Thanksgiving

These are some pictures of Thanksgiving from Jack, I didn't take any myself. They're all of the kids, no one got a picture of the turkey!

Our other road trip

We got home from our Inuvik trip on Sunday evening, while I was helping to reconfigure a plane the next afternoon, one of our captains came into the hangar and told me to pack for two or three days because we were leaving for Ontario in an hour and a half. No problem, I just went home and exchanged clean underwear and socks from the suitcase I didn't even get a chance to unpack yet! Of course we didn't actually come home for eight days. We spent that night in Winnipeg, and the next morning went to one of the Native communities that needed evacuating, which was why we were there. Just about the whole of northwestern Ontario was on fire and consequently blanketed in smoke. We evacuated people from North Spirit Lake, Keewaywin, Deer Lake and Sandy Lake, took them all to Geraldton, and then the smoke there also got really bad, so we took some people from there to Sudbury. We couldn't stay in Geraldton because there were no rooms available, so each night we flew to Thunder Bay. We never really knew what we would be doing from day to day, so we had to lug our suitcases around the whole time. Towards the end of that week we knew we would probably be staying long enough to take everyone back home again, we managed to get a short shopping trip in, and also stock up on supplies for the plane. On the one morning during breakfast we got a call that the RCMP wanted us to go and pick up a SWAT team, so we flew two and a half hours to Lake Simcoe Regional, couldn't find anyone when we got there and then found out that the "situation had been resolved" and they didn't need the team anymore, so we flew back again empty, a nice little sightseeing tour of Ontario for nothing! The people we had on the plane were mostly people with kids, or health problems that they wanted to get out of the smoke, so it made for some interesting flights, usually the kids outnumbered the adults. At one point we had 58 people on our 46 seater (perfectly legally!) because there were so many kids that were small enough to sit on laps. The first picture is to show you these traditional lace up things that they put the babies in, and any of them that were bundled up like that never made a sound. Then you can see some of the fires, we counted over thirty on one flight. Another morning we were on weather hold to take people home, so you can see all the planes that were there to do all the work. There was our Dash 7, Dash 8s from Regional One, Arctic Sunwest and Air Inuit, a Calm air Hawker 748, Beech 1900 from Wasaya, as well as all the water bombers sitting around. Lots of pilots per sqaure room on that day! It was also kind of weird being around the "real" flight attendants from Regional One and Calm Air, they were shocked to hear that me and the Arctic Sunwest girl have to groom our own planes, also that I get to wear sneakers instead of heels! Some day I might learn how to do my hair like that too!

Anyway, all in all it was a fun trip, even though we had to steam clean the interior of the plane when we got home.

Arctic tour

Sorry for the strange layout here, I haven't really got that part figured out yet. Anyway, I thought I would tell about my recent trips for work and I'll start with the one to the Canadian Arctic. We were flying the people that are holding hearings for the Mackenzie Valley Gas Project, so we spend the day in whichever community the hearings are in, go back to Inuvik every night, and then on to the next community in the morning. We were in Paulatuk, Holman (Ulukhaktok) and Sachs Harbour. Here's a map of the NWT so you can see where they are. We're supposed to have day rooms where ever we go, but usually any rooms are taken up by the people that are there for the hearings, so mostly we ended up spending the day in people's houses. Usually have a nap first and then go for a walk around and see what there is to see, then cook up some lunch and watch movies or whatever to pass the rest of the day. There aren't restaurants in these communities, and groceries are very expensive and sometimes not even available, so we stocked up in Yellowknife before we left and ended up having enough food to share with our hosts too. M&M cookies are a staple food now!

It's quite an interesting landscape, stark, harsh, but also beautiful in a way. It was extremely windy for the days we were there, that must be pretty hard in the winter. I also have new respect for the people that live/lived off that land, there aren't any trees for firewood or shelter. I have been reading Pierre Berton's "Arctic Grail: The Quest for the Northwest Passage and the North Pole", it makes it feel much more real to me now that I've been in some of those places and on Banks and Victoria Islands that weren't explored until fairly recently. Also makes you realise what those people lived through and wonder how on earth they did it!

The pictures show how small each community is, just sort of sitting on the shore of the ocean, I have no idea why people settled in any of those particular spots, I guess maybe it had something to do with game or what there was to eat way back when. Also can see a muskox skull, there were tons of these on the beach, but you can't just take them because they belong to people and are left there to be cleaned of flesh/fur and then bleached. There are lots of dogs in those communities, I wanted to bring that little guy home with me, some kids told me his name was Fathead! There was also a funny looking Dash 7 parked in Inuvik, they have all these mods they did for ice patrol, so we had to check that out. And lastly, I took the pic of the Canadian flag, which I always am suprised to see up there becuase it feels and looks like you're in some other place than Canada.

It was a good trip, we brought home some stories that will go down in Tindi history, and I have marked off some more places on my list. One thing I couldn't wrap my head around is why there is so much garbage lying around, we walked along beaches and over hills where there was everything from tools to fishing nets to trailers, and yet the people are so adamant about protecting their land and keeping it for their children. Anyway, litter is one of my pet peeves so it was really making me mad!

Cranberry picking

We went berry picking again last night, Super Steve from work came and brought his daughter and her friend. We couldn't stay out for very long because it's getting dark quite early now, but we built a fire and cooked some tin foil packets for supper. It was a really beautiful autumn evening.

Tagged...

I can think of more than three for most of these, so I'll just put the ones I think of first...

3 smells I love:
1. The smell after a turbine engine flashes up
2. Two stroke smell from my snowmobile (did it snow yet?)
3. Early morning smell when you're camping

3 smells I hate:
1. When we have to service the washroom on the Dash
2. Paving road smell
3. Rotten onion!

3 jobs I have had:
1. School bus driver
2. Aircraft refueller
3. Flight instructor

3 movies I could watch over and over:
1. Top Gun
2. Snatch
3. The Fifth Element

3 fond memories:
1. Christmas 2004 with my family in South Africa
2. Barbecues at Lisa's house
3. Driving to go on vacation when my sister and I were still kids

3 jobs I'd love to have:
1. The crew that gets new planes from the factory and delivers them to the company
2. Investor, if I knew how
3. A Lonely Planet traveller person

3 places I've lived:
1. Johannesburg, South Africa
2. Calgary, Canada
3. Yellowknife, Canada

3 things I like to do:
1. READ READ READ
2. Fly just for pure fun
3. Pick berries (I'll post about that later, er, try anyway!)

3 favourite foods:
I don't know how you're supposed to pick just three, food is my favourite!
1. Biltong, it's the S. African version of jerky
2. Shore lunch, when you cook the fish someone just caught
3. New York cheesecake

3 places I'd like to be right now:
1. On vacation in Hawaii or Jamaica, I'd like to go there just once
2. On vacation in Cape Town
3. I'd like to be in a place where everyone else that I'm related to or friends with are in the same place so that we can visit or go for coffee whenever we wanted. Can someone please invent some sort of instant travelling machine - Japan for dinner? Sure, I'll be right there.

3 websites I visit daily:
1. Hotmail
2. Environment Canada for the weather
3. This blogger website

3 things that make me cry:
1. Apartheid
2. Sad books or movies
3. Number three in places I'd like to be right now!

I'm adding this too just because -
3 good books I've read lately:
1. The Arctic Grail - Pierre Berton
2. The No. 1 Ladies detective agency series - Alexander McCall Smith
3. The Power of One - Bryce Courtenay


I can't tag anyone because the only people I know have already been tagged!