Finished in Wonowon

Yesterday we finished our first contract out of Wonowon, British Columbia and are leaving in a couple hours for farthest north Fort Nelson where we’ll be helicoptered out to a logging camp and cook for another nine days. We worked for eleven days straight from 4 to 9 everyday, and last night the comfort of the motel was unbeatable as I slept until the long late hour of seven O’clock and relished the bed, close toilet, shower, and quiet away from the generator. Last night I trecked across the highway with my laptop tucked under my arm, wool socks to my knees, and hot water and milk in hand and the sky was glimmering late night blue as the thin clouds stretched in late night sun above the trees that lined the Alaska highway. When the internet failed in our convience store/café that IS the town of Wonowon a few of us sat and drank a glass of wine in the pitstop that was our night’s perminance. Our camp was set up in a horse race ring so the fences and broken bleachers lent a cowboy-esque air to our days. When we woke in the mornings we’d trip out of our tent to gorgeous brilliant morning skies; the longest day of the year is today at 18 some hours which means that the light from the set sun lingers much longer in both morning and night.

I resent breakfast making because the fare involves many meaty options from sausage and bacon and eggs that mean I hover over heat and grease when I tend to be tired and hungry and grumpy to begin with. But I pull through and once Lizzie and I have cleaned up the kitchen for the morning, we sit outside with our own breakfast and chat and plan and laze for our half an hour that is our least rushed time of the day. In recent days I’ve been having more fun trying recipes and dinner meals that are much more in the style of my own creations and less standard camp fare and everyones happier because of it. I made a breaded cheese and jam block which was garnished with picked asparagus and pickles, along side four types of bean dips and three different kinds of salad (this was the accompaionment to the main taco bar selection for those meaty men.) My shepherds pie was a great success and my only regret in reflection is that I don’t remember how I made it.

I miss being out of touch with many of you when I have the hours to be actively missing, but the days are very full and Lizzie and are very happy despite our business and find the planters endearing and our foreman Guy very kind. We’ve had broken water pipes, broken generator (no power) and gasless stoves in some new mix every day. 

Planting Camp

We're in to our second shift having worked 7 days straight from 4AM until 9PM every night. I feel the need to announce that we're alive and well as I've failed to be in contact with anyone since our arrival. All is well in Alanna and Lizzie's world though and when exhaustion doesn't over take us the giggles do. The internet is magically up today in camp and I have found an empty hour while Lizzie plunks through the planting dishes and I rather guiltily cruise my inbox. Life is good: The bugs out here aren't here and other than the odd ankle nibble we've been unbothered by the insects known to torment planters. I drive a big honkin' truck when we go in to town and we feel suitably dirty and dishevelled if not a bit silly and pretentious- like the kid who can't believe their father handed them the car keys. Lizzie has been my encourager and constant companion in every task and we pray together, have great conversations in the kitchen, laugh and giggle constantly and are loving the great big sky, the freedom of our days and even manage to bear with chagrin the chores that fill the hours. I'm still working through some of the anxiety of getting full meals on the table every day- a physiological more than a practical battle which can be wearing when the work never stops. Tonight there shall be shepherds pie (veg alternative as well), rosemary sweet potatoes, herbed peas, rottini broccoli salad, apple spinach salad, three bean salad, pumpkin pie, and rhubarb pie (desserts compliments of Lizzie.) I just ran out to ask Lizzie "Want to finish later?" as she washes up the last of the cutlery in the pouring rain. Response- "Might as well finish, I'm already wet." Reasonable enough. 

My poor feet went from trench foot dampness after discovering that my one pair of shoes had a huge crack through both heels (old shoes not so great after all) and the mud puddles that I stood in all day where constant pools for damp feet. Since switching to flip flops a few days ago my feet have become equally blackened by dirt (and all else) and I pull on socks at night to protect my sleeping bag from my feet. General pyjama policy is to wear them to protect my clean covers from my grubby self. Laundry mat conversation with a planter went as follows: He asked me "You wear pyjamas?!?" as I rejoiced over the freshly laundered pair that Lizzie had washed for me. "Yes...?" He smiled and nodded before pulling out from the dryer his own pair of full-body long-john pyjamas, bum-flap and all, and we all rejoiced. I told Lizzie I was trying to blog, with great difficulty, about how to summarize life here when our setting is so completely other. This conversation took place happened after I hopped in to the cook shack via window, stood there reboiling some hot coffee and milk in a soup pot, and eating yogurt with a knife as she sliced almond bars in her mother's apron, disheveled and dripping wet. She said, "How bout just describe exactly how it is right now." Yesterday a planter very sweetly asked her, "Um do you mind if I wash my boots here in the sink?" This was returned with a recalibrating moment as his sincerity was not to be missed despite the fact that she reminded him of how we like to use those sinks for washing silverwear and dishes. He was calmly handed a bucket with warm water and told to toss it somewhere the sludge would go un-noted. 

Ah yes, Women

My blog page is still in French, something which makes me mildly worried about my poor computer's locality confusion, for I am indeed a good week and a half English-speaking Vancouver. And O the English that we speak! Nothing linguistically remarkable as much as the familiarity and joy of conversions with people whose thought currents resonate with my own. I've realized in coming back to such a large friend base, the importance of loving individuals and liking them in specifics. There are some with whom I have a very unique connection, though a remarkably large number given how in some places people personalities can be difficult to line up with my own. 

I am grateful in particular for several women with whom I click with in an instant and long-enduring sort of way. Their intelligence, warmth, deep-kindness, laughter and hard experience often make me stop and say to myself, "Man, I am friends with such amazing women." It seems that part of friendship is the attraction of like-to-like because we do share many details of similar personal struggles, world travelling, and current loves and for this I feel that I find myself among kindred spirits and creatures whom I understand and understand me as well. Each is still distinctively them self, but we mesh in a relaxed mode that lets us soberly make meals together, spend hours dramatizing and getting dressed, lounge and muse as we read in the living room, or crash in to rage or share a current woe. I think too of how I can laugh with these girls, of how joy is well within our grasp. I am delighted to announce that I am nabbing Lizzie Curry from the group and taking her as my friend and baker in to the woods of northern B.C. We are likely going to have way too much fun as two girls left to their own devilish devices. We leave by greyhound tonight.