All this work in boots and coveralls is giving me an excellent neck and hands tan.

The cooks teased me about my new coveralls after lunch. It isn’t fashionable to have new coveralls or boots, you see. The accepted look is royal blue coveralls with reflective stripes, and they should be dusty or stained almost black. Other acceptable colours include red; but only those who don’t mind attention brave red coveralls. Once I saw someone wearing tan coveralls.

Hard hats can be any colour, but should be quite worn and preferably covered with health & safety stickers.

New clothes should be avoided because they make you look like a greenhorn. The biggest fashion faux pas would be new coveralls, new boots, and a new hard hat on the same day.

You never want to do that.

Keeping the Peace

I took the opportunity to drive Hwy 29 from Hudson’s Hope to Fort St. John to pick up the much anticipated missing parts.

It takes about 45 minutes to reach Fort St. John along the Peace River Valley. The Valley is east of the Rocky Mountains and Hudson’s Hope is in the foothills of the Rockies. These northern Rocky Mountains are old mountains; worn and rounded by millennia of rain and freeze thaw; not at all like the jagged peaks of the southern Rockies. Highway 29 follows the river as it winds through the Aspen forests of the foothills which are technically part of the Prairies. It’s a beautiful drive that may not be around much longer. I passed many signs posted by area residents protesting the flooding of the valley for the Site C extension of the WAC Bennett Dam. I stole the title of this post from one of the signs.

When I arrived at the Greyhound bus station in Fort St. John to pick up our missing parts, I found three of the four boxed had arrived, but not the one with the parts we desperately need to move forward.

Waiting for Parts

Today I wait for parts. It happens more than I like, but seems to be unavoidable when working with a variety of suppliers on a single project.

My work for this morning consisted of pounding in the 5’ ground spike for the generator. It took 20 minutes with a 15 pound sledge hammer and was hot work in Nomex coveralls, but I found if I hummed “I’ve Been Working on a Railroad” I could get into a good rhythm. It is music for pounding spikes after all, and is timed properly for that task.

Lunch is next on my agenda. The food in camp has been pretty good, but I worry that I’m going to gain (more) weight. Breakfast is eggs how you like them, bacon, sausage, ham, pancakes, French toast, fruit, and coffee, tea, or juice. Lunch and dinners are meat and potato affairs like roast beef and mashed potatoes, or roast chicken and potatoes. The food is served buffet style, and there’s no pop here; no nutritional value the cook said.

Chris in Camp

After spending the night in Hudson’s Hope, we made our way this morning along miles of dusty prairie routes and logging roads to the work camp. Logging trucks coming the other way encapsulated our vehicles with road dust that reduced visibility to near blindness. It was an instantaneous “white out” that cleared slowly once the truck passed, but the few seconds of blindness were unnerving and in my mind I envisioned unseen corners and stopped vehicles during those moments.

The camp is a series of portable buildings consisting of a kitchen, lounges and sleepers. The sleepers are divided into 2 units per trailer with a laundry room in the middle. Each unit has 2 bedrooms, 2 sinks, a toilet, and a shower. The bedrooms are about 8 feet wide by 8 feet long and contain two beds, a cupboard, and a small TV. I currently have a bedroom to myself, and am sharing a unit with a guy on my crew.

The lounges have TV’s, exercise bikes, and one has a foosball table. The kitchen serves 3 meals a day; breakfast between 6 and 8AM, lunch from 11AM to 1PM, and dinner from 6PM to 8PM. Camp is in Mountain Daylight Savings Time (same as Calgary), but Hudson’s Hope is in Mountain Standard Time, which is the same as Pacific Daylight Savings Time (like Vancouver). It’s a bit confusing, and it made us late for lunch.

The equipment arrives tomorrow morning and we start work directly.