Work

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Swampin’ 2.0

The owners of this resort live in Summerland (near Oliver) during the winter and come up here in the spring with a trailer full of supplies for the season. That trailer needs to be unloaded and I just happened to arrive on the same day as it did….

And that’s what I did this afternoon, hauled all sorts of things, all the food and flotsam and jetsam you need to get by for a season in a self-sufficient manner. They have at least one more day of work for me, so I’ll be in Watson Lake at least through Monday.

So far, the Yukon is exactly the place I was told it would be, as is the employment situation. 🙂

After our shift, their son took me for a short walk to see a lake he found on the property some years ago:

Lee's Lake

Lee’s Lake

I’m exhausted, sore, and in dire need of a cold beer, but boy does it feel good to have done an honest day’s labour!

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Liard Hot Springs to Watson Lake, Yukon :)

I was up surprisingly early this morning, before seven, and decided to take a closer look at my genset problem. I had initially thought that the problem was that my house battery was too depleted to start it, but the generator wouldn’t fire up with the truck battery running either. This, and the fact that my house battery hasn’t been charging while driving, lead me to conclude that the installation of the new truck battery could have something to do with my problem. I spent about a half hour under the hood with a flashlight trying to see if the techs had missed a wire, but could not see anything loose. My RV manual pointed me in direction of a solenoid switch, but I couldn’t find anything that looked like the picture in the book, so that was a dead end for me, but could be a starting point for whomever will be lucky enough to take a look at my dead generator. 🙂 At the very least, I know that my house battery and converter are working fine. I’ve also relearned that my true battery voltage is a couple of points higher than the inverter says it is.

I pulled out by, oh, eightish at the very latest, and drove the 9km that separated me from the fabled Liard Hot Springs. I had serious misgivings about stopping here, expecting a tourist trap, but nope! There is a lodge with a restaurant across from the park, but that’s the extent of the commercialism. I parked in the day use lot, across from the campground entrance, and hoofed it the rest of the way (about 1km total to the springs). I paid my 5$ day use fee and received instructions on how to get to the springs.

You have to follow a long wooden boardwalk through muskeg:

Liard Hot Springs boardwalk

Liard Hot Springs boardwalk

The first stop is Alpha Pool, which you smell before you see:

Alpha Pool

Alpha Pool

This is a shallow pool with a wading area for children.

I pushed on and passed the hanging gardens:

'hanging gardens'

‘hanging gardens’

I then came to Beta Pool, which is deeper and slightly hotter:

Beta Pool

Beta Pool

I had this pool all to myself for the time being, so I changed into my bathing suit and waded in.

Have you ever had a moment when you feel completely at peace and as one with the world? That’s how I felt as I took my first strokes in Beta Pool, looking at the last patches of snow as steam rose around me. The water was hot and rich with mineral, making me even more buoyant than I normally am. I have no idea how long I floated in that hot blue-green water staring at the bluest sky I have ever seen.

Eventually, I heard voices coming up the boardwalk and the mood was broken. I climbed out, wrapped myself in my towel, grabbed my things, and headed barefoot back down to Alpha pool. It wasn’t nearly as cold as I would have expected (just… chilly 😀 ). One lady stopped to say that I was ‘very brave’ to be walking down in my bathing suit, there was no way she was going swimming ‘in this weather.’ To my horror, I heard myself reply “Oh, it’s not so bad, really, to be walking here with no clothes on.” *dies*

Alpha Pool wasn’t quite as satisfactory, being rather crowded and noticeably cooler. I didn’t stay long. I changed and headed back to the rig, enjoying the peaceful stroll.

boardwalk heading back towards the parking area

boardwalk heading back towards the parking area

There were buffalo a short ways south of the day use area when I got back to Miranda!

I pulled out around 9:30 and soon thereafter saw this little guy:

black bear

black bear

I had a pleasant drive, passing through thick spruce forest. I was eager to reach the Yukon, but knew that the arrival would not be dramatic. The Alaska highway takes a serpentine route through BC and Yukon for a stretch, to the point that it is not officially decided if a segment of route is one side of the border or the other. So, I take this to be my first official glimpse of the Yukon since I was coming up to what was obviously a ‘welcome to BC’ sign in the opposing direction:

the Yukon, at last!!!

the Yukon, at last!!!

And, then:

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And then:

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*big grin*

I wasn’t too set on where I would stay for a least two nights in Watson Lake. I had been warned that there was a lot of theft going on at the Downtown RV Park and that the RCMP was recommending people stay at the parks west of town. I stopped in a the eastmost ‘Campground Services’, but it was just opening up and didn’t feel very secure, so I pushed on to 20 minutes(ish) west of Watson Lake to the RCMP recommended ‘Baby Nugget’ RV park. I believe I’m the first customer of the season, although there are three of us here now! The park doesn’t have running water at the moment (frozen underground pipes), but I have 30A power and excellent internet for 21$ per night, including taxes. I won’t get too comfortable since I will need to move out and get water (and dump too, at some point!), but I’m happy with the cost vs. service ratio.

So, a lifetime’s yearning has come to fruition. I am in the Yukon. Now, comes the challenge: finding work. *wry grin* I really hope to find a week or two’s worth of work then push on to a new location, all the way to Inuvik in August, but I have learned to stop making plans. Tonight, I am taking the time to breathe. Tomorrow, I will explore Watson Lake and get the word out that I want work. It will all sort itself out in time and I will savour every moment of this summer, no matter where it takes me.

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Regional Linguistic Differences

Canadian French has very distinct regional differences. It usually takes only a few sentences to determine that someone is not from your region and, if you’ve traveled enough, to pinpoint where they’re from. After six years of living in the outaouais region of Quebec, it was still obvious that I grew up in the metropolis (Montreal) and I still encountered new-to-me words and expressions that gave me pause.

I’m discovering that the same is true for Canadian English, to the great amusement of my new boss, who was astounded that I had never heard of the words ginch and gonch. “What do you call a ginchy pull?!” she asked me and I finally clued in, replying “A wedgie?!” (Don’t ask me how we got on the subject! 😀 )

This week, I worked on an inventory project and she told me to add the deckles to the list. I had absolutely no idea what a deckle meant in that context. I’ve only used the word deckle in crafting, as in a deckle edge on paper. So, she spelled it out for me–decal–and I discovered that she wanted me to add the DEE-CALS to the list. My colleagues also say deckle. HUH?! I know that even though I did most of my schooling in English there are words I I don’t pronounce properly, but decal=deckle?!

At least, I know what a chesterfield is and we agree that dinner is served past 5pm, not at noon, so we’re still partially speaking the same language, although I’m learning to keep Google open for translation purposes. 🙂

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Geeky Tourism

It’s no secret that I am a complete geek, at least it shouldn’t be! So, the following should not come as a surprise. 🙂 I went on a field trip for work today, to Canada Place. The colleague who took me there picked a route that took us through historic, and very quaint!, Gastown. There, I saw a clock that anyone who watched tv in the late 80’s, early 90’s will recognize. I forgot my camera sort of on purpose since I didn’t think it would be appropriate to take pictures on work time. I wouldn’t have been able to post them anyway. So, check out this page about MacGyver shooting locations to see some of what I saw today (first six pairs of pics)!

(Just be grateful that you weren’t privy to the entry I posted on another blog after I spent a full day at Las Vegas’ Star Trek the experience. 😀 )

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Miscellany

1) I brought the toad in for an oil change tonight. As the service tech was handing me back my keys, he said: “Are you aware that you have damage to the front wing on the driver’s side?”

I grinned and replied proudly that I was the evil culprit who had done wrong to Pommette!

My cheerfulness about the matter confused him.

2) While waiting for the car to be done, I had a wonderful dinner of a tender grilled chicken sandwich on a ciabbata roll with fresh veggies; a crisp salad of romaine lettuce and thick slices of juicy beefeater tomatoes, all of which tasted like they’d been picked at the height of summer; and a fantastic iced coffee. I had this meal at a restaurant I haven’t eaten at much in the past twenty years and which sure has grown up since the last time I was acquainted with its menu. Had I been presented this food without any wrappings, I would never in a million years guessed that I was eating a McDonald’s meal!!!

3) I have decided that spring has sprung because I say so and have stopped heating, other than turning the electric heater on super low at night to cut the dampness!!!

4) Last fall, I spent three months mostly working with ingrates who constantly belittled me (mostly because there was one kind soul). This spring, I’ve spent three months working with lovely ladies who made sure I had flowers, a gift, and cake on my 30th birthday. The way this universe always balances itself out never ceases to fill me with wonder.