Weblog: Blackwater: Fifth and sixth shifts, and a three-day break
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We got a three-day break for the BC day long weekend. For the first two nights I camped in PG at the same spot as the last break, this time by myself. On Sunday I hitch-hiked to Summit Lake, which is about an hour's drive north of PG. I was intending to go to Bear Lake, which is a bit farther, but the forester who picked me up happened to be meeting some people right at Summit Lake, so that was perfect. The forest service campground was packed full of people and the lake was full of loud boats, so it wasn't exactly peace and quiet, but it was still a nice change. Instead of going back to PG to meet my crew, I hitch-hiked up to Mackenzie on Monday and met them there. Mackenzie is an amazingly bland place (even by North American small city standards), but it's pleasant enough and has a beach just a few minutes walk from the middle of town, which is a big plus.
Only Kyle and Jamie's crews are still working on Blackwater, the rest have been moved to Babine. One member of each of these crews has also been moved. After the weekend, we were no longer staying at Munro Camp, and instead staying at a hotel in Mackenzie because there were only supposed to be a couple of days left to finish off Blackwater, and then we would go on to Abitibi, which is nearby. Of course, that estimate was way off and even after four days we didn't finish. Because of the long drive (over an hour) and walk-in, we left Mackenzie every morning at 4am, and didn't get back to the hotel until around 7:30pm, which left very little time for anything, especially since we had to take care of our own food. We even had to reduce our working time from the usual 10 hours to 8 to have any chance of getting enough sleep. It didn't help that we had to wait around for about an hour after work every day while the gas and herbicide bottles were refilled, since we couldn't do that at the hotel. Despite not finishing the last block at Blackwater, we're moving on. Because Mackenzie as at an extreme fire hazard, which means no work can be done, we can't do Abitibi, so the crews are going on to Chetwynd (sp?) and then to work around PG.
Yesterday, our truck broke down badly on the way back. We may have been pulling too much weight, with a quad in the back and pulling a full water tank, and the transmission was having major problems. Even after emptying the water tank, the truck could only manage about 60km/h on flat ground while flooring it, and could hardly make it up hills. The engine kept shutting off as well, which is a bit scary when you're going down hills carrying a heavy load and the power brakes and steering stop working. We kept going until about 20km outside of Mackenzie, where we stopped and waited for Tom to pick us up. By the end there were a lot of really bad noises happening and some very black smoke was coming out of the exhaust. We moved all our stuff from our truck to Tom's and headed into town, not arriving until around 8:30.
Because my crew is now riding on Tom's truck with Tom, there isn't enough room for everyone, which means someone got sent to Babine. Guess who? I'm happy about it because at Babine we're staying at a logging camp (which means food is taken care of) and not using herbicide. I also get this weekend off because the logging camp closes on weekends, which wouldn't have been the case otherwise. I'm catching a Greyhound bus (payed for by Apex) to Smithers later today where I'll meet up with the guys. I've heard Smithers is a nice town, so I'm glad I'll get to see it.
My boots, which have held up very well up to now, are starting to have some problems. I got back to camp one day to find that the sole of one of the boots had almost come off, and the other one was coming loose. Some Freesole seems to have fixed that.
There are only 16 days left until August 25th, which is the end of my cantract with Apex. I've never looked forward to anything so much in my life.
Posted on Sat, 9 Aug 2020 at Mackenzie, BC, CA (altitude 780m) (map/google earth)
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