LUCK

      There's an old Jewish proverb that I like. When you can , hang around the lucky. At times I've taken the liberty to change lucky to some other word. 

     I eat at the Casino two or three times a week. They have good food and it's a good price. Breakfast is seven bucks. They have a senior day when it's a two for one until 7:00 PM. 

    Now I don't gamble. Quite a few seniors take advantage of the food but don't gamble. 

    Each week they have a senior draw for $500.00 . There are other draws which are all free to enter once a day. Every two weeks they have a $500.00 shopping draw. 

    Well , last week the Micro manager won the senior draw! The next day they phoned me to tell me that I had won ear buds! I didn't know how I won the ear buds. There were 40 separate prizes besides the shopping spree. 

     So we've been lucky. So hang around my blog. 

MACKENZIE RIVER TRIP PT 2

           My last post took me half way up the Mackenzie river. I covered the water and risks. There are 11 settlements on the whole length of the river. I visited all of them. I started at Tuktoyaktuk then Reindeer station,  Inuvik, Arctic Red River, Fort Good Hope,  Norman Wells, Fort Norman , Fort Wrigley, Fort Simpson, Fort Providence, Liard and Hay River. All of them were established a long time ago as trading posts except Inuvik and Norman Wells. 

       After going through the San Sault rapids we arrived at Norman Wells. As we slept on the boat that night a huge storm hit us. The canvas top on the boat gave way and we were flooded. Were were able to stay in a Govt. house. We dried out but the major storm lasted three days. The river had risen and the current was strong. After sitting for three days were were ready to go. As we were loading the boat one of the locals said , "Are you leaving in this?" We said "Sure." Were we wrong. The river was high and dangerous. We quickly decided to quit and found a safe inlet and stayed there for the day. The next day we travelled and went through Fort Norman. We had a long quiet stretch and reached Fort Wrigley. Then it was on to Fort Simpson. No problems through this stretch. 

    Before we reached Fort Providence we noticed and airplane circling. When we went to check in with the RCMP, we found out that a boat had capsized and two people were missing. 

    Crossing the end of Great Slave lake was going to be a challenge as you had to cross at the end of the lake and if there was wind, and there usually was, it could be risky. We got up very early just before sun up. There were waves but not bad. We moved slowly for many hours until we got to the mouth of the Hay River and then we were almost at the end of our journey.

    We had to pack up the motors and boat and put them on a barge back to Inuvik where my friend had bought the equipment. 

    One thing the Micro Manager wouldn't go for is doing your business in the woods. So she bought a pot and had me make a seat. So what to do with the seat when the journey was over. She decided to just pitch it in the river and let it go. The crew on a nearby tugboat had a good laugh when they saw the toilet seat go sailing by. 

    I had told my mother that I would phone her when the trip ended so that was done. 

    Most of your comments had summarized the venture accurately. It was risky but a great adventure. One challenge was that we were going up the river so against the current. It would have been much easier to go down river with the current. 

     An interesting comment was that this would be very scenic. It's not. Most of what you see is river bank. In the odd place you had a view like the Camsel Range. 

                    Crossing the end of Great Slave Lake

Cleaning up at the end of the trip

The end of the journey

Camsell Range

TRIP ON MACKENZIE

      As you know I taught in Inuvik for three years from 1963 to 1966. I was very active outdoors. I boated and fished. In the winter I snowshoed and ice fished. 

      Every once in a while I'd hear someone say, "Wouldn't it be nice to go up the Mackenzie river." These were people without a boat or experience. You soon didn't hear much more of this idea. I thought it would be interesting but you had to have the right equipment and crew. I didn't have the right boat and I wasn't about to campaign for a crew. 

     So I met the Micro Manager and she was gung ho about going up the river. So I began thinking about a trip. We planned and organized until it looked like it was doable. 

    We had a good river boat that was flat bottomed and 6 ft wide and 16 feet long. I had two 35 horse outboards for power. We had a canvas to cover the boat and slept on the boat. So with a stove , lots of food and life jackets we set off in Aug of 1966. 

    Now there was an awful lot that the two of us didn't know. The Micro Manager didn't know anything about boating. There were parts of the river that were dangerous. But off we went. We had a chart that showed where to travel on the river channels. A young RCMP  had got this chart and wanted it back but he wouldn't tell how he got it. We notified all the RCMP posts that we were coming and to watch for us. We knew most of the RCMP. 

   The navigation was fairly simple. There were large white square signs that you had to line up. Stay in the line between the two signs. The signs were about 20 by 20. Sometimes it was about 10 miles between signs. The chart we had was full of information so  we followed it very carefully. Most of the current was quiet and the river very wide. There were a few challenging places and they were worrisome.

    The first challenging part was called the Ramparts. It was an area that cut through some very hard rock so the channel was narrow and the current strong. We were told to slow down and take it easy. This worked well but took time.

                                    Leaving Inuvik

East  branch of Mackenzie delta

                                    The Ramparts
                                             

    The next  very scary part was called the San Sault Rapids. We'd heard much about it and that there had been may deaths in the San Sault. However, many everyday people travelled through this area. It was worse than we thought and was pretty scary in some spots. It was about ten miles long and charted. If you stayed in the channel you would be alright. Again , slow down and take it  easy. It was a place where we wondered about the wisdom of doing this trip. In places there was a 4 to 5 ft. wave. When you went down some of them you wondered if you were coming back up. 

                A very poor photo of Point Separation

San Sault Rapids

San Sault Rapids

San Sault Rapids.

   

MORE GEOGRAPHY: THE MACKENZIE RIVER

      So I've been thinking about Canadian rivers lately. The huge Mackenzie river runs into the Arctic ocean.

     The Mackenzie river is 1025 miles (1650 km) long. It leaves Great Slave lake which is a huge body of water.

     There are several very large rivers which join the Mackenzie. The Peace river which runs across northern Alberta is 1925 km long. It empties into Athabaska lake. The Bear River takes this water to Great Slave Lake. Another large river (The Peace) runs across northern Alberta and does the same as the Athabaska. It empties into lake Athabaska and then the Bear River takes it to Great Slave lake. 

   There are many smaller rivers in the system such as the Liard River and the Hay River. 

    So there's an enormous amount of water in the Mackenzie River running to the Arctic ocean. The Mackenzie river varies along it's path Sometimes it's very wide. At Point Separation where the Mackenzie delta starts the river is 10 miles wide. At this point the current slows down. The Mackenzie delta is vast and some of the islands very large as is Richards island.     

   This is a navigable river as northern freight is carried on huge barges. Just think about how much fuel is needed . Huge storage barrels are filled each summer. Today a road has been built to the Arctic coast but it is no way large enough for trucks to haul all the fuel needed.   

    Being a navigable river means that it is charted and dredging is done each season to be sure that there is a channel for tugs and barges.   

    Since the Mackenzie runs from south to north it has a crazy spring break up. Ice melts in the south and water begins to push north. So the water explosively breaks the ice and the river is full of ice. Lots of the ice is pushed up on shore. People try to be there when this happens but you have to be lucky to time it right.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

JASPER FIRE

      Some of you may know that I live in Alberta, Canada.

      Some of you may know that we have a beautiful Jasper National Park in the Canadian Rockies. I live 296 km or 184 miles from the park. 

     And to connect the third dot, some of you may have heard of the huge wildfire in the Park. 

    The fire started sometime on the week end. All residents and visitors of the town of Jasper were evacuated. Jasper has a population of about 11000 and then there would be thousands of visitors. Winds and high temperatures turned the fires into raging infernos. In the mountain valleys the fires tend to race to the bottom. Wednesday the fire entered the townsite of Jasper. About a third of the town was destroyed. 

     Last night they had some rain and much lower temperatures so were able to control much of the fire. 

     It is extremely dry in western Canada so plants and trees burn easily and rapidly.

    Yesterday morning there was white ash over all my plants and the whole yard. 

    This situation has dominated our news this week. These are terrible fires.

    I live in an urban area beside a forested ravine about 700 meters across. I am worried that a fire could start in the woods some day and it could easily burn through my neighborhood. I've aske our fire department what they are doing about the situation. They have one quad with some water barrels. I do not feel safe at all. 

PICKING BERRIES

      The other day when I was looking for a noxious plant on the river bank, I discovered all kinds of Saskatoon berries (amelanchier alnifolia) that were just about ready to pick. This berry grows from parts of Alaska, throughout the Canadian prairies and into the northern states. It has many other names one of them being service berry. 

     It was a berry widely used by aboriginals in their pemmican. Settlers soon found the berry and liked it.

   My Dad loved picking Saskatoons and liked nothing better than to get some neighbors and spend the day picking Saskatoons. At that time there were very few improved roads. Saskatoon shrubs grew along the road allowance. The country was a mix of grass, shrubs and trees.

   Dad would find a place where there were berries and everybody got out of their old cars and started picking berries. Well, it didn't take Dad long to say that this place wasn't great so let's go down the road as he knew another place that he thought was better. 

    Much the same thing happened all day. 

   They had taken a lunch  and had a picnic. Sometimes pies were taken.

   So by the time Dad got home in the evening he had 5 gallons of berries and yes, a few spiders, leaves, twigs and cobwebs. They spent the rest of the evening sorting berries and washing them. One year Mom canned 96 quarts of Saskatoons. 

   However, the day was mainly Dad hurrying the group from one Saskatoon patch to another. 

   Now my Dad liked ice fishing. In fact, he was nuts about ice fishing. We were able to take the car and drive where ever we wanted on the ice which was about 2 feet thick. 

    He had a bar to punch a hole through the ice. We were little so he'd set us up first. He would then punch a hole in the ice for himself. Well, wouldn't you know it. The fish weren't biting fast enough to suit him so everything was put back in the car and he drove to another place that he thought was better. This continued all day. He wasn't a sport fisherman but wanted fish for food as he loved fish and these were perch and one of his favorite. We'd get home with about 75 fish. 

    We'd get home cold, tired and hungry. 

   So he was the same with fish as with berries.

   After supper? Guess what? We had to fillet fish. So there were two little boys who did a lot of complaining about filleting the cold fish. 

COLLEAGUES

      This fine group meets a couple of times a year for lunch. 

      We came to the same school from 1968 to 1972. Three of us stayed in the same school for more than 20 years. Three of us went into administration. 

      We were young and did not have much experience. There was an older staff member Cliff, who joined the staff at the same time we did. Cliff took a liking to us and to some extent put us under his wing. We spent many good times together socially and professionally. 

      Our fearless leader retired. A few years after he retired, he organized a lunch. We all quickly agreed. He even had us to his house and cooked the meal. We enjoyed these times together. 

     Cliff passed away and we still meet for lunches. It's always pleasant to get back together. 

     I'm the oldest at 84.  A couple of the younger ones are in their late 70's.