The Good Days

Today I stopped and journalled more than the two sentence scrawl which has been the extent of my dull entries to myself since I've been here. I realized in recounting these past two days, how my happiness is linked to the dynamic span of happenings in my days. Before leaving the logging camp we had to thoroughly scrub our industrial kitchen- removing burnt dinner bits off the stove floor, scrubbing out cabinet shelves, washing the walls, moping the floor, carting boxes of food from storage, trying to distinguish between the pans, garbage, and food items which are all packed (a bit idiotically) in to the same black bin bags. A full mornings labour and then quiet repose as the helicopter took trips of people from camp and the foremen and us remained to wait out the hauling of gear in an empty dining while the rain poured out side and we had nothing left with which to pass the afternoon except a deck of cards, a box and a half of Smarties from someone's pocket, and long rejected Grey Goose Vodka with tomato juice that we drank from paper bowls. Perched on the countertop, dirty and in soggy wollen socks, we relaxed in to our wait with the content sense of no work left to do, isolated in the middle of the forest, rest while time allowed. 

James was our sweet and interesting New Zealander helicopter pilot who flew us out. During the afternoons we'd talk about his time at boarding school, his visits to Dubai, flying for south asian fishing companies, and his wife and his happy settlement in to northern Canada. He gifted us with a bottle of respectable Aussi wine upon parting ways and I've never seen a more hilarious, merry drunk as he danced and did the twist for much of the last evening by himself. From our camp, he knew Lizzie and I were new to helicopter flying so he took us soaring through a high cliff river valley, the red rock rising around us and the muddy water below as we wove our way down the bends like the footage in Imax theatres. When we rose up over the trees, the mountainous plateaus stretched all around and the massive sky held huge, billowing clouds with dark rain in the east and golden sunlight pouring through from the west. As the landscape flattened out he brought the helicopter down to what felt like ground level and he hit full throttle, dead-ahead, racing along until the tree-line seemed seconds away from contact before the last minute rise that pulled us back over the trees. Brilliantly sweet ride. When we landed Lizzie and I spent the next couple hours slowly unloading heli-nets full of engines, tires, pipes, cans of food, luggage- tired, muddy, but enjoying the hard work and company of a few planters with whom we joked and ate oranges with on the flatbed trailer as we waited for the next load. Drove out in the rain, tired and content in the slow, comfortable conversation that happens when you work hard with people and share in exuastion of work that must be done. 

In Fort Nelson Lizzie and I salvaged up a new pair of shoes for me after mine were eaten by logging camp mud, and then spent much of the afternoon in Boston Pizza with our foremen who'd set up their office space, computers, printer and all on two tables in the corner until the restaurant eventually realized how insane it was that three men had effectively turned a portion of their restaurant in to a forestation office with faxes coming in and phone calls going out. We left crammed in to one truck, Lizzie and I sharing one seat in the back until the highway demanded seatbelts and I was sandwiched between two men, the dashboard and the radio system for four more hours on the road. We dozed, watched the scenery, spotted a bear and a black fox, debated satellite radio stations and eventually spent a hilarious couple hours playing twenty questions over the two-way radio. It was nothing short of brillianty fun and comfortable. You're dusty, tired, working hard, but enjoying the conversation and people in between. The guys would have some sort of trailer to hitch or piece of equipment to fix every few hours along the way, but then you sit and watch, munch an apple, and see if they can guess your 20 questions choice "thing" of "frustration." A portion of time was even spent playing "name the car part that you're saying in your made-up accent" and I discovered that "clock" can be quite effectively disguised as a chicken "cluck" sound. We stopped at the Saskwatch (monster) road stop along the way, the only sign of people on a nearly deserted stretch of highway between two "main" towns, and the restaurant was something between a British fish shop and your grandma's log house 70's living room, buffalo heads, fake flowers, electric pipe organ and all. We ate cereal on the couch and felt a bit odd about the episode of South Park on the tv. Peed behind the old building with the most spectaclar view you could ever afford of three loons on a lake, the sun shining through the late night rain (10 PM), mountains in the distance. We ran back to the truck as it began to pour and made it to our motel just past midnight where we rejoiced over our kitchennette, clean room, and purple towels. Here I stay.  

Logging Camp Mosquito Land

We’re now less than a hundred clicks away from the Norwest Territories in remotest, buggiest BC. The temperatures range from clouded sky blue to windy chilly and our logging camp is pretty much floating on a bog. Unfortunately, Lizzie and I no longer live outside so we spend very little time in direct daylight or washing planter dishes as the sun rises and sets. Fortunately, we’re inside all day and thus can control the flow of mosquitos that can make their way in to our kitchen and dining hall. On the break between shifts we tried to take an evening walk after washing up the dishes, putting away the food, wiping the counterspace- an attempt to “get outisde” and “out of the kitchen.” We lasted about a giggling 15 minutes as the mosquitos completely swarmed us, the muddy road clung to our shoes and the dogs went nuts over the bear spotted a few hours before right outside camp. We deemed the evening beautiful and came back to the dining hall. The pines here are dark and thin and the daylight is ever persistent- once again the night sky has not yet graced my eyes. We managed to truck out to our location over a three hour bumpy, rutted road (feeling new appreciation for those pioneers in covered wagons- we ourselves could do very little to conquer the deep muddy patches that could easily have stuck us). Since the rain the way is now unnegotiable by truck and the helicopter is our mode of transport.

I now approach each day’s meal with no planning except for a scan around the fridge and freezer and a general sense of what their tastes might fancy. I’m in a somewhat tricky position of trying to stretch certain ingredients that need to last us until we’re flown out- like milk, eggs, melons, lettuce, mayonnaise- while also use up whatever won’t last or will be a huge pain to sling back. I rather guiltily keep asking Lizzie to half the eggs called for in her baking recipes and I myself am looking for new, unique ways to secretly employ potatoes. For the meals I try to strike a balance between a number of interesting options, while also having one big hearty, meaty meal for those men who like to feel that they’re getting their daily slab of meat and not being fed by a namby pampy “healthy” vegetarian. It’s often hard to know what’s worth the time and effort when they get excited by breaded asparagus but then are happy to get a very simple ground beef cheese pie. I’m quite wary of potential complaint or malcontent so I do try to have a well balanced meal out of some fear rather than the pure joy of mixing up interesting things. I realized that my sense of planter and my employer’s expectations was contributing largely to my anxiety and its taken me a lot of time for me to start believing that almost everyone was trully happy with my cooking, my food bills weren’t extraordinarily high, and I could relax. Lizzie has the fun of simply baking delicious things that people find delightful, but I feel responsible if we run out of something or if someone is unhappy with what I’m cooking. Fortunately, Lizzie has been tremendously supportive in reminding me of how well things are going and in talking through my worries that are more of my own making than real.

I feel so lucky to be out here with Lizzie and to be living and talking and working with someone who I not only can stand 24/7, but enjoy and like and appreiciate immensely. We approach kitchen and cleaning work very much as a team and the other picks up the slack on days when one person is slow or just tired, we have the emotional “how are you” conversations when drained and in my case even teary, we discuss past life worries and trials, share ideas, and laugh at ourselves, our grubbyness and even been able to laugh when all seems at its worst (cake sagging and cracking, meatballs still red in the middle (two hours in the oven already!), mess on the floor, grumpy planters and piles of dishes.) People are kind though and we’re regularly greated with something to the degree of “so how are my two favourite people?” (we DO give them food) and been brought music as well as speakers for my laptop computer. Every supportive word is not taken in vain when their happiness and like of the food is quite important to me yet the tasks that we do can seem ridiculously huge for two people.