grrr

I am desperately trying to get to town this weekend. I have three days off, and I wanted to get a few things. The opportunity to get into town seems to be few and far between so to speak. As time passes I find myself needing a few more things and I have been patiently waiting on the opportunity to go, but I keep working. Now that I am off I am chomping at the bit to get going. I do not know if PCL has recreation buses scheduled for today or not. So I could sit here all day trying to figure a way to get to town. I do not wish to take a cab as it is over $100. I never thought I would be anxious to go into that shithole of a town, but it is the only civilization around. And there is nowhere else to do any shopping.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

For the life of me I still cannot get over the amount of money in this province. Suncor, one of the big players here is spending $160,000,000 building the camp to house the men in for its next big project 'Voyageur'. On top of that they are spending almost a billion dollars upgrading the highway and building an interchange in front of their plant to cut down on the fatal accidents. They will be handing this over to the province when they are done. Alberta just seems to be oozing at the seems with cash.

I thought that I would be off last weekend, but they asked me to work it. Now I will be off this weekend because I will have worked 18 days straight and that is all PCL will let you work on this job. But I am here to pick up that oozing cash, so I am okay with it all.

I heard today that PCL picked up the second phase of the project, so now they are scrambling trying to get more men. There was talk of layoffs starting in June, but now they are hiring again. Go figure.

To bike or not to bike?

I almost have myself convinced to go to town this weekend and buy a bicycle. Canadian Tire has a cheap one that will do the job for all I need around here. There are so many things that we drive by on the way to work that I would love to go and check out. But walking is a little to far, and buying or renting a car is a little too expensive. I would say that buying a bicycle is just right. The one thing that I would really like to go and get pictures of is the MacKay river. We pass over it daily. It is down in a fairly deep gorge that you can walk down. Hopefully if I go to town on Saturday, then I will ride out to the river on Sunday and take some pictures.

Update

I am getting fairly tired this week. It has been quite busy on site as they are scrambling to get things ready for the big commissioning. I can't complain though, the overtime is why I am here. I am sure that I will end up with a weekend off for rest.

I have purchased a new phone for myself out here. I figured that I should get an Alberta number if I plan on working out here for a while. It is hard to make contacts if your number is long distance and you never really know what camp you will be in. So in short I officially have an Alberta number and am settling in to the idea of making this province a temporary home. The phone is through a newer company called Koodo. They actually have a really good plan with decent rates and no bullshit.

Almost forgot

I almost forgot to mention how warm it was here today. So I thought a picture says a thousand words. This is for all you back home who were bragging about there warm weather last week!

Overtime

It seems lately as though the overtime is starting to slow down a bit on this job. But that is not preventing me from working this weekend. I found out today that I would be working. This will generate a cheque that we call a 'ringer'. I will earn 75 hours pay in four days, plus my regular 30 hours for the other three days. So my cheque will be worth 105 hours of pay. Of course this is only because of the holiday Monday, which is doubletime, so I will get three doubletime days in a row. It is a little bit crazy to think about the numbers, but that is what I came out here for is money.

So in short there will probably be no hiking this weekend. Therefore I will be getting a little short on pictures. Maybe next weekend.

More pics

I thought that I would add some more pictures from my outings last weekend. With the amount of ground that I want to cover I am starting to think that buying a bicycle might be a good idea. There are just so many back roads and trails that it would take forever to walk them. And every trail that I go down there seems to be fantastic scenery. I am thinking that a mountain bike might be in order. If I knew for sure that I would be staying at this camp I would buy one for sure. But you just never know from one day to the next.

Bears

Apparently there have been bear sightings outside the camp the last couple of days. Today there was a large cinnamon bear sunning itself a couple hundred feet outside the front doors. Once I have made a trip home I am going to grab my good camera and long lens. Hopefully I can get some good shots of the bears from a distance.

I have also been trying to research whether or not there really are grizzly bears in the area. I have heard people on both sides of the fence. Some say that there are no grizzlies in the area, others say there are. I would love to get a few pictures of some grizzlies, from a much farther distance of course.

Sunday out

I went out and about today. I refuse to sit in the camp moping like the other guys on my weekend off. I ended up going about 7km through the bush. I found quite a few streams and rivers. There sure is a lot of really pretty scenery around here.

I also ran into an guide that works for an outfitter from Grand Prairie. He was out baiting for bear. Apparently they have people coming in from Sweden for the spring bear hunt. Of course he has been baiting all the areas that I go hiking in the woods! I guess if the bears have the bait to tend to they will probably leave me alone.

More hiking!

I cannot seem to get enough of the hiking around here. All told yesterday I went about 10-12 km. When in the bush it reminds me of being at our cabin in Bancroft Ontario. I just cannot believe how nice it is around here. It is so hard to tell going by everything at 110 km/h on a bus. But when you get out there and walk it, there is alot of nice rivers and streams, and the topology of the area is great. If you like the bush and hiking this is a great place. There is all kinds of wildlife around. Of course I have not yet run into a bear, but I am sure that I will. I think Sesame Street retired Big Bird up here. I found his footprints in the mud.

The one picture you see here is of Hwy. 63 looking north from Beaver river, about 2km south of 'the bridge to nowhere.'

Another Hike

I got out for another hike today with a couple of workmates. We went down along the Athabasca river. Along our trek we found a couple of bones that looked like leg bones from a moose. The scenery along the river is absolutely gorgeous. If it wasn't for all these oil sands developments it would be pristine up here. But then we wouldn't be here making all this money.

Giant Beetles

Apparently there are these giant beetles here that the guys call an 'oilsands beetle'. I do not know that this is the correct term for them, but they are huge. We found one on the job today, and I am told that this one is small.

I went for another hike tonight along a road that runs parallel to the Athabasca river. Wow, what a beautiful place. And there is lots of wildlife starting to move about now that spring is here (20 C tomorrow). I took some pictures of the Athabasca with its ice flowing out. I also got some of the tracks of different wildlife.