Mile 50 on the Canol Trail

Every day on the flight into site, as we fly over the mountains we see Dhals sheep, moose, mountain goats and caribou. We have also seen bears, bald eagles and golden eagles. I wish I had brought the good camera and binoculars, instead of my little camera.

Today we were stationed on mile 50, it’s on the other side of the 'Plains of Abraham'. What a beautiful site to spend the day at. The work there was not difficult and we were done early, which allowed us to explore to the camp and the river.

The Plains of Abraham

The site is on the bank of the Keele River, the former Canol Pipe line crossed this river using a wire line and suspended the pipe from it.

Looking down stream, the river cuts through the rock and ends in a beautiful falls, so I’ve been told. It would have been nice to check it out, but we are here for work and not sight see, so I've been told.

 Looking up stream at the white water, there is a whirlpool on the right side. At this location there is a creek that flows into the river, but at the same time the river has enough force to flow into the creek thus creating a whirl-pool effect.

Looking up to the site from the bank.

A massive trilobite that I found while walking on the beach.

  I also recovered a piece of petrified wood.

 On the trail heading toward the camp.

 Our wildlife monitor, William is checking out one of the buildings at mile 50 for bears before we can have a look inside.

 We found this Canol truck, it’s in need of servicing.

 And the ride home.

Cheers from 10,000ft in the A-Star.

Sunday August 19, 2012

What a good day we had early flight to Mile 108 to survey the wells we installed yesterday. An hour later we were on Mile 111.4 Devil’s Pass to test pit the area of concern. That afternoon we surveyed the test pit locations, actually Claire surveyed the test pit locations (under my guidance of course) and she did an amazing job. She closed the loop within 55mm, not too shabby for her first survey and the site drops at least 10m in elevation.

Tonight we had a wonderful dinner, wild sheep stew with dumplings and carrot cake for desert.

I wish I had lots of photos to show, but my camera’s memory card is acting up, but I can show my drive into work, my office and the drive home.

The view on the way to work…WOW, words cannot explain or impart the wonder of this land.

My office of the day. It’s a solitary feeling working here, even with four other people.

The drive home. WOW again, is all you can say.

Feeling very privileged to be here and seeing what some people wonder about.

Goodnight from as near to heaven you can be with boots still on the ground.

What we do at camp….

After dinner last night, while playing, or I should say trying to play cribbage, we had two grizzly bears, a mom and a 3 year cub, on the mountain behind us this kept us entertained for hours, looking through binoculars, range finders or anything else we could get our hands on. They were very hard to see but with the hunting guides (who were in camp and not out with clients) spotting scopes we had no problem. One of our drillers even got some photos through the scope.

Mile 108, Pump Station #4

Today we were working on site mile 108, we completed the drilling program just before the storm came in. our chopper arriving just as it started to rain, the first words out of the pilot’s mouth were “Get in, we have to go NOW”. We had been watching the sky all day, it was getting darker and darker and we could see the rain coming down all around us. We ended up flying through 30 miles of storm, I said that the turbulence in a chopper is something else, but it’s like…the only thing I can say is it’s like…being in a yo-yo with a 4 year old at the other end of the string.

Brian our pilot is an excellent chopper driver and brought us home safely through the storm.

This morning we had a small hear of caribou quick march past the site while we were laying out the boreholes. There were 3 bulls, one very large and 2 smaller, and between 13-15 cows and calves.

The large caribou bull is on the far right.

I did manage to get a close up of one of the lone bull that was following the heard at a distance.

 

We come across the Canol Hilton at Mile 108, but it was booked for the season. “Rooms to let for 50 cents, no phone, no pool, no pets” so the song goes…..

 

Main entrance. What no door-man?

The lounge, and in the back are two of the suites.

Only one truck out in the parking lot.

Mean while back at camp, it was spaghetti with caribou meat sauce, homemade focaccia bread and spice cake with lemon sauce for desert. After dinner while playing cribbage we were entertained by one of our drillers cutting Claire’s hair. This is the first time Kyle has done this sort of thing and he did his research on his “I” phone during dinner. He did a pretty good job.

Bye the bye I have been using the Gerber “Bear Grylles” Survival Knife in the field for the last 3 weeks. I have hacked through brush, split wood for a fire, cut communication wire (3 wire in armour wrap), hammered rock (to split for samples) pried apart wall sections (1/2” plywood on 2x4’s) and driven the blade through the plywood in other locations to expose the insulation, I have used the fire striker to start fires and the sharpener to put an edge back on my blade. The only thing I do not like about this knife is the whistle, it sucks!

Our next site will be Mile 111.4, Devil’s Pass….

Well that's all for now.

Cheers.

Thursday, Aug. 16, 2012

Last night we had a visitor from on the land.

The cow moose hung around from before dinner till late in the night. The horses could not drive her from the salt-lick, two hunters that arrived that afternoon went down to sight in their guns and she just stood broadside in the field beside the range and watched.

Our drillers went out to see if they could get a few good photos of her, for 20 minutes they took pictures and video of her.

That’s all for now I have to go and have a shower it’s my turn in the “Q” (everybody in camp is showering tonight, so we must be pretty ripe)

Friday, Aug. 17, 2012

Our next stop was Mile 108 Pump Station #4

Work continues as usual…drilling and sampling, move to new location and start all over again, and we do this all day. Very similar to golf, drive, chip, putt and repeat…

So I’ll just show some photos of the site.

Looking northward along the trail.

Looking southward toward the pump station.

The pump station #4. One of the best preserved buildings I have seen on the trail.

The only standing quanset hut left on site. This building is used by the hikers when on the trail.

Looking at the pump house from the slope where we are working.

I’ll end with this photo taken inside the chopper.

P.S. Turbulence in a chopper is something to experience. Wow do you ever move in some wild directions.

That’s it for now, big storm coming in, strong wind horizontal rain and cold (6C) could get snow tonight.

Day 5, I think.....

We started work and finished the drilling on site Mile 142.

The site from the chopper.

The drilling was completed be 1200h, complete with 11 boreholes installed with monitoring wells (the general condition of the site is marsh..anywhere from 8-12 inches of fibrous peat on frozen silt).

Permafrost in the silt.

We then spent the rest of the day (4 hours) waiting for our chopper and fighting mosquitoes brewing tea, and yes we used the Kelly Kettle, fighting mosquitoes and Oh Ya fighting mosquitoes.

Kelly Kettle on Mile 142 of the Canol Trail NWT.

At five o’clock we took off for the next site (Mile 131.3) to check out where the chopper could land. We did land on the Twitya River bank and proceeded to clear a proper handing area for our bird.

The old camp at Mile 131.3

The Twitya River from the air.

Our chopper on the banks of the Twitya.

That’s all for now, it’s dinner time and tonight we are having caribou lasagna then I have to go and hand wash my socks. Two days in rubber boots and they are not allowed in the cabin.

P.S. sorry about the layout of the post, but I have to pdf it and e-mail to my blog administrator (Natasha) so she can post it on my behalf. We have no band width here and even getting e-mail takes forever.

It's my pleasure to update this for you, Pat.  I'm just thrilled that you're blogging again, and sharing your cool adventures with your friends and family.  We miss you lots.  Enjoy that caribou lasagna and Labrador tea.  Be safe.  Looking forward to your next post tomorrow.  xox, Natasha

Canol Trail - Day 4

Day 4

Morning comes early with a knock on the door at 0600h, call for breakfast. I know it got cold last night and if the cabin was not so dark I could see my breath. I like everybody else in the cabin reaches for their “long-johns” to pull them into the sleeping bag to warm for a few minutes before putting them on in the dark. 0oC the thermometer is saying, but as soon as the sun crests the mountains the temperature will rocket to the mid 20’s, meaning that we will be stripping layers all day only to put them back on when the sun goes down.

We finished working at Mile 170 (Pump House #6) today and moved our equipment from the wind swept mountain step the windless bug infested lowlands of mile 142.

Fog over Godlin Lake, at Ram’s Head Camp, at breakfast time.

Typical work area at site Mile 170, down the slope and into the hollow.

Another borehole location with what’s left of the pump house.

The surge tank. This was connected to the pipeline and in the event that the pumps quit, the oil could flow back down into this tank.

Canadian Helicopter at the edge of “Wee-creek” as named by Claire Brown of SENES.

The flight over to Mile 142. The mountains are spectacular! You have to see them.  The photos do not do them justice.

Very close to the side of the mountain, on the way back from mile 142 we flew over the top of all the mountains.

That grizzled old guy is me after 3 weeks in the field at 3 different sites, the truck or what’s left is an U.S. Army issued Studebaker pick-up.

The view on the way home.

Cheers, from the Mackenzie Mountains NWT.

Canol Trail - Days 1-3

Day 1

We left Yellowknife for Norman Well where some of us connected on the North-Wright twin otter (which was being repaired when we arrived) carrying the bulk of our field supplies and half the drill rig. The flight in was a good but the landing was hard. Unloading of the equipment presented a bit of a challenge as it was loaded by forklift and unloaded by muscle.

Ram’s Head hunting camp is exactly the way it was when I was here 2 years ago.

Ram’s Head is located at N63047’01.9”, W128045’54.1” if you wanted to look it up on Google earth.

The rest of our crew stayed in Norman Wells to try and figure out the details of the work program, they need their computers to connect to the internet (for e-mail) and phone lines to talk to the project manager and clients (PWGSC). The first snag encountered was the wildlife monitor did not make his plane today and will have to travel to Norman Wells by boat (2 plus hours on the Mackenzie River) in order to make his flight tomorrow.

Day 2

Sunday August 12, 6oC and overcast at Ram’s Head, however the rest of the crew and helicopter are fogged-in, in Norman Wells at least for the morning. The crew and Canadian Helicopter’s A-Star arrived at dinner time. After dinner and a brief health and safety meeting (if you can call 2 ½ hours bries) it was off to bed.

Ram’s Head hunting camp from the A-Star Helicopter.

My new home..at least for the next 3 weeks.

My bedroom.

The washroom, the water comes from the glacial stream which runs behind the camp.

The toilet, a two sitter……yes, they are side by side!

Our dining room and office.

Day 3

Fogged in for the morning, breakfast, then back to bed for the next three hours.

The first site that we are working at is Mile 170 (N63o47’01.9”, W128o45’54.1”) and is only a 7 minute flight from camp, however we had 5 flights to get gear and people to site. Then working in the rain, then the heat and start the process all over to get everybody back to camp before the pilot’s duty day runs out.

Flying along the Canol Trail.

Slinging in out drill, the second of 3 equipment loads.

The surge tank at the pump house, mile 170.

Fog covered mountain as seen from mile 170.

Well that’s all for now.