Catching up.

I admit to being a bit of a procrastinator but putting off some maintenance and upgrade on one of my Komatiks was more to do with the cold weather. Modern day Komatiks are more like this.

So in lue of any bloody warming trend I was forced to go out this morning and cut some lumber, do a bit of nailing and tying of line.
The fact the winds were WNW gusting to 68 with wind chill of -41 did not make the usually simple and enjoyable task that enjoyable at all.

On completion I was sitting down to write this muse when I head a little croaky bark from the back porch. On investigation the little pisser light brown girl was sitting outside the compound barking at the wind getting in through cracks around the door. She got some character that girl.

Ve have some goot news

We have a date for the commissioning of the NMC, March 18 20008. It will take a couple of days for deficiency inspection then the keys will be handed over to Okalakatiget Society. Deficiencies may or may not be undertaken after the take over, depending on what is identified and how many.

Because of construction delays it has thrown the radio technical installation out of whack some what. The installers cant get in until the end of March to start there work, this will mean that some staff will be moving in to the building and getting started rather quickly in their new surroundings but the radio broadcasts will be still out of the old building until mid April, perhaps a little earlier.

Zee bad news is; you don't need me to identify that, just read the papers.

It's February the 28th

that means it's the Moravian Churches married peoples day. That means Fran can sleep in [having the day off] and it means I can do what I always do.

As an explanation, many of the employers in the Nunatsiavut area give their employees a choice of holidays, it's not like they get more than others in the province [well maybe just a little more in some cases] but you can take a Moravian holiday in lue of one of the statute holidays. So Fran has chosen married peoples day in this case.

The great escape. This little pisser is always getting out of the pen, she can climb the barrier and over in a blink of an eye. The others usually do not follow, just dangle or lean on the barrier.

At first she would run for cover when I came out to replace her, now she just wags her tail like crazy and waits for the pick up, or climbs back in herself. She is spoken for, Rigolet will be her new home, any other takers out there?













Still in the freezer, -30 this morning with not a big lot of release in sight. Amazing how -25 seems warm if there is no wind and -25 with a WNW wind of 30 kph can feel bloody cold, like -40 bloody cold.

Nice skating conditions.

It is fine weather for natural skating rinks. The natural rink at the Nain Husky Centre is covered in with spectator seating, change rooms and the like, but they need below freezing for the ice making. No trouble with that for now and into the short term future.
Any way they had a 4 team tournament there this past weekend, I took a report from CKOK 610 in Nain Labrador:
Nain hosted an Atom/Peewee Hockey tournament this past weekend at the Nain Husky Centre.
Four teams participated, one from Sheshashiu, one from Natuashish and two local teams; Nain Junior Icebergs and Ford's Construction.
The tournament started Friday evening and ended Saturday evening.
Each team won medals and towels.
Natuashish's team placed 4th, while the Nain Junior Icebergs placed 3rd. In 2nd place was Ford's Construction, and in 1st place was Sheshashiu.
Each team had a male and female MVP.
For Sheshashiu MVP awards went to Donovan Rich & Claudia Nui; Ford's Construction-Ocean Wyatt & Chesley Dicker; MVP's for Nain Junior Icebergs were Gustav Barbour(Jerry's) & Christa Angnatok and for Natuashish, the honors went to David Nui & Shaquille Jack.
The Top Scorer award went to Gustav Barbour of Nain and the Top Goalie trophy went to Curtis Summers of Sheshashiu.

Newsy Monday.

The good news is the sun is shining and there is next to no wind.
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The bad news is the temperature is hovering between -29 and -31 c.
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Ahrrrr.

UPDATE:

I'm OK, still have my faculties, just.

I lied about the wind it seems. Well it is not that strong but it does not have to be in these temperatures.
_40 chill when I picked up a couple young ladies out of Ontario at the airstrip, one had been here before but not this time of year. Both very excited about being here and could not wait to get out to have a look around.
If the temperatures had been about 20 degrees warmer some of the enthusiasm may have rubbed off.

I mentioned that most folk are sick of the winter what with the prolonged cold. One lady replied "sick of it already". Yep says I, our winter starts late November and goes till end of March....... "Oh".

Lounge chair photographer.

These shots taken from lounge room yesterday afternoon, sun was shinning, wind giving -29c chills. I spend enough time out in that stuff to not want to go around with the camera. Will wait for the ideal -10 calm sunny days.

Sunny again this morning, forecast is for similar and cold wind chills all week.

Bloody hell

the weather out there is as half arsed as Andy Wells. After being calm Early morning the WNW hit with blowing and drifting snow rest of the day.
The nice clear entrance and little track I dug yesterday was all but filled in. Expecting some freight I removed snow again around noon.,had a call to pick up one shipment just after that.

I have just got back in from picking up another load, had to dig out at the gate again, not as much this time.

Boy it is a busy little airstrip down there, people and freight coming and going, 4 planes in space of an hour, that is besides the morning flights. I think we should lobby an international airline to do direct flights to southern cities, the capital city continues to botch things up along those lines, and we have a plus, we are right under the incoming traffic flow from Europe.

rumble in the back porch.

It took a short time to adjust to the new temporary home, after a good feed a quick game of tag team wrestling before a nice nap.

Mother is bit put off, she keeps indicating that she wants them back whence they came, bad luck mom.



















These respite from the cold was nice, two days of warmer spell plus two days of snow, about 40 cm now sees us back into the clear cold spell, mostly clear and back to -20's for the rest of week, -36 chill this morning but with the snow around the wind does not effect things in side as much.

I'm off to shovel snow, have some equipment for the NMC coming in that needs storing, have to clear a gate and make a track in.

Update in the Arvo.

Well so much for the nice coverage of snow around town, half of it is well on the way to Europe by now, WNW gusts to 65k is making sure of that. Will I have to dig out what I dug out this morning I wonder, most likely some, be hard packed for sure, not like the light fluffy stuff moved earlier.

Busy with logistics of the last weeks of the NMC, took some pictures just now of the situation the crews are in now for some before and after comparisons later.

Endangered species.

We had 12.1 mm of snow yesterday and it's still there this morning. I took the photo about 7.30 last night to have evidence, just in case.

After shoveling snow for about 1/2 and hour my next project was to relocate the pups to an area in the back porch, with heater. They behaved really well and snuggled up and gave no aggro while all this was going on.

Come unto me all you heathens.

Today is a Moravian Church in Labrador holiday, it is to celebrate the baptism of the first Inuit shaman. There are events and church services planed all day long.
Some institutions are closed, some not, individuals involved with the church will have the day off work. Sorry about the generalities, I'm not big into theology. Any one up Ottawa way or foraging in brooks feel free to enlighten the populace.

In the same vain, some one up there is sending down some much needed snow, a nice little fall early morning, hope the wind does not pick up, though looking out the window those hopes may not come to fruition.

water issues part umpteenth

The potential water issue raised over the weekend is now an issue. How serious is yet to be determined, it is causing concern for the inside and outside staff of the Community Government, resources both financial and bodies on the ground have led to delays in dealing with it.
One other reason is that there are still 5 homes with frozen supply lines, it took about 2 weeks to dig and unfreeze the line to the old LIDC building, that has been completed, it is sort of like a one step forward two back situation.
In the meantime to the aforementioned problem: It has been determined that it is water leaking from the main line, chemical tests confirmed this. It is a reasonable assumption that it is coming from the leak that was unable to be fixed a couple of weeks ago. For some reason the water stopped running into the sewer line and is finding it's way down hill and heading for several homes and a warehouse. One other thing, the fire hydrant chamber for the area is full of water.
As mentioned the council can only do what they can do with resources available.

Not for cats eyes.

I was thinking that it would be a good day to take some outdoor photos, on further reflection it is not really conducive to that activity. The sun is shinning for sure with the hills sparkling in it's rays, but on doing some outside choirs and going for a short walk and taking the shots above it is just not comfortable. Taken across the old dam it shows what -40 wind chill kinda looks like.

So I retreated back home and took some more puppy shots.

There is a potential situation developing with water running under the snow and surfacing just down from our house. It has been developing over the last few days, a home owner has been out keeping ditches open to keep it from threatening his house, the council generator and pump is at work. Not sure of the details at the moment. One side of the road at an intersection with the main road through town is covered in ice and slush, it will only get worse as time passes.

T's the weekend

thank Yahweh for that

Well I’m happy that that second half of the week is at an end, I can re charge for the next, wonder what it has in store.
One thing led to another, some not related, except that several incidents involved the NMC.
One was I had occasion of being forced to abandon one of my long lived principles [at least in my eyes] in the interest of protecting the owners of the NMC [it’s me upbringing]. What transpired will remain with me, suffice to say I knew my actions would upset certain people, and it did, joys of taking responsibility.

Then on the same day the circulating pump on our furnace went kalunk, low and behold I did not have a back up, then my usual suppliers phone was on busy for hours. We did cop a break with the weather, temperatures rose and we did not get the wind forecast.

Then on the same day, late afternoon, I was asked to do a favor [it’s me upbringing] by some one who has not earned any favors to put it mildly. In the act of carrying out this unearned favor I slip on a snow covered icy hill, flat on the upper right side of my back [first fall this season]. Needles to say some unmentionable thoughts were going through my mind as I carried on in some pain to carry out the unearned favor. Taking deep breaths and having the pain to contend with actually helped me deal with what turned out to be a not so urgent matter; it certainly was not in my bailiwick.

The day after the circulating pump gave out I phoned a friend in Goose Bay for assistance, within minutes he had a number for me of a chap who could get a pump. Several more minutes later said chap he had a pump on the way to me from St. John’s, delivery Friday morning, weather permitting.

I called the airline local agent around 1.30, no pump, but she added a plane was due at 2. I go down at 2.15, low n behold my little package was there on the apron, looking quite lonely in amongst all those big boxes of weekend cheer.

Forty five minutes later the pump was connected and furnace up and running, good thing too as it got down to -26 or so overnight.

Our sleep has been interrupted more than usual with the puppy’s bloody noisy goings on. Not only do they squealing when mom is around but they are staring to interact with each other, lots of growling and barking, who will be the head of the pack is not yet clear, but the little fawn female takes no prisoners or bullshit from the others.
I have had to raise the corral railing to prevent escapes, will have to raise it again as the female white one did a runner. She managed to get into the smallest kind of space behind a desk.

here are they are at 28 dyas.

From the boonies of Labrador to the designer streets of Can-be-rra.

I have been reluctantly playing catch up with some house cleaning of paper work. This time of year I find a pain in the arse as I usually leave a lot of filing of stuff, investing in RSP’s and other ancillaries to the last minute, me bad.

So after a morning of mind numbing sitting in front of the word processor I took Siutik for a walk.
The sky’s had cleared, I knew the wind was up but our house is protected by the W to NW winds.
Up the road we go and head for the higher ground. On breaking out from the protection of the trees the wind was quite strong, blowing snow about 2 feet off the ground straight across the track. Siutik was reveling in the fresh snow on the way up but this stiff breeze started to get to her. For the first time ever she started to plunk herself down in my way and give me a look as if to say, ‘time to go back boss’.

We proceeded further, I even did short stints of jogging to try and simulate her interest, no go. On turning to head back she gave me a quick look to say, ‘good on ya cobber’ and took off down the hill tail a wagging. She never goes far without looking back, and when she does get out of line of sight she will always come back looking for ol slow poke. When we get back into town she will always come when I call her to be tethered to the lead again.

Another incident with a snowmobile occurred over the weekend in Goose Bay. It was the second time Barry Andersen has been in the news with a gas leakage problem with his Bombardier 600 cc, the footage on Here&Now [no link] this time showed a gas leak up under the cowling at or near the outlet of the fuel pump; gas was running down the electrical components and very close to the exhaust. Barry and his wife were all loaded up to go off to their cabin, just before starting the machine up they smelt a strong odor of gas and checked it out, needles to say the cabin trip was postponed.

Nain is not the only town with water leaks and freeze ups this winter. Hopedale has more than it’s share of problems, see CKOK news briefs for updates on this and other coastal news.
In Nain there is one mother of three children who is in dire straights after the first big water main leak. The woman claims not only her water pipes are frozen but also her sewer line. For the last month she has had to boil water on the stove for washing, bathing, and then having to bail to water out of the receptacles due to the frozen sewer pipes. The town council is looking into this matter. I do not know the circumstances here, [the woman claims it’s not her fault the council turned the water off] but from my experience if water and sewer lines freeze up inside the home it is a heating issue more than anything else

I see the new government down under moved fast to ‘do the right thing’. It will take some time to re do the wrongs of the previous government [who undid the rights of the Bob Hawk government], the leader of which did not turn up for the ceremony.
On JH must have been to busy with drafting speeches for cash to attend the sorry ceremony.

You can assimilate some of the people some of the time, but you cant assimilate all of the people all of the time.

Persil flakes.

So we are getting our snow, nice big fluffy flakes not unlike Persil.

I took the photo while over at the gas station this AM. The blue building is the old Hydro Plant, the building on the hill the new plant. They still use the tanks in foreground for fuel storage [not gas stations], they have a ‘day tank’ up the hill, fuel is pumped up when needed.

Whenever we get these snow flakes like today some sort of nostalgia seems to kick in. As a kid my mom always used Persil in the wash, for some reason I was always fascinated by the flakes, they looked so snowy and white and fluffy, little did I know what they had is store for me.
There was labour that went along with the suds fascination, at one time the washing was done in two concrete tubs, and a gas fired copper tub for heating the water. Lots of stirring, hauling out, hand wringing and the like. Then a hand operated ringer was attached between the two concrete tubs, then low n behold one year an agitator wringer washer appeared. My fascination ended about the same time I had my arm drawn through the new fangled wringer, good thing it had a trip mechanism that parted the two rollers just for such stupid incidents.

One of these was getting a fill up when I arrived at the gas station, took $1.50 worth.

Me cogitative mom and other stuff.

I had a legal size envelope in the mail yesterday; it was from my thoughtful kind considerate mom.
On opening said envelope there were a couple of photos, one of me dad on his electric scooter, one magazine ‘Australian heritage’ and 3 copies of the ‘daily telegraph’ beach guide. Like I said thoughtful kind considerate, especially after we had just come from indoors from walking into a -33 chill head wind.

Any way it brought back some memories of days yon. The series covered beaches of the NSW coast from Kingscliff in the north to Aslings beach in the south with one issue dedicated to the Sydney metro area.
I had swum at many of the beaches and had not heard of many others. Most of my beach visits were in the metro area or the south coast, I had also fished at many of the spots, mainly rock, river and offshore. Oh yeah, had an occasional drink in many of the towns.

I can just imagine the uproar from some if something like this was to be implemented in the province. Stuff like “gods given right”, “we been here hundreds of years”, “it’s the Euros over-fishing”, “the feds made me do it”.

Sunny and clear skies predominate again with a high of -17 except for a couple of days last week. Winds continue to make it seem colder, we have not had the strong westerly but what we have been having make it just on the uncomfortable side.
The forecast gives a hint of some snow, alas the same forecast shows high winds, so that is a + and a - that = 0 Then it is not as bad as for Wreckhouse, 140 k, wonder how many big rigs will bite the dust this time.

We had a funny interlude on Friday coming back from a walk. To avoid an icy patch on the normal path I decided to take am alternative rout, it comes up behind houses on the other side of our road. On peaking the hill I noticed a caribou carcass behind one of the houses. Siutik noticed it a couple seconds later, she stops and semi crouches with all senses in high gear. She does not move closer, just a little side to side movement checking things out, the carcass looked like it had been shot awhile ago, it still had the skin, head, antlers intake and was paunched.
I just let the lead stay loose to see what Siutik would do, so she backs up a pace and starts to bark at the dam thing. I gently attempted to get her to move closer, no go, so off we went with Siutik seemingly putting the whole incident out of her mind.
I’m sure it would have been different if she availed a taste of that meat.

What does five grand buy?

Had to go to the store early yesterday before going up to the NMC. I paid passing interest to the larger than normal number of snowmobiles outside, and even less of an interest in the number of people inside the store, even though the numbers were unusual for that time of day.

Made my purchase then up the hill to the NMC, did a little tour, chewed the fat, just before exiting a worker pointed out some new furniture being loaded on to a komatik outside the store. Nothing unusual, but then he mentioned that today was the last of the $5, 0000 pay out [I like to say pay off] to the beneficiaries of the Nunatsiavut land claim settlement.

So to answer my own rhetorical question; five grand buys, small medium and large electronic appliances great arm loads of clothing, cart loads of groceries
All day long large appliances were being dropped off at homes by the stores delivery trucks, TVs, tables and chairs, beds being loaded into komatik boxes, big line ups at the check outs for smaller items
I’m sure some of the money will be spent in the pursuit of leisure, but it is great to see a goodly part of it going on long lasting and much needed items.

Just to put traveling on the TLH in a bit of perspective. I acknowledge the TLH can be a bit of a nightmare, but I have traveled on way worse roads in Australia, why even in St.John’s NL.

TGIF, or rather TCIF

It has been a somewhat hard week mentally for me; I don’t do “silly manipulating mind games” very well, seems some business people thrive on it. I think we have come to some sort of a resolution, it will be made clearer in several weeks, I just hope for everyone’s sake common sense prevails.

The school is closed today [the primary at least] for an in-service, closed again Monday for a floating holiday. What with all the weather closures and the no water closures this year it puzzles me that some sort of accommodations could not be made to play catch up in the education of our children.

Fran had a funny anecdote to tell on the floating holiday. Fran asked on of the staff at work “how do you translate floating holiday into Inuktitut”?
Literally it would be the holiday is floating on the water, or the harbor. Any way in the full context of the anecdote it was funny.

The four photos taken yesterday of the NMC are of the top floor, the radio department. The hall way shots give a bit of an idea of color and what that area will look like when completed. The exposed insulation is where the lift shaft is.
One may wonder why shots of the ceiling. Well one gives an idea of the feature wall color of the radio meeting room, the other is of the edit room and the main color of the whole building. On the other side of those walls is the radio control room, then other side of that the interview room.
These rooms are the hub of that floor, the raison detr for the whole project.

They are also one of the contributing factors of my hard week.

They are supposed to be sound proof rooms, there will be lots of live on air stuff being done in there, its a radio studio, eh?
So the design has the sound proofing insulation and double gyprock finishing 3 feet below the rafters, then an acoustic ceiling hung like these tow pics show.

This oversight was picked up before Christmas and pointed out to the appropriate people. It still has not been corrected, there is a written promise made [only this week] that it will be corrected before the project is completed.
One has to take the written promise at face value; it’s like pulling teeth, or getting blood out of a stone.




I have an idea for Amy; why not go in through Mexico. What’s the worst can happen if caught, a little sabbatical in the sunshine of southern Cuba, would help get her off drugs too.


Have a nice weekend folks, weather is looking good for here, rather have snow myself.

Indulgences.

Had some left over roast beef, so what better way to use it up than have the provincial favorite of hot meat sandwich with fries. I cheated, I had an open sandwich, Fran had the top on. Fries were combo of spuds and yams.

If I was living in Natuashish and the old bill got a hold of this photo they would be knocking on our door by now.

Seriously though, I wish the media would go slow on covering the new by-law outlawing alcohol in that community. Even though I do not agree with going totally dry I think that all involved from the community leaders to the people to law enforcement to addictions workers need time to get something together. The last thing they need is some reporter hounding them for answers and solutions no one has yet.

Having said that, if I personally see some arse hole loading up his komatik with beer here in Nain, and I can ID him and what community he is from, I will reveal him/them. Personal consumption is one thing, bootlegging is another.

Rolling right along with the hard week. CBC has reported that the police have laid charges of sexual assault against this guy. He is to have his first court appearance next month in Nain.
I used to have mixed feeling on the guy some years back; alas he continues to throw scorn and cause grief for many people, some very close to me. The nicest thing I can come up with is to use the age old baseball analogy.

That was a refreshing wake up.

After a morning of making bread interspersed with telephone calls and e mails in attempting to sort out "trivial" items I felt the need to clear the old noggin.

The sun was shining, the outside temperature showed -14 at the house and it looked like a light wind blowing.

So out I go, with the dog, and head west. Bloody hell, just up the road the wind hit a hell of a lot brisker than I thought 50 K and -31 wind chill, and here's me dressed for -14 and light wind.
Any way we battled on and headed for the woods on the other side of the dam. Poor old Siutik is baffled by the conditions off the road. It looks so attracting, pure clear snow glistening like diamonds in the suns rays. Alas as soon as she heads into the woods, plop, down to her amamuks [teats], struggles to get out of it and return to the more solid track. Cold on the teats too one would think, but with all the work they are getting these days it may provide some relief.

On our return the pups were lined up like a row of snags [sausages], when i got the camera out to go in mom followed and jumped up on the bed to make sure all was copacetic, as is her wont.











As mentioned before the word trivial got my blood pressure up. It was mentioned in the context of the following:
We just discovered late last week that the wood trim around the interior of the windows, plus the stair rail, of the NMC was good quality maple. For the windows it was 5/8" x 51/2", not sure of the dimensions of the rail. Non the less it seemed quite absurd [diplomatic term] that the paint schedule of 3 coats of a deep brown paint would be applied to wood of this quality, not to mention price.
If the client had been informed back when it should have been informed that this material was to be utilized, then the client would have had the opportunity to offer up it's view as to what finish should be applied. But no, it was not done that way. So when questions are raised just days before the material is to be painted one gets accused of bringing up trivial issues.

The up side is the client is getting the wood clear lacquered and not painted, that is just one of the many trivial issues that have and will be raised, not to mention filed away.

T's a fine Monday morn indeed.

Not that there is anything special about it, sun is out, nice chilling breeze giving -29 wind chills, but hay we have the whole week ahead.
I am not looking forward to it in one way, in another I am. I have reasonable health, comfortable home, great wife, dog, dogs.
I think I can deal with most things these recidivist so called building design experts can throw at me. Says I with fingers crossed, touching wood and rubbing a rabbits foot all at one time.

Noticed this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqM8k4cmUvI over at Blork. Got me to thinking why the proud go it alone mob down on the Avalon peninsula could not come up with something as creative as this?

No really, I'm in a great mood, should see me when I get down and pissed.

Berry good.

There were some packets of dried blueberries in the store yesterday [$10.89 for 200 grams], I showed them to Fran, "would be good in pancakes" was response.
So added some to crepes for breakfast, not bad, not as good as fresh picked from the hills behind, but most of the goodness is in them.

Nice day today, not a lot of wind, OK for walking as long as you stick to trails made by snowmobiles. Get off there and it's like glass, the sound it makes when you brake through is like shattered glass too.

Siutik is enjoying the breaks from the pups, actually is starting to insist on the breaks, she continues to be a great mom though.

Bummer on the water leak.

Things are not looking good in the attempts to repair the water main leak.
The oozy sandy soil is caving in on itself leaving a large cave in under about 5 feet of frozen ground. Precarious for the guys working down there too.

This is not official, but it may be that the leak won’t get fixed until the spring.

I tried to show the cave in under the frost with these pictures, and the conditions the guys are working under. The last photo shows the water bubbling up after the water was turned on again.

A start

but as everybody knows a long way to go. Natuashish became the fist community to ban alcohol last evening. The vote was close, 76 for the ban 74 against. Chief Poker said that it was a tie at one point, then two late arrivals to the gym voted with the yes side.
Voter turn out was low; the 2006 census shows 710 soles with 435 over the age of 15. Reports are saying half of the eligible voters turned up.

It is a first positive step sure [personally I am against bans of this type] and a lot of work ahead for the community, police, addictions and social workers, I wish them all the best.

It sounds like dealing with bootleggers will be in the hands of the RCMP; Poker says they now have the tools to clamp down. RCMP is saying that not much will change from their point, but it is a step forward.

The Google Earth shot show the 3 northern most communities on the coast, Nain is top left partly hidden.

So we are into a little storm, nothing major just winds to high 60 clicks giving drifting snow, wind chills to -35. The water is to be turned off at 9 for 4 hours; looks like the guys have located the source of the water main leek, taken several days to dig around and down to the valve.