July 28 –Canol Trail Day 5 - Sort of!

Today was another “no-fly” day. I was able to work on another project, a Designated Substance Survey, and Building Material Inventory and as luck would have it, it was here in Norman Wells. It was only a small building and only took a couple of hours.

We are hoping to fly into the mountains tomorrow and complete out work here.

 

The norman Wells Airport sign.

 

 

Very cool street signs.



 

Cheers from the Wells.

July 27 – The Canol Trail Day 4

We finally made it into the mountains and on to the Canol Trail.

Crossing the Mackenzie River.

The Dodo Canyon.

The Twitya River meeting the Keele River.

Storm clouds over the mountains.

We started our work at Mile 170, working in the rain. None of the wells that we checked had water and the only well that we expected to have water was destroyed by a bear.

Mile 170 in the rain, Ekwi river in the background.

 As the rain had soaked all of us through to the skin and we needed fuel for the chopper we headed to Ram’s Head (this is one of my favorite places) Stan, Debbie and Bailey welcomed us to the hearth with hot coffee and fresh homemade cookies.

Ram’s Head Lodge.

Looking down (towards the Norman Wells end) the valley.

 Re-fueled, both us and the chopper, we headed for Mile 142. We spent several house working here, as all the wells produced water.

Mile 142, The Canol Trail.

As we were lifting off there was a single mountain that caught my attention, it was beautiful, so I decided  to name it, Thomas Mountain and it is located at N64^o13’30”, W128^o25’00” (might be off by a little as I was locating it from the chopper). 

 



Map showing the location of Thomas Mountain.

Thomas Mountain.

At 1600h we packed up and prepared to head to Mile 131 & 131.3, however as the sky had cleared and we could see the mountain tops we decided to make a run for the far end of the trail and go for Mile 225.2.

At 1710h we arrived at Mile 225.2 (all wells dry),

Chopper on top of the hill.

from there we worked our way back to Mile 224.6 (again all wells dry),

Chopper in the willows.

on to Mile 222.5 (this site we did manage to collect some water samples),

Ranger station.

Canol Trail sign.

and then to Mile 208. No wells to sample here however we had to check the buildings for drain pipes and conduct an assessment of the creek bed. By this time we had gone over our flight plan (this means that we should have been on the ground at the chopper hanger (208 miles away) as we had reached the hour that was filed as the end of day).

The camp.

The kitchen (used by hikers and hunters alike, for shelter).

The pump house.

The NWT sign on the pump house.

Another hope to Mile 202 (it’s on our way home) no landing required,

Mile 202.

just some air photos and notes then the hour and a half flight to the base. Most of the flight back we were racing a storm front. All said and done the samples were in the fridge and we had dinner 2300h.

This is my third trip to the Canol Trail and I don’t know how many hours I have logged in the choppers flying through the mountains, but what I can say is “wow” (said in a respectful whisper). There is no way for me to convey the awesome beauty that I have seen, so all I’ll do is add some photos.

Glacier on a mountain top.

 

 

Mt. Keele, in the Yukon.

 

 

 

The storm front we raced home to Norman Wells.

 

 



Cheers from the Astar BA, over the Land

July 26 – Canol Day 3

Today was another “no fly” day, we did make an attempt, we met the chopper pilot loaded the chopper and started it up, however during the warm-up there was warning light for the hydraulic system that went out before it was susposed to....

 

What you don't want to see before take-off.

 

So the pilot shut it down, and the engineers had a look, within 15 minutes we were ready to go again. the lift off was fine, as was crossing the Mackenzie River



however the cloud cover was too low to go through the valleys

 

and too thick to go over the mountains.



Our attempt to make it to the work sites lasted a mere 15 minutes of flying, before we turned back to base.

 

Oil rigs on the islands in the Mackenzie River.

 

and the Norman Wells Airport

 

Cheers and good night

Pat

 

 

July 25 – Canol Day 2

Today we woke to 18^o, overcast and windy, at 0700h we met with our chopper pilot to discuss the work day and we were informed that today would be a “no fly” day as the incoming weather front was no good for flying and unpredictable. Instead of taking off we had a rather lengthy group meeting and covered the scope of the work, helicopter safety, general site safety and wildlife monitoring, breakfast and then back to the hotel to work on the GSL reports.

Our ride an AStar BA

 

 Found this guy just lying on the floor in the Canol Museum.

 

 

 

The Northern store.

 

The only other store (which is beside the Northern store) in town.

 

 



Cheers
Pat

July 24 – Canol Trail Day 1

(I’ll add photos later when I have a good internet connection and the time to put them in.)

Today we left Yellowknife for Norman Wells, a small town up on the Mackenzie River, at to 0 mile of the Canol trail. The temperature here when we arrived was 29^o with a clear blue sky.

This town is extremely busy this visit, there seems to be a lot of work happening on the oil fields, so there is no vacancies at any of the hotels. We did manage to get into our 4^th choice for hotel, the Yamouri Suites, the building reminds me of some of the institutional type dorm buildings, and the smell is….like mothballs in an old coffin! we did manage to get a 2 bedroom, one bath with a very small kitchen. The décor is old looking but comfortable and there is a large flat screen TV as well as lots of room for us to work in.

Our wildlife monitor is a 27 year old from Tulita on the Bear and Mackenzie rivers. He seems to be very well qualified for the position. He has courses in wilderness first aid, wildlife monitoring and management, heavy equipment operator, environmental monitoring and sampling. He works on the ice roads, has fishing nets in the rivers.

Tomorrow we head out on a Canadian Helicopters, Bell 205 chopper, to mile 222 to start our sampling program. Our chopper pilot is from a small town call Novar, just south of Powassan. the real funny thing is that Claire is from Springdale, which is next to Novar.

Cheers form On The Land.

Pat

My annual migration north…..

It’s that time of year again when I find myself hearing north. The program for this year is scaled down in both time and detail from previous years.

(I'm having trouble adding photos, this is par for the course for me, i don't know if it's the internet up here but I'll keep trying.)

 

We had six days to complete the work on three sites;

·         Day 1 - Outpost Island (N62^o44’10”, W113^o27’30”) located in the eastern portion of Great Slave Lake.

·         Day 2 -  Blanchet mine on Blanchet Island (N61^o59’45”, W112^o23’45”) in the Hearne Channel and

·         Days 3, 4, & 5 - Copper Pass Mine located on Sachawia Lake (N62^o24’30”, W111^o51’45”)

·         Day 6 – contingency day (in case we needed to go back to one site) or a day off, whichever comes first!

  Day 1.

There is an interesting little write up on the mine that can be found at http://www.pwnhc.ca/timeline/1925/1941_Outpostisland.htm .

We (Claire Brown, Lloyd Ricky, the wildlife monitor/boat driver and myself) would leave Yellowknife at 0700h fly to the site, unload the plane, setup the boat, collect the sediment and water samples, tear the boat down, load the twin otter, return to Yellowknife unload the plane, load the van, get to the hotel and spend the next couple of hours processing the samples.

The Archipelago of Outpost Islands.

 

Our gear; coolers for samples and lunch, firearms for wildlife protection, zodiac inflatable boat and motor, action packers with: survival gear (in case the plane does not come back) sampling equipment and a backup of everything.

The historic plack.

 

This is all that remains of the mill.

Our ride back to Yellowknife.

 

Day 2.

We (Claire Brown, Lloyd Ricky, the wildlife monitor/boat driver and myself) would leave Yellowknife at 0700h fly to the site, unload the plane, setup the boat, collect the sediment and water samples, tear the boat down, load the twin otter, return to Yellowknife unload the plane, load the van, get to the hotel and spend the next couple of hours processing the samples. (Note the similarly to Day 1!)

I cannot find any information on this mine site; however I do have a few photos.

 

 

Step 1 - unpack the boat.

 

Step 2 - fould out the sides and inflate it adding the seats.

 

 

Step 3 - add the motor and go.

The set-up of the boat, it takes only about 45 minutes if you have several hands to help.

 

A typical sediment sample.

 

The mine adit (opening)

 

Day 3.

 

We (Claire Brown, Lloyd Ricky, the wildlife monitor/boat driver and myself) would leave Yellowknife at 0700h fly to the site, unload the plane, setup the boat, collect the water samplesat the end of the day we would load the twin otter, return to Yellowknife unload the plane, load the van, get to the hotel and spend the next couple of hours processing the water samples. (almost the same as Day 2!!!)

 

Copper Pass is a mine I have been to before. I was here in 2012, so I won’t recap the history of the site. This trip we were to collect sediment samples in Sachawia Lake as well as sediment/soil samples the creek beds along the outfalls from the main and west showings (mine workings).

The flight into Sachawia Lake.

 

Our wildlife monitor taking “five” at the former camp site.

 

Day 4.

A complete change of pace, we left Yellowknife at 0700h fly to the site, unload the plane, the boat was already set-up from the day before, what luck that no bears got at it, collect the water sediment samples, come the end of the day we would load the twin otter, return to Yellowknife unload the plane, load the van, get to the hotel and spend the next couple of hours processing the sediment samples. (almost the same as Day 2!!!)

 

The “T” handle sediment sampler, taking samples in the lake.

 

The drop hammer sampler, taking samples in the lake.

 

The broken drop hammer sampler coupler, this put an end to the drop hammer and from then on we had to use the “T” handle.

 

 

Day 5.

This time when we arrived on site we were here to take the samples from the creek beds running from the main and west showings. This involved a 2km hike through the misquote infested woods, up and down rock faces and through the marshes.

 

this is on the ridge near the main showing

 

On the road from Great Slave Lake to the mine site.

 

Day 4.

 

Well the “day off” did not happen, we needed to return to all three sites, there were sediment samples that we could not get due to 0.5m waves on the lake at Outpost and Blanchet and had to take from the float of the plane, and there was an inspection that needed to be completed at Copper Pass.

The next two days were spent cleaning and packing away the equipment we used during this field campaign and preparing for the Canol Trail.

 

While we were unpacking we found one of our radios that had been lost last year at Blanchet Mine, it has been inspected by a bear.

Cheers for now.