Traveling for work...again!

[Byron510]

Well I survived the day on a few different planes. I actually got to fly in on a 737, I was expecting a turbo prop, a Beaver or something smaller, so I consider myself lucky.
Damb it's COLD, yet the locals are telling me this is a great time to visit because the weather is pretty good... at -32! You don't need a Celsius / Fahrenheit calculator here - that's just plain cold. But it is sunny; step out of that sun and you know it, right now. I’m so glad there is now wind at the moment. This thriving metropolis has a population of a whole 3500 people, and did I mention it's cold? There's one street light, and it's at the corner of the hotel that I'm staying at. I should feel lucky I have internet. Hope to see more, I'll write if I find anything worthy. Funny you mention clubbing a seal, James. The first this I see when I get out of the plane in Yellowknife is a taxidermy stuffed polar bear chasing a seal in the middle of the luggage carousel. The look they gave that bear would give kids nightmares for life – this ain’t no cuddly Coca-Cola bear! Then when I arrive in Inuvik, there's another stuffed polar bear right at the door to great you. I guess these northern types are really proud of their own worlds most dangerous bear.

Byron

PS James, I'll get to those struts as soon as I can!

[510rob]

This is a totally random post, for people interested in random shit. Byron, you should try some seal blubber while you are up there! It might be really tasty - you never know! Either way, it will make you healthy!

http://www.traditionalnaturopath.com/20 ... r-disease/

[Byron510]

I've eaten damn near anything that moves in my world travels -I always look for crazy shit on the menu – item have included bear, moose, crocodile, kangaroo, horse, ants (fried, baked and alive), many different birds….. I'm just about to go eat; I'll let you know if it's on the menu.
Byron

[iceD]

I have the sticker on one of my tool boxes from a few months I worked up their, it says "Happiness is Boeing South." Keep warm.

ice D

[510Freak]

A tad bit cold there eh Byron..
Are you gonna check out the ice highway(ice road truckers)Thats some crazy stuff .

[jason]

Jeeze Byron, that seal blubber is 100% saturated fat! Mind, done up as crackling ......

[Byron510]

Sorry to report - nothing exotic at all on the local menu here at the Mackenzie Hotel. I had the orange duck which is sort of local - about 300 km's away.
What’s kind of freaky is that the sun took about two hours to set, and it's been twilight for the last two hours. Man, I have no idea what it will be like in a couple months when there's 24 hours of daylight. Just talked to the young girl running the lobby- it's her first year here, she thought the 24 hours of darkness in the winter was alright; not sure if I'd like that or not. Apparently it gets pretty warm up here in the summer, over 30c according to a couple of locals that I talked with in the bar. For a few weeks strait, remember the sun doesn't go down; it just makes a lap around the sky above! Pretty neat just the same.
Byron

[bertvorgon]

At least there are NO mosquitos!!!! Having spent time in the North/bush/Yukon, the damn things will eat you alive up there. 24 daylight is kinda neat, it brings on a weird sense of just keeping going, which catches up with you when sleep deprivation sets in. I was up in Atlin one year, going out to meet some of my customers all day, then, kinda did the tourist thing going hiking, drove to Skagway, hiked up to the start of the Chilkoot Pass, etc. All with only naps. At midnight one day I climbed to the top of an extinct volcanoe! I had a huge crash when I got back to Vancouver, sleeping for 2 days.

[Byron510]

Well, I got another bonus day in the arctic. I hit a big snag when a couple studs galled up on the assembly of the turbos I was installing, which turned into a complete disassembly job so that I could drill out the bolts. The drilling required the purchase of a set of cobalt drills, at a measly Arctic Special sum of $229 for a 1/16” to ½” drill index – OUCH, glad I wasn’t paying the bill! But I had to change my flight plans, and delay myself for another day.
So since I finished the work early (a normal 8 hr shify for a change), and after having a championship dinner consisting of a plate of nachos and two Molson Canadians at the bar, I headed out for a walk to see what I could find. I had attempted this last night, but turned myself around in short order due to my face freezing. It’s been roughly -30 C (the locals never say the minus parts, which is kind of funny to me) throughout the visit, so covering up the skin is pretty vital. A slight breeze makes the situation a whole lot worse. So I found a corner market (North Mart) that had a scarf (last one on the shelf) and I was ready to successfully venture outside once more.
Lately there’s been a big deal made about Ice Highways, due to reality shows on TV, and since an Ice Highway passes through town (it traverses the Mackenzie River in most parts), I figured I would start my walk there. The photos don’t show much more than it really is – a road ploughed the length of the river, right down the middle. I watched a few vehicles pass as I walked the river bank; the only thing I could think of was how fast my rally car would traverse this road in top gear on a new set of Kumi Hellinas! The sweeping turns that I could see would be safely traversed at about 90 mp/h I figure. The of course there the thought of how long the car would last at that speed, and the fact that you are in the artic, there’s no one around, no parts anywhere… maybe these guys travelling slow have the right idea; it called survival. Any time exposed to this climate without adequate gear, and your frozen in a short period of time. One of the guys I was working with today told me that earlier this winter he been out in weather that was -57. He said that at that temperature, you could go outside with a glass of water, throw it up in the air and it would be frozen solid and shatter as it hit the ground. Think about that – that’s crazy. He said he left his bottle of coke on the roof of the truck, packed a few thing inside, remembered the coke, went back out to retrieve it and it was frozen solid and had split the bottle – total elapsed time, less than 4 minutes! You notice weird things as well. When I come indoors from a short walk outside, the rubber soles of my Cat work boots have become so hard that it sounds like I’m wearing cowboy boots when I walk across a tile floor.
My 3 block walk to the power plant this morning had me spot an arctic fox. Apparently they don’t all turn white, as this one was very red. That was the only wildlife I saw this trip. The moose are around; you see their tracks at the sides of the road. Wolves are also around, generally chasing after the moose and anything else they can find.
Other things worthy of note. Well, the permafrost is 6” to a foot below the surface, so NOTHING gets buried here, including things that we don’t normally see, like sewage, water and gas lines. Yep, they run above ground as well. The sun takes about an hour to set, which leaves plenty of time to set up a photo. Quite the opposite of being at the equator where sun rise and sun set take about 10 minutes.
So that’s a few notes from my short trip to the north, hope you enjoyed it as I know few will ever get up here.
Byron

[Byron510]

More pics....

[Byron510]

And more...

[jason]

Jeeze Byron, that looks like a really cold version of hell on earth!

[merlin]

meh... looks like my back yard... but with no Datsuns.

[johnbureezu]

damn, that looks cold...I actually have family in Barrow, AK. just as bad...maybe worse.

[McShagger510]

Neat trip Byron. It would be really werid living and working in those condtions day after day. Any mechanical problem,whether its the furnace or your vehicle, and your life is now on a time limit. Bang - SHIT - start the clock of death! Take care up there.

James