I'm on my first 7 day week now and thought I'd wait with posting until the end. I don't think this was acutally a good idea because it got a liiiiil long. Sorry everyone! As usual, I'll start with a quick summary and follow with the day-by-day blog :)
Animals I've seen:
1 - Massive brown owl
2 - Moose
3 - Bears (two cubs)
Lots of cranes, a few swans and even a couple foxes. One followed us around the golf course!
My feet are adjusting, and I got my first few blisters. Finally I've done some outdoor training and I even have my full crew now. I got put on my first red alert (my heart was racing almost the whole time) and am feeling like I am starting to fit in at the base. For the first part of our four days off I decided to join a couple people on a trip to North Bay. Lots of partying and overall a great trip :) Check out the details below and I apologize again for the length!
Friday, May 7th - Day off. I went for a morning walk and found a silly road sign typo: instead of reading "3rd Avenue", the sign read "3th Avenue". The really silly part is that the other side of the sign was correct. LOL! Later on, Matt and I had a gym session over 2 hours long - I stretched a ton and left feeling amazing. That evening I went out to have a few with some of the fire guys and ended up meeting some Cochrane girls. Finally! We played a ridiculous amount of FLIPCUP and at some point the leprachaun dance came out...Erik and danced it in tandem. O yes! Up here we don't use "Ole Ole" as a flip cup chant. That is just overdone. Instead the following occurs:
THE NEW IMPROVED FLIPCUP CHANT
*Clapping*
We are from Ontario, NORTHERN ONTARIO!
We are from Ontario, NORTHERN ONTARIO!!
Huh, Huh, Huh, Huh (a loud, gutteral manly sound)
*Starters clink cups and flipcup begins*
This is super intense and I vow to bring it wherever I go!
Later on we headed to Thib's Tavern and I tried my first legendary "purple helmet" - supposedly a tasty, but deadly combination of common evils. It's a pinky/purple colour, tastes crazy sweet and is served in an $18 pitcher. Apparently the following is in it:
- 1/2 pitcher of beer
- 1 wildberry cooler (or other berry cooler)
- 1 oz whiskey
- gingerale
- ice
Apparently another popular tradition is to competitively chug white russians out of a straw. I got 2nd :(
Saturday, May 8th - Back at work. SNOW :( Everyone was on blue alert, as the highs for every weather station in our sector were in the minuses. It was too cold to train outside, so we stayed at the base and started the day off by watching three training vids. One on pump set-up and maintenance which was very dry and we spent the time pouring over the detailed maps, learning lake names, checking out winter roads and mapping out hyopthetical canoe routes. The next one was a detailed hose-lay video, which was very informative. Before the next one our crew leader set up a mock fire in the training room sand-box and asked me to demonstrate how I would lay the hose - I got 100%. Woo! The last video was on how to properly load and attach a sling (a big net under the helicopter) and under what conditions you would use a short vs a long sling. A Queen-only soundtrack was used, so it kept our attention. Later in the afternoon I serviced a couple pump tool-kits.
Fire Situation Update. Snow had started to accumulate by the time we left work! It looks like we won't be getting a fire for at least a month, because even if it gets warm, everything is "greening". This means the vegetation is maturing, leaving very little dry fuel and delaying fires until the sun dries out the newly "greened" vegetation.
After work. There's another "Buck 'n Doe" tonight, for a guy that used to work fire in Cochrane, so pretty much everyone on base is going. I think I will start liking these, because it is the only chance I get to dance in Cochrane...Thib's Tavern doesn't offer any dancing opportunities. I aim to be much better behaved this time and not end up with any mystery bruises :)
Sunday, May 9th - Pump training - After a long training session on Hospitality - what travel expenses you can get reembursed for and how to do so - I got to do my first outdoor training! All the crews packed into our trucks and headed to a lake 30 minutes west of base because we had a bunch of pumps to test start and we had about 3 set up at a time. My first two went pretty well, even though they sabotaged the second one. I had to retighten the pump-head vent cap, remove cardboard from the spark plug and reconnect the powere switch. They started racing and I was really nervous for mine, so figures something would go wrong and then I couldn't prime the intake hose, which I had done no problem the first two times. Arg! Turns out I was flogging it horizontally vs vertically. At the end I felt embarrased, but a lot more accomplished, despite the cuts on my knuckles and the cold water sloshing in my steel-toes. The logging road we took out of the bush was the bumpiest I have ever experienced - a normal car wold never even dream of making it through. Apparently the three trucks in front of us saw a couple baby blackbears, but they were gone by the time we got there. Back at the base, we recycled all the equipment and washed the trucks.These trucks definitely get really well taken care of!Ribs - I had made them once before, but this time I was convinced to make them better. It was a success - the meat was delicate and the sauce just sticky enough.
Monday, May 10th - Hose Lay and Pump Training - Today we trained on setting up tandem parallel pumps in an old sand pit. Two pumps were started up at the bottom of a steep sand slope, their hoses running in parallel up the high embankment. Securing the pumps on the slope was an issue at first, but shovels and sash cord got the job done. A y-joint was used to combine the two hoses, increasing the pressure of the third single hose. This would allow the water to be pumped very far up a hill, or over long distances. Because we were just training, the distance was not very long and the extra pressure made the nozzle difficult to handle - I had to hold onto it like crazy, and some almost lost control when it got kinked. Later we added another pump half-way up the line and that added even more pressure. I was covered in mud after this. We then set up just the pumps at two other sites to learn trouble shooting. At the first the pumps got thrown in the lake - which could accidentally happen when unloading a helicopter. We had to drain the muffler, dry the filter for the carburator, get a new spark plug and then make sure the intake hose didn't suck anything from the sandy bottom. The pond stunk like loon shit and afterwards we all smelled like it too. Before the next one we set up the camp stove, made some lunch - I had ribs! - and then tried out some of the new freeze-dried camp meals that were in our 24 hour packs. The lasagna was amazing, the eggs pretty decent and the asian rice and pork too sweet. At the next pump-set up site (a deep fastrunning river) we practiced not having an foot valve (ie filter) and then not even having an intake hose. Pretty big problems, but we got them running no problem. My crew boss then made me carry the pump, tool kit, intake hose and gas can back to the truck. This was pretty heavy and the intake hose was akward to hold, but I managed. Half way they took the tool kit and then hose. Phew!
Evening Golf - Matt, Brock and I went golfing after work today. Well more like they went golfing and I walked with them, shooting a ball randomly and failing miserably. I need some serious practice, but I think I will get it this summer.
Wednesday, May 12th - I HAVE A CREW!!! - So today was exciting for a bunch of reasons, but one main one: Glen passed his pre-fit, so I am now officially part of a crew. WOO! Glen and Stan (my crew boss) sat me down and gave me the crew speech. It was a little intimidating, but I already know Stan quite a bit, so it wasn't so bad. They told me all the hard fast rules of their crew, let me know what each of their responsibilities are and what my responsibilities are. My main thing is to make sure that we have the crew first aid bag with us at all times, even if we are just going training, but on the fire line as well. It is now my "baby". The other crew member is supposed to be responsible for our water jug, but he isn't there very often, so that is my baby now too.MORE FIRES! - Around noon the crew on red got sent out to a fire, and spotted another one on the way there, so two crews went out to those and the rest of us were all bumped up to higher alert levels. Matt was on red for the rest of the day and got an hour of overtime. Glen made sure that Stan and I got our "crew bag" ready, which meant ensuring that we had all of the cooking supplies and other common items. We hit up the warehouse to stock up on what we were missing and pick up our freeze fried boil-in-a-bag food packs. We're picking up the rest of our food tomorrow, and then hopefully we get a fire!!
Rookie Initiation - Glen gave me a bell and told me I would have to wear it till he told me I could take it off. I obliged to this after some protest, but after wearing it for a couple hours, another crew leader saw it and took it away because he said no one should have to wear that. Phew!
Thursday, May 13th - Red Alert! - I was on my first red alert today. It was pretty hot and there were a few fires that day. Once the other crew on red left for a 10 hectare fire we got sent to the airport and loaded the helicopter with all our gear. I was so excited to get a fire, but didn't end up getting anything. The crew that went out ended up getting burnt out because the fire ran away (it was 50 hectares by teh end of the day). The fire jumped a creek and burnt out their pump site. They lost 3 out of 4 of their personal packs and most of the equipment and had to book it out of there. A rookie was on the crew on his first fire and his bag got burned - he's got a sweet story now! I think I will be slightly addicted to fire by the end of the summer. I'm already looking at different fuels and estimating how well they'll burn lol.
Friday, May 14th - Pump Training - Soo we were supposed to be on red again today, but it was pouring rain so we all got bumped to blue. My crew leader hadn't seen me set up a pump yet so my crew and I drove waaay back into the bush (like 2.5 hours) and they timed me while I set it up by myself in four different places. They were all pretty swampy, and my intake got clogged a couple times. Otherwise the pump had a lot of problems, so I had a ton of trouble shooting to do. It took awhile sometimes, but my crew leader was satsified with how determined I was, and how I fixed it systemactically. I was exhausted, soaking wet and frustrated, but happy to get experience and show my crew that I was capable.
North Bay - I was now on four days off, so right after work I went with a Jessie and Erik (a girl I had met earlier and a guy I work with) to North Bay for some partying. We arrived around 11:30pm, met up with some of their friends that go to school there and played a ton of flipcup before going to a bar called the Zoo. We all danced like crazy! Awesome night
We brought some wine and spent a couple hours at the top enjoying the view and fighting blackflies - the bugs are definitely starting to come out. Walking down was interesting lol. Later we went to the Zoo again, but stayed on the other side where there was a live band playing 90s hard rock. Great times, but I wished I had Alex to dance with. Speaking of, he found out that he got waitlisted for med school in Ottawa. It makes me think that its impossible to get in. Seriously. O well there's still a chance he can get in this year, and if not then there's always next year :)
Sunday, May 16th - Visiting the Balts - Got to have lunch with Danielle and Jon today and see their new house (they just got married last week). It's awesome and they have the cutest little kitty called Ross. He scratched me right in the centre of my chest...def looks a lil weird. The drive back was shorter than I expected and we listened to a lot of this rapper called Atmosphere. I recommend him to anyone that likes hip-hop! It was great to get out of Cochrane...I feel like I've had a holiday and I still have two full days off! We'll probably end up going to a camp and spending most of the time outside. Excited! I have to find somewhere to live ASAP though, and it looks like I'm looking by myself now because Matt is moving in to a 1bdr apartment 9miles out of Cochrane at a bed and breakfast. I will probably end up couchsurfing for awhile :s
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