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Published: November 22nd 2010
It has been a while since my last entry, although not for lack of material. Surprisingly, I have spent more time up north over the fall than I did in the summer (which is peak fieldwork season). The longer trips for the most part replaced with shorter excursions and day-trips, which made for a lot more time in the air. If I had kept a log of all my travels over the last few months, I would not be surprised if I found that I'd spent more time in a Pilatus than in my car.
One of the longer trips I made was to
Big Trout Lake, also known as Kitchenumaykoosib Inninuwug (affectionately abbreviated to "KI")... one of the many northern communities with more than one name. The work we did in KI was a definite learning experience- not just for me, but for everyone else. We were overseeing the installation of an "interception trench" lined with an environmental remediation tool called imbiber beads- tiny balls of absorbent material which actually form a chemical bond with diesel molecules in the soil so that there is no chance of it escaping. I do not remember offhand the exact numbers we worked out but each pound of imbiber beads
could extract somewhere in the ballpark of 27 pounds of contamination from the soil. The use of them in a trench was to not only absorb some of the spilled fuel out of the ground, but to prevent the contamination from moving through the water table and into someone else's property. It was the first time working with these beads not only for me, but for the entire team of Hydro staff and environmental consultants.
KI is the second-largest community we work in, with some 1,300 permanent residents. KI, along with Sandy Lake (the largest community we serve, ~3,000 people) is the only place that I have seen businesses other than the standard Northern store/gas station that are present in all the remotes. There are one or two other general stores, as well as a convenience store or two and a coffee shop/restaurant.
Another of my longer trips brought me back to Fort Severn, and this time I didn't even get stuck. Even a few months after the peak of summer when I'd originally visited, the days are much shorter and the weather is much colder. We try for a second visit to the coast of Hudson Bay
but the worn old road we barely made it through last time had large section underwater, and we were skeptical of even our diesel F250's ability to make it through.
One thing that has always struck me about Fort Severn during my stays there is how friendly the people are. You'll recall from my
original blog entry about Ontario's northernmost community that one of the local guys who just happened to bump into us was excited to point out a polar bear in the distance, and lend his binoculars so that we could see it... Although no exotic animals were to be see on this trip, I've found that every time we need directions or even just a question about the town, the people there didn't hesitate to help us out.
By far my favourite part of working up north in the fall was the flying. Getting to see the transformation that the boreal forest undergoes from a bird's eye view, from the height of summer to the start of winter, was absolutely incredible. The bright greens fade to yellow, blending in with the evergreens that never change colour... there are no red or oranges in the north, as the
The Hawkers!
I have never heard anything scream like the Hawkers scream...oaks and maples that produce them can't live much farther north than Thunder Bay.
As I mentioned above, it got cold
quickly. In September I was wearing sunscreen and short sleeves, and by late October I was working in wind and sub-zero temperatures. My last trip to Kasabonika had me sloughing through 12-hour days with highs of -20 and a foot or two of snowfall (I was actually very close to having my last trip be another "extended" one).
I've spent a lot of time in Kas this fall, unfortunately due to a spill that occurred there in August. Despite a number of alarms, trips and contingencies, when you are flying large amounts of fuel into the far north sometimes things don't go as you'd hope. Thanks to Adrian the remediation is underway in record time (for the far north at least) and the contaminated soil has been removed and isolated in a Bio-Cell. The upside of all this is that it gave me the opportunity to see a response to an oil spill firsthand, from the initial discovery to negotiations with the Band Council to the actual remediation. It will still be years before the soil is
clean, but having it isolated removes the danger that the contamination will spread.
The spill in Kas also gave me the opportunity to work with Sonny, an excavator operator who is one of the most pleasant people that I've ever worked with. Besides being an absolute surgeon with the excavator, he was always early to work, and on more than one occasion would call us late at night with ideas on how to get more done the next day. Sonny is from the
Eabametoong First Nation at Fort Hope, which is currently undergoing a
tumultuous period to say the least (incidentally, I ended up in the Wasaya waiting room with the passengers of
this flight, waiting for their ride to tour the community). Despite the events and negative publicity currently engulfing his hometown, Sonny is extremely proud of where he comes from... the first time I met him he had an Eabametoong First Nation shirt on and immediately upon introducing himself he made it known that that was where he hailed form, all the while with a beaming smile on his face. He talked about his home often, and although I knew that he also loved his adopted home in Kasabonika, I could tell he still
relished any opportunities to go back to Fort Hope
Although it is not in the same dire straits as Fort Hope, Kasabonika is not without its own problems. You'll remember from an earlier post that oxycontin abuse is rampant in the community... well this is still the case. A pill of oxy will go for up to $500 in Kas apparently (up to $125 for a 1/4 pill... usually ground up and insufflated). Normally, oxycontin addicts are very mellow, kept calm by the effects of the drug. In the far north however, the difficulty of smuggling in illegal drugs combined with the high price apparently results in the "customers" being kept in a perpetual state of withdrawal, only placated for a short time until desperately needing another fix. This has lead to extremely high rates of theft, as anything left vulnerable is quickly stolen and sold off. As depressing as all this is, it could be much worse- I have met with the Chief of the Kasabonika First Nation on one or two occasions with Bob (concerning the spill) and when the topic comes up, I get the sense that he is genuinely concerned and is trying to not
only stop the social side effects of drug abuse in Kas, but also very much wants to help those that are addicted. It is hard to say what would happen without an honest effort to curb such abuse in the community by their leaders. I also wonder how the NAPS (
Nishnawbe-Aski Police Service are able to cope... most towns have only a few officers which leads to sometimes longer-than-desired response times (on one excursion to
Kingfisher we watched a nearby building burn down for over half an hour while attempting to contact police and/or fire services) which likely doesn't help the situation. There was a
documentary made recently about the challenges faced by the NAPS, I hope to watch it when I get some more time.
The work in the north certainly hasn't gotten easier- I have simply traded in the heat, sun and bugs for cold, wind and snow. Despite some of the long weeks (and bumpier flights) I still love the trips up, and am going to miss the wake-up-and-get-on-a-plane lifestyle that comes with working in the far north... another week and I will be back in downtown Toronto. Here's hoping I manage to find some field work in Southern Ontario
as well 😊
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