Edmonton, Red Deer, Sylvan Lake, Banff, Lake Louise, Jasper, Mountains, Friends.......

Mightiness of Sunlight Bottom!!
It's been quite awhile since I've written anything on here (getting close to a month now!), and that's been for two reasons. Firstly, when I'm at the mine, I don't really have much to write about. I work, and I sleep, neither makes for very interesting blog reading. Secondly, since I left the mine a week and half ago, I've been so busy I haven't had time to write anything. Now I'm going to! :)

I got out from the mine on Tuesday, June 24th - arriving back in Yellowknife at around 1:00. I spent that afternoon and evening getting my clothing washed, buying supplies, and packing, and then Wednesday morning at 5:30 I was up, and on my way to Edmonton. Armed with a tank full of gas, and a stomach full of McDonald's breakfast, I headed out for the longest bit of driving I've ever done. The first couple hundred kilometres were a little slow, as there was a lot of thick fog that I had to be very careful going through - I really didn't want to run into a bison! Once I got out from around the Great Slave Lake area though, my progress was much faster. The only other delay was a bridge with a posted speed limit of 5Km/H. I tried my best to only go 5Km/H - there must have been a pretty good reason for them to not want people going quickly across this bridge, and I wasn't keen to find out what the reason might have been - but I was only able to actually maintain a speed of about 10Km/H. I don't think I've ever driven twice the speed limit before!

I was able to get as far as Enterprise, NT, before I had to get gas, and I went from there to High Level, AB. I drove the entire trip from Yellowknife to Edmonton in about 16 hours, stopping only for gas and to use the washroom, and that time even included a 1-1.5 hour detour that I accidentally made. There was one point where the highway bifurcates, and I thought I wanted to go more towards Grande Prairie - which I didn't actually want to do. All well. Fortunately I didn't run into any police anywhere along the way. :P

I got to Edmonton a little before 10:00, but I wasn't able to get in touch with Ryan (my friend from Sainte-Anne's, which whom I stayed the night). After calling the number he had given me (which turned out to be the wrong number), and knocking on the doors a few times with no answers, I drove around the city until I found a free wireless internet signal that I was able to use to contact him through MSN Messenger. Whew!

Since then, I've been doing all kinds of things here in Alberta. I met up with Lara the next day, and spent a couple of days at her place, we went out to a stampede in Ponoka which was really fun. I was able to meet up with a friend of my family's, Dave, who is in Red Deer working - it was so wonderful to see him and to spend some time talking with him! After a couple of days I came back to Edmonton to connect up with Ryan again.

On Monday Ryan, Lara and I all got together, packed up the car with camping stuff, and headed off to Banff. We spent that night checking out a rainy Banff, trying to setup the tents between periods of intense rain, and trying to make a fire start with a dying lighter, an old magazine, and wet firewood. Thanks to Lara's perseverance, we actually got the fire going! Sometime after midnight some people a couple of sites away from us started setting off fireworks laterally within the campground (Canada Day had started...) - they got a visit from the RCMP a little while later.

The next morning we got up at about 7:00, got the site all packed up, had some breakfast (a bit of an adventure at McDonald's trying to deal with servers who didn't really speak english), and headed out. I wasn't feeling very well, so Lara drove all the way to Lake Louise, where we stopped to get some pictures, and to take a short break from the driving.

The mountains are amazing, and enormous, and beautiful. As amazing as this trip was, I would still love to get back and really spend some time in that area - it's really something special. We saw all kinds of wildlife, including a Bear and her two cubs, a couple of Ravens, lots of Elk, and some Mountain Goats and Sheep. There was even a deer beside our campsite Tuesday morning when we got up - and we saw lots more Tuesday night once we were out of the mountains.

The best part about the trip though wasn't the wildlife or the scenery, it was that I was able to spend time with a couple of my bestest friends. We had an awesome time together for that day and a half, and it's a trip I'll never forget.

Yesterday, we all ended up together again at one point. Lara and I met up and went to the West Edmonton Mall, to use a couple of free Galaxyland (the indoor amusement park in the mall) passes that she had. Unfortunately the big rollercoaster was closed, but we went on a whole bunch of other rides, the preferred of which was the "Space Shooter" - a ride the goes straight up (with a force of +3 Gs!), and then straight down (providing a -1 G force). We went on it three times I think - and Lara was even able to get a video of the last run! Later on we picked up Ryan and all went out for dinner before taking him to work.

I'm going back to Yellowknife tomorrow morning I think, and I'm sad to be leaving. This has been one of the most amazing times of my life, and I can't think of anybody I'd rather have spent this time with than these two amazing friends. It's been absolutely incredible.

Now I'm starting the countdown until I'm back in NS - the summer is only a little more than half over, but I'm already starting to really look forward to being back at the University in the fall. 49 days to go - when I look at the days like that, it doesn't seem like very long!

Check out (select) pictures from the trip here. There are 41 pictures in the album, from a total of 389 taken on my camera - I think there's about that many on Lara's camera too!

Back at the mine

Last week was a complete whirlwind. I flew to Nova Scotia on Tuesday with Mom, spent wedesnday through to saturday running around visiting Grandma at the hostpital, helping Mom get our stuff out of her house so she can sell it, playing video games with Megan at the Labyrinth, visiting everybody down at l'Université Saint-Anne, fixing Grandpa's computer, etc. etc. Sunday morning I flew back to Yellowknife. A completely crazy trip, that was a complete rollercoaster ride of emotions; happy I was able to be there, sad to see Grandma in the hospital, tired from the trips, thrilled to get to the shore for an afternoon, sad I wasn't able to spend a little more time with Dad, worried that if Megan goes travelling I might not see her for over a year... by the time I got back to Yellowknife sunday night I was completely emotionally mixed up (spending 10 hours in the Edmonton airport probably didn't help). Monday wasn't much better.

Now that I'm back here at the mine I've been able to sort of set my head straight again. It's been great today to have tasks to concentrate on, things to do other than just think about everything that's been going on and getting back into a regular schedule. Even though I had only been here once before on my last rotation, there's a familiarity here that is comforting too, especially with Mom still being in Nova Scotia, Yellowknife felt pretty lonely yesterday.

I've recently realized a few interesting facts. Firstly, once I'm done my current rotation, I'll have completed half of my work for the summer! I'll only have two more two week rotations here at the mine to complete, and then I'm back in Nova Scotia to get ready to go back to school. If I take into account my trip to Alberta on the 25th of this month, I've really only got one more set of two weeks in Yellowknife too. It's weird, because I had felt up until now that I was going to have lots of time over the summer to get to know the city a little better, to start to really make it feel a little like home before I left; but it doesn't look like I'll be around long enough for that to happen. It's been cool to spend what time I have in the city though, I certainly never thought that I'd be living in Yellowknife even for a day, much less for a long as I have been.

The mine still amazes me. About once a day I look around me and think "WOW! I'm working at a DIAMOND mine! How cool is that??" It's pretty awesome to be here knowing that just a few hundred metres from where I am they are pulling diamonds out of the ground. When I first got here one of the vice presidents did a little presentation as part of the site induction meeting, and during that he pointed out that when we see on TV the shows about extreme mining, they are talking about operations less extreme than what's happening here at Diavik. The operation they (we) are running here is as extreme an operation as they come. Not only is it being done on an enormous scale, and with mind-blowing amounts of resources, people, and equipment, but it's being done over 300 kilometres northeast of the closest town, which is itself extremely isolated! The entire operation is completely insane, and absolutely amazing. The more I learn about what is happening here, and how it's being done, the more flaberghasted I become. It's unreal. I'm not going to talk about it any more here, but if you're interested, the Diavik Website has lots of information and photos of the mine site.

Anyway, the experience is still awesome, life is still going on, things are good. Please leave comments, even just a 'hello' so I know that someone is still looking at this site! Thanks,
-Liam

Not quite in Yellowknife

Mom and I flew to Nova Scotia today to spend some time with Grandma Killam. We had a long, long day yesterday flying home, and had a evening driving home with Aunt Monica, and then chatting for a bit with Aunt Mary and Uncle Terry.
I spent parts of today at the Hospital visiting Grandma, and with Megan and Mel, part with Aunt Monica when we all went out for lunch, and then later back at Dad's, and finally well into this evening with Grandpa and Grandma Hanks. Whew. What a day.

Pictures of the flight are here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=121700&l=62419&id=570225360
Pictures of today with Megan and others here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=121704&l=0cc61&id=570225360

Um....

So... It's been a while since I've written anything on here - Yes, I've been lazy.
Mom and I went on a road trip yesterday to Hay River. It is an odd town, much larger than either of us had been expecting, but nonetheless, it had an air of being slowly dying... like it was hanging on to a much more glorious past, and wasn't quite keeping its grip. We drove around, and left...being 500km away from Yellowknife, we didn't have much time to hang around, even if we'd wanted to. We left home at about 8:00 in the morning, and didn't get back until after 8 that evening, all in all about 1000km driven. In fact, if had we just continued going south (from Hay River, and not come back to Yellowknife), it would only have been about another 500km to Edmonton. haha.
We say BISON! WHOOHOO. We'd driven around for about four hours a couple of weeks ago trying to see a single one, and this time we must have seen hundreds. They were everywhere! Beside the road, on the road, crossing the road, standing, sitting, laying down, running, walking... eating grass... basically being bison. Bison are amazingly interesting for about three minutes the first time you see them. The babies are good for about four. Then they are simply bison - things you have to slow down for when you approach a group of them on the highway, generally a bit of a nuissance. But, I have seen bison.
We drove through Enterprise, NT. If Hay River is hanging on to a glorious past, Enterprise is just sort of hanging around. The place consists of two gas stations, one called Winnie's, which isn't selling gas at the moment due to a disected gas pump, and another place called... well, something. They have three gas pumps (!), all of them working. All the other buildings are slowly disintegrating shells; it's kind of depressing. In any case, I was thrilled to be in a place called Enterprise. I've been to the Enterprise! :) And I have a picture to prove it...
We took the ferry across the Mackenzie River. I never thought I'd be traversing the Mackenzie River. It was another one of those things where the thought is much more romanic than the reality. For hundreds of years people have been using that river as a means of transportation to and from the north. Its connecting waterways go on for thousands of kilometers, and I've had the experience. Somehow sitting in your car on a ferry, watching the water gush up between the grating at the front of the boat, peering into the mirror to make sure the semi-trailer parked eerily behind you is staying in one place, is not really how I'd thought the experience would be - but it was awesome nonetheless.
Aside from the bison, we say tons of ducks, and a few Sand Hill Cranes, which were very cool, but they would always decide at the very moment I was trying to get a picture of them, to go for walks through the woods. I did manage to get a couple of nice pictures though.

To save me some hassle, and to allow me to make all of my pictures available to everyone, I'm going to post a link to where I've postyd my pictures on Facebook - they say the link can be viewed by anyone, even if you're not a member. Here it is:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=120614&l=bd82b&id=570225360
Please let me know if it doesn't work.