roll on big river, roll on...please

Well the big river broke last night and the ice started moving for about 3 hours...then the ice jammed up somewhere down river. When the ice jams up the water has nowhere to go but up. When I came home from work this morning the water was just below the edge of the river bank. The river has risen about 12 feet over night. If the ice doesn't move soon, I'll have to become a harbor master instead of an air traffic service provider. I haven't been outside yet today, but we'll take a drive and get some pics before I go to work. Melinda has been documenting break-up as I have been on night shift and still have 6 to go. Unfortunately, the pics don't seem to be uploading properly.

Sis, no comments from Frank...yet. He's waiting. Watching me sweat. Then when I least expect it...ZING! The comment from hell! or wherever the BVSQ lives when she's not here snitting on me. (yeah, I like that one too, SNITTING) I think you get the drift on that. One benefit from getting franked ...a few days with no mosquitoes!

Sometimes I make it too easy for Frank, yes I noticed the QUADPOD is actually a tripod, usually they use a quad pod because they don't tip over as easy...must have been built by a new guy this year.

well I just woke up, apparently there has been some ice movement on the liard river overnight. At this point I must give a very loud and very sarcastic THANK YOU VERY MUCH to the BVSQ as it started snowing on my way home from work this morning. I know, I know. Mosquitoes one day snow the next. This time of year you can have four seasons in one day. But only one season today, winter. Our snow was gone, now all is white again, and more in the forecast. What in the name of Frank and the BVSQ is going on with the weather?
My first year here in Simpson we had temperatures of +20 and higher for about five weeks and then one morning near the end of june...BAM! we got more than 2 feet of snow overnight.
I've been in touch with my colleagues at Environment Canada and are considering naming this phenomenon after my older brother. When the weather is nice and warm but you are going to get an unexpected dump of snow this will be known as getting Franked. Monday morning cooffee talk might go something like this...
" How was your weekend?"
"Horrible, the weather was nice on friday, but we got franked over night."
"Really, was it bad?"
"Yeah, a foot of snow on the ground saturday morning."
"Bummer, I can handle a late season storm, but getting franked is the worst!"

Some movement on the river!!!

The little wooden quadpod (tripod has three legs, right? so...) When the river breaks, the quadpod moves and yanks the rope out of a trigger rig and stops a clock and sounds a siren. This alerts the village to get ready because break up is a potential flood event. If the river breaks in the middle of the night the siren wakes up the EMO guy who then starts the flood watch.They were using canoes on the runway at the airstrip in town 2 years ago. The ice has started moving at the Liard river ferry crossing it broke there at 9:00pm, but the ice on the mackenzie river by town hasn't moved yet, it may just go in the middle of the night. We are about 7 miles from the Liard ferry crossing as the crow flies.

guantana...where did you say?

No I didn't get scooped up by the green meanies. Although I did inadvertantly become entangled in one of the live excercises the other day. I showed up at work un-announced on my day off (during a bomb scare excercise) So I was delayed,(not detained) from leaving after my unscheduled visit. But I have been very busy at work. That and a non-cooperative blog site have kept me from posting.
Well the river is hanging on with a vengeance. The ice hasn't moved an inch. It has melted away from the shore and there is some open spots here and there. (isn't a picture worth a thousand words?) Tomorrow, I promise ,for some pics. I think when the river breaks it's going to go like a toilet flush; all at once.
We have been averaging between 80 and a 100 movements a day at work.
A movement is everytime an aircraft arrives, departs or flies over my area of responsibility.
I'm back on nights tonight so, it's a little slower.
And we have the first crop of mosquitoes out already. They are great big hungry buggers too.
well off to work...I can hear the planes still going one after another off the island airport. might be a busy night after all.
well off to work...or gitmo

They're here

Well the green meanies are here. Some arrived early and caused a bit of hub bub at the airport. That little plane you see in one of the pics was not tied down. These Griffon helicopters have four blade main rotors and push A LOT of air. When the first chopper came in to land at the fuel tanks, the crew from number two had to jump to the ground and run over and hold that plane down. The others hover near by providing cover and waiting for their turn at the pumps.
That's all they will let me say for now. I could say more...but of course then they would have to kill me.

isolation

Well our ice road and link to the outside world will be done by sunday. Which means everything and everyone coming and going has to be flown. It's our busiest time of year at work especially so because we have a large live military exercise based out of our airport beginning on monday and lasting two weeks. there will be several helicopters and fixed wing aircraft. Airport patrols with live ammo, the whole shootin' match(pun intended). The idea is to tell sammy bin laden not to even dream about messing with our pipeline.
Just a quick note on the previous posts, I certainly am not saying the world is going to end anytime soon. Just some very interesting alternate theories out there. And can be at least as informative and entertaining as the da vinci code(I didn't care for it, movie or book).

No pics cause nothings happeing til the river decides to break.
When the river breaks, it's pretty awesome a real force of nature, the mackenzie is one of the biggest rivers in the world. When she breaks, chunks of ice the size of schoolbuses moving
bouncing and grinding tearing trees out of the ground whole. We'll put up some video and still pics, it will probably go sometime in the next 10 days, so stay tuned.

I don't think I'm crazy...

I will be starting another blog soon as this sight ain't big enough to hold all my crazy. I am going to start an internet based religion. Well, religion might be the wrong word. Generally religions offer hope of something better, in this life or the next. there is no hope to offer. Once you get a glimpse of what the ancient civilizations knew. (The Egyptians figured it out too) And like the Mayans, tried to send us a message. Hmmm how can I send a message forward in time thousands of years? And how can I make sure the future folks will get the message? Surely they won`t speak the same language. I know, I will build an enormous structure that will last thousands of years. This structure will be the medium for the message, the language used?...you guessed it Mathematics. The concepts of math and geometry never change and translate into every language(Pi will always be 3.14, 1+1=2). I'm talking of course about the pyramids. These enigmas, what message could be THAT important? Planetary precession(google that)
How and why do two VERY seperate civilizations come to basically the same conclusions independantly of each other?. It is a fact that the Mayans didn't even have use of the wheel as a basic tool. Well enough for now. Don't be afraid to call me crazy. I'm not even sure if I believe this stuff either. But an older RCMP officer told me once that if he was blind and ten people told him he was smelling a rose, he would at LEAST believe he was smelling a flower; even if he couldn't see it with his own eyes.

I think the ancients are trying to tell us about something, blind as we are...

warm globe syndrome

The temperature shot up to 18 degrees here yesterday. Shattering the previous high for April 08 by FIVE degrees. Some of you know that a major part of my job involves observing and reporting the weather, so maybe I'm a bit more sensitive to these things.
Although I feel I should tell Mr. Gore I find his truth convenient.(I can support anything that gets me fishing sooner).

I know, global warming blah blah blah...It's happening, but really has little to do with us idling our cars. The changes of a tenth of a degree in average temp over a decade? I'm here to tell you that human error in data collection accounts for that.
We want to be able to fix what's wrong, and barring that, stick our heads in the sand and ignore it or deny it. Dramatic weather change is the effect; what's the cause?

I suggest reading FINGERPRINTS OF THE GODS by Graham Hancock.
Or GOOGLE THIS : Ancient Mayan Long Count Calendar -Dec 23 2012.

Sorry, about the serious note, I'll put my head back in the sand now!

warm globe syndrome

The temperature shot up to 18 degrees here yesterday.

woo hoo!

Plus 12 degrees outside! About 1 foot of slush on the road(fun four wheel drivin'). Spring is coming. Another nice day brought to you by the same good folks that brought you global warming. Oh yeah to answer your question sis, sometimes there is still a little snow in the bush at the end of May, and the temp still goes below zero at night and you can get the odd flurry. But it's still warm enough to camp. (never too cold to camp) The wife likes to go cook outside over a fire all year round. time to go to work and help keep track of just how warm our globe is getting.

Night shift again, can I swear here? no, okay. Well lot's of talk in blogville about the impending b-day of nephew Jason. HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Second most popular subject? bgbs! Jay, I don't want to jump on any bandwagons here (not my style) but kids are great (must be, I keep havin' em). 26 years old. Wow. What? Oh yeah, the pics.

The little cabin is an emergency shelter, they have them about every 60 km along the highway. The territorial government maintains them. The other pic is the first sign of approaching spring, No crocuses or tulips here, that's the Liard river ferry getting ready to slide down into the river, which is still frozen. but ya gotta be ready.

Jason, you are absolutely invited to come up for fishing! Don't worry, skill not required up here. Come north and have an adventure to tell your kids about! oops, no pressure on the kid thing!

Road trip!

Well, a day off and -3.0 degrees! So we decided to take you all for a drive over to Sambaa Deh falls. It's on the Trout River about 150 km out from Simpson. Of course still got the crotch deep snow to deal with, but the view was worth it. In the summer there are always a bunch of bald eagles soaring on the thermals in the gorge. The fishing down below in the river is good in the spring but it's a bit of a hike. I was going to hike down today and try for some pics of the frozen falls from the front but the wife was nervous and the snow was deep. As it was, when I got near the edge of the gorge, I wasn't sure if there was actually ground underneath my feet or if it was just a shelf of snow. I guess it was about a hundred feet down right there where I was standing. We come over and camp here every May 28 long weekend for grayling fishing. People come from all over.

Even up north here it's getting hard to get away from it all. I went camping once with my Inuit friend Stan and after four days on the river by ourselves niether one talking much, just quiet and haven't seen a soul, we see a guy going on the other side of the river about a mile away; Stan looks at me and says very seriously " jeez, busy place" I laughed my ass off! a matter of perspective I guess!

Springtime? not quite yet.

I understand some of you out in blogland, or blogville are already enjoying spring time. As you can see, we still have a ways to go yet. I was at work but Melinda and Charlie Brown went out to play for awhile in the snow.

It was around -9 all day so pretty nice, but the wind'll still pink yer cheeks

Well, tomorrow will be one month smoke free. No pic but, ya gotta love this dial up. Yeah I'm cheap and got this all you can eat internet. We have been trying to post some video on the site.
Melinda started uploading a video of us in the boat in some rough water. The video is about a minute and a half 120mbs, no biggy right? right? yeah you'd think. 14 hours! I know! 14 hours to down load this video and yup, you guessed it, can't post it for some undefined reason. I say undefined bcuz that's the reason the computer says when we sign in. So we'll e-mail the vid to those that we have adresses for, if anyone wants to see it and we don't have yer e-dress ( I just invented that..e-dress, I like it!) Give us yer e-dress and we'll send it. By carrier pigeon or dial up whichever is faster...fly like the.....