Once all the scheduled Jetstream flights have been launched, we spend a few hours cleaning and preparing the single engine aircraft for various charters which they may have. Yesterday we had a funeral in a small town called Camsell Portage in Northern Saskatchewan, so the casket was sent off in the Otter, while the Cessna 206 and 210 were jam packed with a pastor and a group of ladies.

Camsell Portage, SK. Approximately an hour flight in the Cessna To drive there from Fort Smith I am told you have to drive down southwest to
Edmonton, east, then north. Seems a flying is a better option!

Today was welcomed with rain, snow flakes, then more rain (... but SNOW!!! Already!!) It didn't stick to the ground, so I won't count it as our first snow fall! Until Next time...

Hump Day

Wednesdays are slow days for Northwestern. There is usually not much going on at the airport apart from two scheduled flights up to the Diamond Mines for crew changes. The greater part of our Jetstream fleet was on the ground, so the Mechanics were busy working away at many of minor snags or issues the various airplanes had. I spent my Wednesday cleaning. I was able to sweep the hanger from end to end before it became full of high-powered aluminum, then spent the rest of the day giving the aircrafts baths, both inside and out.

After speaking to Heather on the phone during my 'lunch break' as they call it (It happens around 5pm and seems more like 'dinner' to me), I came across a pretty magnificent sunset, so I thought I would fire a few pictures from this evening

Best,

A

Up Hill... both ways!

Well, trudging my way through week two, up here in Fort Smith! The weather is getting colder in the mornings, the grass is completely frozen, right up until about lunch time.

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

First week down.... and I'm Still Alive!

Well, its actually pretty hard to comprehend that my first week working at Northwestern is over, and that today is my 7th day being here already: It sure doesn't feel that way. Its Saturday today, which is one of my two days off this week and its a perfect fall day (which I thought they didn't have up here) 16 degrees and sunny - So this afternoon I will be out adventuring, checking out the trail and the river and the 'other half of town'.

This week was a great experience, constantly learning about how this airline and many other airline operations function. The majority of the week was spent finishing up necessary introductory company exams, like Dangerous Goods training and the different functions of a 'Rampie' and the daily and weekly checks which we must complete.

I can now tell you what all of these mean in detail!

Dangerous goods training is a big part of our operations here at Northwestern, as we deal with a lot of Cargo from Edmonton to the North. The Dangerous Goods Training allows us to fully understand what is being shipped in the boxes, how it must be packaged and labeled and how it can be shipped. Depending on what type of product it is, there are different specifications on the ways it can be shipped, We have to know if it can be placed on a scheduled passenger flight as Cargo, or if it has to be on a full cargo load only. For example if there is bio hazardous materials coming from a laboratory, it would have to be shipped on a Freight flight, for the odd chance that the packaging is broken and the materials are released in the aircraft, infecting the passengers.

In the Yukon and the Territories, there is a lot more leeway for residents to send whatever they want, as we fly to many remote locations where aircrafts are the only mode of transportation. My second day, I loaded the Otter on floats to its Maximum takeoff Weight full of jerry cans full of Mogas, propane tanks and non-perishable food, along with the pilot and one passenger. If you were trying to to send those same goods on Air Canada or WestJet from Toronto to Halifax, that would never fly!! It could be a bomb waiting to explode with the amount of fuel loaded. However, this one gentleman was going up to his fishing lodge until Christmas, and needed supplies to get him through and this is the only means possible.


The ramp staff were also trained on how to use some heavy machinery (not the kind that flies) but the fork lifts, (used moving fuel barrels and loading aircraft the float planes, which sit about 7 or 8 feet off the ground!) and our Jeeps, allowed me to drive on the air-side, and tow the Jetstreams to and from the Terminal and in and out of the Hangers.

Although the act of towing, is quite easy. It becomes a little more difficult when the tow bar has two pivot points instead of a regular camper or car trailer with just one. A 12 foot Iron Pipe Is attached to the nose gear of the aircraft, which pivots the aircraft's nose-wheel and on a ring on the front of the car, which allows the car to pivot as well.

Towing takes a lot more care and precision when towing, parking them in between the fleet of aircraft, sitting side-by-side and especially when bringing it inside and outside of the hanger as they it was built specifically to hold three Jetstreams, with only a few feet spare on each side! Any slight deviations and it could be thousands of dollars worth of damage! I haven't made enough yet to be able to fix one yet!

Speaking of the hanger... one of the weekly duties are to keep it in some type of orderly fashion, sweeping it regularly and mopping it! (I must admit, it was quite hard for me to keep my camera on me to take pictures this week; however, there will be many more photos to come very shortly!) When I was told that was one of the jobs, I didn't think much of it...... two days later, I had it all finished! It took myself and the Ramp Lead, Alex, two hours to sweep the entire thing, and then about a full day, mopping it with and without help from the other rampies. It wasn't so easy as it hadn't been done regularly, so it had to be scrubbed pretty vigorously with frequent mop bucket changes to get all the oil and grime off the floors. One of the other rampies was complaining about how it was such a crappy task, but personally I didn't mind it, as it meant I had some time from out of the cold doing something I could do at my own pace! I think I have a weekly chore cut out for me now!

Wednesday happened to be a bit of a special day, apart from there being only two scheduled flights to the Diamond mines for crew changes in northern (redundant?) Northwest Territories, we also had a special visitor, which was a Canadian North 737 that came in for an out of the ordinary fuel stop, enroute to Edmonton.

737 on the rollout after landing on RWY 29 at CYSM

Wednesday also brought about a winter operations course for all ground staff on the different procedures for de-icing aircraft, which I'm told will start very soon (yes, its getting cold!!!). The purpose of deicing the aircrafts right before flight is to ensure the wings and critical surfaces are clean, and free of snow and ice, which can alter the shape of the wing, and significantly increasing the weight, reducing lift and altering the design characteristics of the aircraft.

Ice Buildup on the leading edge of the wing

I will get into more detail about this, once the winter operations are fully in effect. For now, here are some pictures of me in the process of learning how to control the 'Kangaroo' and de-ice our Jetstreams.

That silver tank holds the Orange De-Ice fluid, kept at 165 F

On Friday, as I was finishing up my duties for the day. I got a call on the radio asking for some assistance to unload the Single Otter on floats as it had just come back from a Northern lake with several people and their cargo on board. As I was unloading all these strange cardboard boxes, I couldn't figure out what would rock in a box the way it was, however be so heavy at the same time. After getting a chance to peer through the opening of one of the boxes not properly shut, I was taken back to see animal fur! We unloaded a few thousand pounds of small game, like Beavers, Whitetail Dear, Caribou, fish and Black Bears! (I REALLY wish I had my camera this week to take a picture)

As I waited by our baggage cart while the passengers unloaded their boxes into their cars, one guy jokingly asked if I needed some black bear (bears, beets, battle star galactica). I overheard them talking about going to Kaesers, the local grocery store to cash some checks! If I go to the grocery store today and find a special on fresh Black Bear or Beaver, I will know exactly where it came from!

Anyways, I received my Northwestern 'jumpsuit', which is funny enough, made me feel a lot more like part of the team, but ALSO has many pockets for the many things I may need to hold on me. Allowing me to keep my camera on me a lot more for some up-close and behind the scenes footage! Off to do some exploring!

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