HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD

      Yesterday was Dad's birthday and he would have been 112.

      Dad was born in a clay house 7 years after the family came to Saskatchewan to homestead. They had dirt floors. He liked the little clay house that was warm in winter and cool in summer. These were the same clay houses which were built in Russia and the Ukraine. 

     Of course, what better name to give a little baby born in August but August. So Dad was Emil August. The e in German was pronounced as long a. His mother in law who was English tormented him that it should pronounced with a long e. 

     Birth registrations in Saskatchewan from 1910 to 1912 were some how lost. When Dad applied for a passport in the 1960's the reply was, Mr Kline, we have never heard of you. That meant that he had to go through a procedure to prove has age. Dad was a little miffed as he had been paying income tax for close to 30 years. 

    He had never received a call to join the forces in the Second world war. So this explained why the army didn't find him.

SNOW

       I must admit that I like the comments I get when I talk about snow. This will be my first snow post for this  fall.

       I was shocked the other day when I heard a forecast for snow in the mountains.

      I live about 100 km from the Rocky Mountains. Most of the elevation in this huge range is from 8000 feet to 10000 feet. A few peaks are higher like beautiful Mount Robson. 

     Their are many glaciers that have been there for thousands of years. All summer at the higher elevations you will get fresh snow.

     So the forecast of snow was not out of the ordinary. Where I live we had a high of 24.

     But the snow does remind me that fall is on the way and then winter. 

     This is a peak in Montana which I think was 11000 feet. I climbed this one on a hot afternoon. Getting on the peak was a little tricky. I hope John will recognize this peak and give me he name. 

OLE

      We paid our respects and final good byes to Ole this week. 

      I taught with Ole for at least 25 years. Every day he came to work and worked hard. He taught math and wanted every student to succeed to the best of their ability. 

     Ole was a very large gentle man who could occasionally get riled up when there was justification. He was patient for most of his life. 

     Stories about Ole would fill a book and Ole could tell stories that would fill a book.

    Ole remained single and had one brother who was married with children. Ole worshipped all of them. He took the whole family to tour Europe for 2 weeks. He took all of them to Hawaii and Disneyland.

    When we went on school retreats Ole would request me for a room mate before any planning was done. He said, "Red doesn't drink!" What he actually meant was Red doesn't party. 

     Ole was very active in the community and sports. It's cool that he was the PA announcer for the base ball club. When he was younger he played base ball and was a very competitive bowler. 

      Cool that the funeral celebrant had been a student of Ole's. 

       One time it was rumored that there would be a fight between some kids in our school and the next door school. The principal asked Ole and I to keep an eye on the yard and if anything happened we were to look after it. Kids did show up so out we went. Ole with his hands behind his back and a very gentle confident smile. We stood there and after a few minutes everybody went their own way and the excitement was over. I didn't do a thing but Ole did. 

     I will remember him and I can still hear his voice. 

A SURPRISE SMELL!

        I woke up 3 or 4 times last night and a couple of times I noticed a different smell. It was  pleasant smell but I couldn't identify it.

      When I got up this morning and my head cleared up, I thought about the smell. Then it hit me! I was smelling fresh air with no smoke. So all summer we've had smoke from the fires. It's a long time since we didn't have smoke. 

     We still have many fires but no big ones. Fall is a fire season so it won't be long until there's more smoke.

    You don't realize what the smoke is doing to you. I'm outside most of the time. I don't think you beat the smoke by staying in the house with doors and windows closed.

    The people in Jasper were allowed back in the town 2 or 3 days ago. The ones who lost everything had a look at the damage and then there's nothing more they can do until insurance is settled. The other people have lots of cleaning to do. Deep freezes and fridges have t be thrown away as the power was off. The caretakers were working in the school for the summer. They had windows open and had to leave quickly so the windows were left open so the school is a mess. The kids may be bussed to Hinton for a while.

    So that's enough on fire for a while. 

OLD JACK

       I grew up in the 40's and 50's on the Saskatchewan prairie. At that time quite a bit of the land was not developed.

      Most farmers had a dog...a farm dog. This dog was supposed to do work for the farmer by herding cattle. Very few dogs herded cattle because they had not been trained. The farmers didn't know how to train the dogs. Most of them were border collies. 

     The other thing the dog did was to act as a guard dog. They were hit and miss at this job too. They barked like crazy when the neighbors came on the yard. They sniffed all four tires and then left their own stink to be taken home by the car to the neighbor dog.

         These dogs stayed outdoors all the time. Some farmers had a dog house for the dog but most of the time the dog looked after itself. Most of the time they slept on the step. These dogs did not come in the house. As kids we thought it was ridiculous that a dog would be in the house. 

       We had a great old border collie by the name of Jack. An uncle gave us this dog and he had trained it reasonably well. But Jack had some issues. Jack would chase every rabbit on the farm. He would go bounding through the brush yelping as if he had been only half shot. He would come when called from this activity.

     You just had to say the word car and Jack was at the car door. Jack thought that any vehicle that moved on the yard meant a ride for him. He liked riding on the tractor all day. Why? When a rabbit bounded up in front of the tractor Jack leaped off the tractor in a dangerous way to chase the rabbit. One day Jack didn't quite make the leap off the tractor. The tractor ran over Jacks hind end. He was yelping for a different reason. He was very sore and in pain for a few days but he survived. Fortunately the soil was soft and he was not injured badly .

    Of all the farm dogs we had Jack was the best. 

    

OOPS

     When I finished high school, I got a job on the railroad for ten weeks before I started Teacher's College. The pay was a dollar an hour. So I received $40.00 a week and worked for 10 weeks so that was exactly $400.00. My whole year of Teacher's College cost $700.00. 

     I was on the section gang which was a crew of 2 -4 who looked after about 7 to  8 miles of track. We inspected the whole section every morning. We did all kinds of maintenance . I liked the work as it was outdoors and physical. 

   It was in the days before diesel locomotives were used. Steam engines pulled the trains. There were two passenger trains a day and 3 or 4 freights a day. 

   There was a routine when trains went by. We usually new what time the trains were due and would be off the tracks waiting. We had to look at all wheels as the train rolled by. 

    One day after lunch we were doing what was called trimming. The west passenger train went by shortly after lunch. All of a sudden I heard the boss yelling at me and waving for me to look the other way. The passenger train was coming. It was very close! Maybe 300 meters. I stepped off the tracks and it wasn't very many seconds that the train went by. By this time it was whistling to attract my attention. 

   That was a close one and has stayed with me all my life. It was just too close.

    Steam engines coming toward you were fairly quiet. Particularly  the large locomotives that pulled passenger trains. Passenger trains travelled at a high speed. 

   The three other crew members had to stop and collect their thoughts for a few minutes after this close one. The boss wasn't happy with me and he let me know it. I still think of how I disappointed the crew as far as safety was concerned. 

A CONFUSING DAY

       Around here, I get the groceries. The micro Manager does the shopping. In other words, the Micro Manager decides what to buy. Her shopping depends entirely on fliers and specials. She doesn't make a menu for the week and then buy groceries to fit the menu. She matches to the max. Unfortunately the Micro Manager is not physically able to run around stores and pick things up. 

      This morning I started out with a list for 5 stores. My plan was to only go to two stores. With these restrictions in finding groceries to fit the list it can get confusing. Grocery stores don't make it easy. There's a hot price but it's for one item only. I got caught an that one this morning. 

     So there I was trying to find out which store had cookies on sale and whether this store would match or not. They didn't match. Same with the crackers. Oh yes pick up my frozen stuff last. Just remember , I was 80 when I first bought groceries. 

     So needless to say I was a bit stressed by the time I finished the groceries.

     As I was at customer service they asked me if my wife was in the store . Well no,  but there was an Asian lady who fell and cut her leg.  As I was leaving customer service another employee rushed up to me and asked if my wife was in the store. I just got out the door and another employee rushed up. I wondered , what have I stolen now? She also wanted to know if I had a wife in the store.

     Just then another staff member rushed up to say that the problem had been solved. An elderly couple had got separated. The wife was waiting after paying for groceries. The husband was looking for his wife. Why were they chasing me? I had a red shirt and the guy they were looking for had a red shirt. 

   It may sound silly and funny but I thought how stressed these two elderly people had to be. I felt sorry for them.

    I had seen the man with the red shirt. He looked confused. I almost asked him if I could help him. If I had asked it would have saved a lot of upset. 

    So with the challenge to find my groceries and being incorrectly identified, it was a stressful day.

A LUCKY BREAK

       When I was grocery shopping Tues. I saw a couple of little kids that reminded me of my brother and I. My brother and I were Irish twins. We were born less than a year apart...eleven months and two weeks. 

      When we were about three and four we were sent to our paternal grandparents for a few days. I have no idea why were were sent to the grandparents or  how long we stayed.  Our paternal grandparents were quite old. At that time we were the only grandsons they had. We were like the little guy in the cartoon where a dotted line shows where he went. We were fast. We went all over the yard. We went through the barn and chicken house. We climbed over the woodpile. We ran through Grandma's garden. We were on the go all day. 

     There was one rule and that was we must not cross the road. Across the road was a gravel pit and it was like a big sandbox. We sneaked across the road a few times but were never caught. Sooner or later we were caught. Grandpa came out to the road to call us. He had a big tree branch. The big tree branch meant one thing and that was that we would get a "lickin" . We couldn't believe that our loving Grandpa would give us a "lickin". We took the smallest steps we could and as slow as we could to come up to Grandpa. 

    When we got up to him he took us to the steps at the house. We sat down and he used the tree branch to make whistles for us. We were amazed at the whistles and went over the yard again with the whistles.

    Grandpa was 70  when I was born so old for a grandpa. A three and four year old must have been a challenge for  them. We didn't know that Grandpa didn't speak English. He talked to us in German and we didn't know the difference.

    So keeping with the luck theme, we were lucky we didn't get punishment but got unique  a toy.  

       This photo of my grandparents is about 1947. 

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.