Ramblings

2005

Usually by the time all the annual recurrent training is finished out of the base in Valemount I barely get to catch my breath before things get busy with fires. 2005 was definitely not so. That was actually a bit of a relief to me because with the previous year being so busy, seemingly from beginning to end, it had started to feel as though there was no light at the end of the tunnel.

The slow down probably did me well. I'd had a non eventful heliski season in the 204 but the skiing in the Longranger was straight from hell. I was more cautious than ever before, made more precise approaches and I even made sure I was at least a hundred pounds below gross weight before even leaving the hangar each morning. All this and I still had two days where I probably would have seen my life flash before my eyes if I wasn't so busy trying not to pollute the mountainside with bits of aluminum. The second of the two days was the first time I ever pulled the plug on a days flying because I didn't have the nerve to carry on.

In May RJ and I went to Montreal to pick up the company’s brand new Bell 407, a beautiful performer of a helicopter. We went up a day early so we could take in the sights and sounds. Our timing couldn’t have been better; we caught the May Day parade/protests downtown and got to joke about the kids in the ‘Communist Party of Quebec’ carrying banners of Lenin and standing peacefully inline behind some sort of revolutionary group with the old image of Che’ Guevara on their banners. The afternoon was spent walking around the city, looking at McGill University and Mount Royal until finally we ended up at the ‘Winston Churchill Pub’, on the verandah, overlooking the street. Needless to say by the time the Bell factory rep called we were half cut and were grateful that we had to walk half way across town to meet him, which would let us sober up enough so as to not disgrace the company too much! On the way to this restaurant, a converted 18^th century stable, we made a very brief stop at a peeler bar (strip club for the English) and managed to insult the bouncer when I asked,” When does the show start? ”, he replied that it already had, as I looked in to see what could have been a mannequin propped up against a pole. I’m no expert on strippers but I've seen more activity from homeless drug addicts at 3 in the morning!

At the factory we got the royal treatment including the grand tour. Flying with Captain MacDuff was educational in the least. In between the time spent at the factory RJ had planned a trip to meet his dad who was up from the states at the time. I came along for the ride and was glad I did, we stopped off at la chateau Montebello which is this huge log cabin style hotel built in the 30’s on the Québec shore of the Ottawa River on a 100 acre estate. Architecturally, it is interesting I thought, since the main section is over two stories high and centered on a giant fireplace and chimney and built entirely of cedar log. Anyway we couldn’t afford so much as a sandwich there so we ended up at a small restaurant called ‘le pot de fue’. Let me tell you something, for a fairly non-descript little place the food was fantastic! So with that and the company of RJ’s dad and grandmother, as well as a few good Canadian beers I had a great time.

The next day we headed out on our two day journey across the country past Lake Superior and then through miles and miles of prairie before finally being reunited with the rocks of Jasper National park and, of course, Valemount.

By the time we got back most of BC was wet and Alberta was using the odd helicopter for flood relief down south so there was no fire action in our immediate future. This meant that I got to have more braai’s in a month than in the previous year! The kids liked the whole fire pit / braai thing and since the B&B was so busy it was convenient to just hang out around the fire until Tris and Coran went to bed, and sometimes even after.

We also got to go on a few hikes as a family. We had been going on little walks down to the beaver dam and through the property so the kids warmed right up to walking. I think the first hike we did was in Jasper up Whistler Mountain. Tristana and Coran were crazy about climbing anything, any little bank or hill was game to be climbed. They would even get me to “make a hill” with my knees under the duvet in bed almost every morning so they could climb all over me. One day Tristana came up with the idea that she wanted to climb a real mountain, so a few weekends later we all went through to Jasper and rode the tramway up Whistler. The tram doesn’t go all the way to the peak though; I would guess you still have a good 600 feet in elevation left to hike. Coran did fantastically for a two year old but since it is quite steep (especially since you are now at about 7500 feet ASL), he slowed right down after about fifteen minutes. Tris and I pressed on, with her carrying her Pooh backpack with her big Jasper bear propped inside, until we got to a big boulder which she climbed with a huge smile on her face. Coran and Sharon weren’t actually that far behind so I helped Coran up the boulder and he and Tris had a juice break at the top of their first real mountain!

At one stage the wind really picked up, as it can above tree line, and both of them were clinging on to the rock for dear life. Both were a little afraid and when the wind died down Tris asked me, “Was that the wind or did a helicopter just land?” I thought that was hilarious.

We also hiked to little lost lake, a small lake above the weigh scales at Tete-Jaune, again it was a difficult hike for the kids but they took to it like stars! This is one of the lakes that we stock with trout from a helicopter every other year; I personally hadn’t flown this one though.

Another great hike was the one we did through Jackman flats which is an interesting area because it is basically just pine trees and lichens growing on the meters thick sand left behind from an ice dam after the last ice age. Coran finished this one fast asleep on my back as we hiked to the van. Tris and I went on a big one after that to Berg Lake at Mount Robson, we grabbed two seats on the flight in and hiked the 22km out. Tris hiked at least 19km and never complained once! The bit she didn’t hike she spent on my back with the backpack put on bass-ackwards over my chest to counterbalance her. This worked really well except for the fact that you tend to overheat really quickly like that. We took quite a few breaks and were over an hour late getting out, fortunately I had my radio with us and I managed to relay a message to Sharon through Hugo Mulyk, a ranger for BC Parks.

Pretty soon after that things started to get busier at work. We got hired on by BC Forestry to work on a fire in the Lemprierre river drainage. I was essentially moving crews into the various log pads while Jeff Campbell was up from his base in Clearwater with YHJ and did most of the actual work! One weekend Dale had the 407 at Mt Robson for a rescue, I believe two climbers had died during an avalanche. He had managed to fly out the one guy before dark and had to come back for the remaining guy the next day with the Longranger. The reason for the aircraft swap was because the Lillooet fire zone had called for the 407. That was lucky for me since it meant I got to spend what turned out to be just short of a month on "Initial attack" right out of the town. I met some great people and got taken on a few aerial tours of the area. It turns out the Lillooet area was home to a huge native population around 9 000 years ago. Flying around you can still see archeological evidence of their pit homes which were the winter homes built half into the ground and accessed through a teepee like roof. Also around the mid 1800’s the area was host to a gold rush, a large Chinese population existed at the tail end of that and mined in the cliffs not far from town.

These mines are hundreds of feet up in totally inaccessible areas. It is rumored that more gold came out of this area than out of the Klondike, that treasure is still probably easily eclipsed by the tons of “vitamin green” mined around there today! I also managed to play a round of golf at the famous sheep golf course with some of the local crew as well as the Valemount IA crew out on export. (Natural hazards are the farmer’s sheep and the 4 inch irrigation lines all over the place!) I was in Lillooet with an engineer, Chris Pritchard. He and I also managed to go Sturgeon fishing, (we didn’t catch even one of those prehistoric buggars since someone reported our campfire and we had to pack up and leave), we had a few fantastic beer and barbeques at Steve Newton’s log cabin on the hill (he can BBQ up a fantastic salmon on cedar!) and checked out the local bars once or twice! The list of interesting characters is endless, like the gas station guy who came across as a recruiter for the KKK, the cab service called “KKK taxis”, “cookie” the native guy who worked at the bar at the end of the road but who we saw drunk more often than not in the other bars in town, the guy who was a Jade nut (another resource in the area ) and ran a gift store that was only open a couple times the whole month, the drunk Indian woman who was upside down on a trail behind town and was very friendly but “only resting”, the 22 year old single mom who joined me for coffee one morning and told me of her plans to start a massage type spa in her basement in Vancouver with butterflies and waterfalls and wild birds etc.. Yup, it was an interesting time.

So, I got back to Valemount and nothing much had changed. It was still quiet with no fire work going on. I started flying a group of prospectors into the Mckale river and Cushing creek drainages. It was a daily thing, a drop off in the morning and a pick up in the evening. Marc Kilby and Dave are two prospectors that had flown with us a few times over the last couple of years. They are really easy and interesting to work with and I learnt a fair bit about old fashioned ground slogging prospecting. These two are seemingly genetically suited to this type of work. I say this because over the years I have dropped them off in every crappy spot possible. They have walked miles through waist high snow without snowshoes, waded and sifted with bare hands through frozen creeks, started out in the morning in swamps, only to almost not be picked up in the afternoon because of heavy snowfalls and they always get in the helicopter smiling!

October rolled around and we finally booked a holiday to Mexico instead of just talking about it. As luck would have it not long after paying for the trip a hurricane made land, pretty much right over the resort we had planned to stay at! To cut a long story short we were convinced by the travel agent to transfer across to Cuba. Besides being caught in a downpour the first night with the kids we had fantastic weather the entire time we were there.

The kids spent just about every day in the pool and generally had a great time, of course they did spend enough time at the beach to get buried in sand etcetera but once Coran discovered he couldn't drink the water it was straight back to the pool! Sharon and I took them for a speed boat trip to a small zoo on a mangrove island, Coran rode back with me on the jet ski which was an obvious hit. Tris and Sharon also went for a horse ride along the beach.

Horse riding along the beach in Varadero

We also went on a catamaran trip, this time without the kids, which included snorkeling at a beautiful reef, swimming with dolphins and lunching on crayfish on an island with fantastic white sand. To swim with the dolphins you stop off in amongst a scattering of islands at a jetty and a smallish enclosed area in the water, while everyone was lining up to get in the water at this swimming pool style set of steps I jumped in off the other side of the deck. I didn't realize it then but that was the normal spot for the dolphins to swim up against you for photo's. One of the dolphins took the cue and swam up to me and started pushing me around waiting for a photograph. Later, after the two dolphins had gone through the routine of visiting everyone in the water they did a short show and then swam amongst everyone again, I decided to get out of the water at that stage so I swam to the deck and the steps but some seventy plus year old was taking all bloody day so I held on the side of the deck and pulled myself up and out as you would do from a swimming pool. Unfortunately for those nearby I hadn't tied the drawstring on my cossie so everyone was treated to an up close viewing of my lily white butt! Ha ha ha! That's not the good part, before I could drop back into the water someone reached up from behind and pulled up my pants for me! I could see Sharon ahead of me in the water so I turned around to see who it was that had my interests at heart, only to see a group of about ten people all trying their damnedest not to make eye contact!! I spent the rest of the morning trying to see who might be the most embarrassed to look me in the eye!

We also got in a day trip to Havana, that was very interesting, mainly because before going on this tour I was ignorant about their history and their relationship with the Americans. We walked for a few hours through old Havana taking in the sights and sounds, including the bars where Ernest Hemingway spent a lot of time during his life in Cuba. We had a mid morning break and enjoyed a cold beer at what was essentially a bar counter under awnings on the sidewalk! We also went downtown to visit one of only three real capitol buildings in the world before getting back on the bus back to Varadero.

The rest of the time was spent lazing around in the sun, except for a couple fairly sad attempts on my part to windsurf. I'll leave out the details except to say that the windsurfing part wasn't enough fun to justify the walk back to the resort with a windsurfer from five miles downwind!

On the last day, to kill time after checking out of our room and before the airport transfer, we all caught the hop-on-hop-off style bus to the mall. To get back again we decided to take one of the horse drawn buggies that run around. Everyone was all excited for the fifteen minute ride back to the resort. That was before one of the straps around the horse's belly came loose and spooked him! The damn thing took off at horse mach-10 onto the two lane highway amongst tour buses, cars and scooters all swerving around us and then going on their merry way. Dopey me thought we were just going on a high speed tour, I even told Sharon to relax until I turned to look at the driver... he was yelling at the horse and yanking on the reins for all he was worth with no real effect! Only then did I start looking around to evaluate the situation and these are the deductions I arrived at based on what was immediately before me; 1) These carts are made from recycled oil cans and pop riveted together in someone's back yard, 2) Rivets must be expensive in Cuba because the cart was twisting enough to give any structural engineer nightmares, 3) The original designer of the wheels didn't take into account how they would shed rubber at horse mach-10 (picture a lidless food blender, stuffed with avocado and turned to full speed!), and 4) we could surely only go on and off the edge of the highway a finite number of times before the whole damn thing would turn over and leave us a crumpled pile of recycled tin and horse parts. I was seriously planning, not just considering, jumping off and somehow getting everyone off the next time we slowed down to only horse mach-8! Before I could valiantly break my neck the horse did come to a sweating, heaving stop. We all scrambled off with Sharon only now stopping her crying to check on the horse. I grabbed our stuff and with the kids in tow started back to the mall a mile or so back only to hear Sharon say, " Okay, it looks like he fixed the problem...should we get back on?" Like bloody hell! We walked all the way back in the heat along the highway and an hour and a half later were on the hop-on-hop-off bus that we should have been on originally, back to the resort and the airport bus.

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