September 10th, notes in the air...

Just climbing up out of Kasabonika on a NAC flight that will take me to Thunder Bay with a short stopover in Sioux Lookout. After that is'a Bearskin Airlines hop over to Sudbury.

It has been a routine store management relief job and actually easier than most. This seems to be one of the rare stores where staff actually like to come to work and it was a real treat not to have to worry about cashiers or freight handling and deliveries. Of course there was the occasional disturbance at night due to the local youth having little to do but throw rocks, but at least there were no break-ins at our location in town. This is one of the few places within our system where the residence is attached to the store. This is certainly handy and much appreciated on rainy or blizzardly days. I'm not sure if I'll be around doing this in another year but there are certainly worse places to spend a few weeks. Big THANKS to all the Northern, Kasabonika staff for making my job an easy one!

This photo was taken in Sault Ste. Marie on the way west last month and I thought it would fit in well with my previous post about "vanishing points."

Vanishing Point...

I recently received a comment on this photo which is displayed on my Flickr site. The comment was "nice vanishing point." It hadn't occurred to me to think of it as a vanishing point at all but instead I always seem to think of photos like this as pathways to move forward on. To me this is an invitation to travel ahead and see and live whatever is out there. It's nice to have experienced what's behind me, but I find what lies ahead holds more fascination and challenge.

What do I see out there in the distance? I hope it will somehow be something that can help make up for years of travel and missed memories. I want it to be a time to reflect and perhaps start to understand what I've lost by not being home to watch my kids grow up.

I want to sit on my deck, to watch the sun rise and set, to watch the stars and wildlife go by, to see the seasons change in progression and not with the abruptness caused by my having flown 2,000 miles north and through 3 time zones that day.

What do I want most to be down that road? Time. I want my lost time back. Simply time to spend wisely with my wife as we grow old together sitting out on that deck, reliving and building memories.

There is no vanishing point in my future... I see only opportunities.

August 10...

Back on the road again and this time it’s to Kasabonika in Northern Ontario. It was a great day to fly and on my preferred carrier, Bearskin Airlines at that. The route was Sudbury, Sault Ste. Marie, Thunder Bay to Sioux Lookout where I transferred to Wasaya Airways for the last leg of the journey. The travel day was only 10 hours and it was broken up nicely into small parts with the longest being that early morning drive from Wikwemikong to Sudbury. Anyway, I’m looking forward to this ‘probably’ being my last trip of the year and spending some time sitting on the deck with a fine single malt scotch in mid September. See you then!

Ramblings from the aircraft…

"Clear and warm climbing out of Kuujjuaq"

I was recently waiting for a flight out of the Kuujjuaq airport with a couple of our Store Managers and the subject came up as to how long each of had been with Northern. You should have seen their expressions when I told them that I have 34 years in this month. They just couldn't believe that anyone would stick it out that long at the same job and it occurred to me that it used to be easier. We all seemed to enjoy our jobs more “way back when the world was young” didn't we? Although I do remember having better things to do than haul wood and make a weeks worth of kindling on a Sunday afternoon in Mistassini this became a part of me, one of my favourite stories and I'm glad I put in those finger numbing -40 degree hours.

Staff problems seem to be getting worse everywhere in the north and south both and no one seems to be content with their lot any more. What is it now, something like 7 times that the average person changes jobs in their lifetime? Why is that? Sure, every day of my work life hasn't been perfect but there were some darned good ones in there. It just seems to me that people now are asking and expecting too much. Guess what? The world doesn't owe us a living.

We are responsible for our own life and happiness and no, it's not the Governments obligation to cater to our every whim. The people that whine and demand and complain about every little thing have to wake up, grow brains and take some responsibility for what happens to them. Living isn't supposed to be easy, it’s a challenge and you have to enjoy the daily small victories and realize that every one of those has to be balanced off with the occasional setback. It’s called life so deal with it people!

"Raining in Montreal but not on me!"

August 5th...

We took off out of Salluit about 10 minutes ago for what is most likely the last time for me. It's been fun but the staffing problems just flat wore me down this trip. A lot of it was because of the season when everyone goes camping. More of a problem this year was that I lost three people to Montreal and one to Iqaluit. It's great that Air Inuit is offering a very attractive return seat sale for its passengers but it makes it hard to keep our part time worker students around. Some days you have to open late and/or close early as a result and that is poor customer service which can’t be helped. The store here is not overly large but there is still too much involved in the operation for just two or three people to handle.

The plan was to have ten days or so off before heading out again but they called and of course I said yes, again. It's nice to be needed but I had plans for a huge Watkins Open House to introduce the new ALL-Natural Cleaning Line and also something special to promote a really great Holiday Gift series also coming out in August. Now you will just have to wait until I get home in mid September.

The good news however is that unless something really drastic or particularly nasty pops up this is my last trip of the year. You know, sometimes I complain about the trips and the problems but how many other jobs give you up to 4 months a year off with full pay, plus bonuses, plus travel to locations that the average tourist would pay thousands of dollars to see just once. Hey, guess I've got it pretty good, huh!

A Valuable Lesson Learned...

So that's how it's done, eh? I won't say how it happened or who was involved but it wasn't me! Somehow or other the only key for the store truck got locked inside it last night. Neither Lorne nor I had any idea how to break into a vehicle so I went next door to see if our construction crew had any ideas. I'm not too sure what these guys did in a previous life but needless to say I now have an excellent idea of how to break into a vehicle. It's surprisingly easier than I thought... but I still hope I never have to practice it myself.

Here Comes the Coast Guard...

The CGCS Terry Fox sailed in at about 5:00 am yesterday. I suspect that it's in the area due to all the difficulties that some of the shipping traffic has had this year and of course it's great to be "showing the flag" in the north. My own photo above was taken from quite a distance but the close-up of this Icebreaker was taken directly from the Coast Guard web site.

Sealift 2007...

THANK YOU to Lorne, Josepie and the gang for making this event go so smoothly. We didn't get much stock for the store on this ship as the big one is in October but it was still a major undertaking for the day. Most of what came off was for our new store construction crew who took care of their own freight and everything went nice and easy for both of us.

You're never quite certain what you will find when you open a container. Sometimes you get a mixture of furniture, soft drinks, ski-doo oil, floor tiles, photo-copy paper and who knows what. Here the crew is starting with a fairly clean warehouse but it sure looked different by the end of the afternoon. Thanks again to everyone who showed up to help!

Ready for the future...

The pad is ready, now we just need the new store materials to arrive. Where is that ship anyway!

The old must make way...

The demolition of the old, old Northern Store in Salluit took place yesterday. It was raining and blustery and the darkness of the day somehow seemed necessary as we watched the destruction of a community landmark. This was the oldest building in town and had originally been located on Wolstenholm Island, way out in Hudson’s Straight. From what I hear it was moved here when the Hudson’s Bay Company relocated to the mainland about 70 years ago. At that point in history these communities were visited once annually by supply ships, which carried everything needed to survive another year. Even though the Inuit had survived quite nicely without our interference for thousands of years us outsiders needed more than was locally available in order to survive in this climate. Other than local foods available to the hunters everything from tea, needles, cloth, pots and pans and everything else that we would take for granted had to be brought in by annual supply ship. That included only getting your mail once a year, so don’t complain any more about Canada Post service!


It was a sad day indeed as 70+ years of history was reduced to rubble in less than 15 minutes but as a community elder reminded me... "The old must make way for the young."

Definately the main herd...

I've watched at least 10,000 pass by so far and I can see at least 2,000+ out of my kitchen window right now. Sure wish I had a decent camera. The hills in the distance are alive and moving with line after line of caribou following each other up river and they just keep on coming...

Main Herd...

Actually I'm not sure it's the main herd at all and it's more likely just because I've never seen this many at one time before and I'm getting excited over an offshoot. I have no idea how many thousands have passed by already this morning but I've been watching them for about 3 hours now and there is no end to the chain of them at one end or the other. Unfortunately my camera just doesn't have the megapixels to take a proper photo and it's also raining, but if I look up the river to the right the hills are just covered with caribou moving southward. If I look left to the north and the mouth of the fjord there is still a steady line of them coming. It would be nice if they would come down from the top of the mountains to where I could get a better photo for you and maybe they will later today. I have no words to describe it right now but I feel priviledged and very lucky to be able to witness something that I have only read about before.

On the hoof...

They tell me there were about 1,200 altogether but I only saw a hundred or so myself, and these were a couple hundred yards away. The caribou are skitish this year and I realized why when I saw some idiots chasing them on Honda's tonight.

Goodbye warehouse...

Day 20...

Well, the site is being prepared for the new Northern Store at Salluit. The old, old store that was moved to this location from Wolstenholm Island in Hudson’s Straight 50 or 60 years ago has been gutted along with half of our heated warehouse space. The reason for that is because our land area is limited and these buildings will have to come down to make room for the new plant. The electrician arrived yesterday and he’s already got two of the 4 panel boxes moved. After we close today we’ll cut power to the entire building and he’ll start on the preparation for relocating the main panel box. There is a power pole that will have to be relocated outside also and this will be a problem as all the power for the store, warehouses and dwellings comes off this one location.

Our ship with the materials for the new store itself will not be here before the 28th. They’ve had a lot of trouble with ice and only got away from Iqaluit a couple nights ago. Now he has to make 4 or 5 stops before he gets here and that’s OK as it just gives us that much more time to get the pad for the new building ready. The exciting and sad part will be early this coming week when the old buildings go under the bulldozer. There is a lot of history in one of those buildings but the old have to make room for the new, right?

We’ll keep you posted as time goes on.

Ships Ahoy...

Two boats in so far this summer. First was a tanker bringing in heating oil and gasoline to take the town through next winter and the second was a freighter. I'm not sure what he had on for who yet but it wasn't ours anyway. Sorry about the quality of the photos but these guys anchor about a half mile out and my cheap little camera has problems at that distance.

What a summer...

I’ve got an update on that crew of tourists that I was on the plane with last week. You may recall that they were supposed to join their tour in Kuujjuaq but there was too much ice at that location for the ship to get in and pick them up. So, First Air took them on to where the ship was waiting for them in Iqaluit but it seems that they also had problems at that location as the ice was also too thick for the ship to get into port. I’m told that the backup plan had been to take the passengers to and from their boat by snowmobile and sled but the ice which was too thick for the ship was just a little bit too thin for safety with ski-doos and komotiks. They ended up using Zodiac inflatable boats to shuttle the people a few at a time between the ship and the shoreline a few miles down the coast from Iqaluit, at a place called Apex. What an adventure for this group from France and I hope they appreciated the extra effort that the tour company made for them. This is just another case of life in the north never being boring or routine and having to adapt and change plans regularly in order to make things work.

As a further note to this our own ship with the new store onboard which was supposed to be here on the 18th has now been delayed. The “Umiuvat” arrived in Iqaluit several days ago but was unable to offload due to the heavy ice. It wasted a couple days hoping the winds would change and blow the ice offshore, but they finally gave up and sailed out to its next port-of-call late last night. She is now scheduled to arrive here in Salluit on the 20th or 21st and will go back to attempt Iqaluit on it’s way back to Montreal later on.

Global warming does exist and is getting worse but this sure has been a bad year for late ice so far. Even the caribou are running late as they were all over hills a month earlier than this last year but there have only been a couple around so far and we're well into July. The world is changing and we have to adapt and learn to take better control of what's going on around us.

...Enroute

Down in Kuujjuaq only about 45 minutes late as we'd had a small tailwind headed north. The people who were expecting to join their cruise in Kuujjuaq were treated to an extra plane ride. The ice in the bay here hasn't cleared enough for the ship to get in so they are continuing on to Iqaluit to set sail from there. I'll see them all again next week when their tour gets to Salluit.

My days journey continued north with stops in Tasiujaq, Aupaluk, Kangirsuk, Quaqtaq, Kangiqsujuaq and finally into Salluit around 6:00pm. Mostly an uneventful day except for a few caribou running along beside the airstrip in Aupaluk. By the way, Tasiujaq actually has the highest tides in the world and beats the Bay of Fundy by several feet and that's a fact!

So, that's all for today. Early to bed and then back to work full time tomorrow. If anything interesting happens I'll let you know!

Enroute...

What to write, what to write, what to write...

I guess I could write about how excited I am to be off on another trip... but that would be a lie. It's going to be great to be back in Salluit again with some of the nicest people you'll ever meet, the mountains, caribou and the fjord. But I have to be honest and say that I'd rather be at my Manitoulin "Haven" working around the yard and sitting on my deck.

I won't actually get to upload this until later, but at the moment of writing I'm sitting in seat 23A on a First Air 727 in Montreal waiting for the last people to board so we can get underway. (Have I ever shown you the First Air tail designs?)

It's a full flight this morning with the aircraft in full 200+/- passenger configuration. It's not usually so busy but listening to the conversations around me I get the impression that many are headed to connect with Cruise North for one of their excursions up Baffin Island. Speaking of connections I've got one to make with Air Inuit north out of Kuujjuaq and we're now 50 minutes late in leaving our gate at PET Airport. No matter I guess as the owners of First Air are also the owners of Air Inuit and one usually waits for the other. Hey, we're pushing back... I'll continue later