Photos
These pictures were taken in July of 2008, while working for ANC (Alberta Newsprint Company) in Edson, Alberta.
Kent, getting ready to fly into one of the chopper blocks.
A small bird eating a bee. There were a couple of these birds on the landing at staging, and they were incredibly tame. They were willing to come right up to people's hands, or walk over their feet. This one is eating a bee that it caught. The photo was taken from about eight inches away.
This cache is a perfect example of why it makes sense to buy bigger tarps than the smaller sizes available.
Sarah, getting ready to start working on one of the fill blocks.
This is supposed to be the block, but where is it?
Foreman Dan Gillespie, getting ready to load up some boxes from the main cache.
The main cache is starting to look pretty empty.
Our fuel cache. The logs around it are supposed to keep trucks from backing into it. However, this is mostly unnecessary these days. It's a holdback from when all the trucks were gasoline, and we used to drive up to the cache and fuel trucks out of large barrels. Nowadays, all of our trucks are diesel and they get filled from a tidy-tank mounted on the checker's flat-deck pickup. Usually, the only fuel stored in the fuel cache would be jerry cans of gasoline for the generators, or maybe some kerosene pails for the dry tent heaters.
James, getting ready to move his quad away from a muddy section of the road.
Here we see James collapsing some empty tree boxes.
Jon Brennan, on one of the cutblocks.
David Parent, tying in a couple of spare tires, so they can't bounce out of the back of the truck.
Moving a pile of tree boxes.
Setting up sling loads of trees to be flown into the blocks.
Ellie & Renee, waiting for the chopper to fly them into the block in the morning.
Katie & Mark, waiting for the chopper to fly everyone else out at the end of the day.
Kelley, glad that the day is over.
A big spider, on the side of the truck. The red spots on its back are probably to fool predators, and make it look a lot more scary than it actually is (by appearing to be a set of eyes, and making the spider look larger), since it doesn't have a strong venom to protect itself.
Phil, the Highland base manager, fueling up the helicopter.
Dan's Big Box truck, on the last day of the season.
More muddy roads, our "highways" to the blocks. This one is pretty slick, but at least it doesn't have deep ruts.
Greg, getting ready to quad some boxes into the block.
Ellie, showing off her boots at the year-end dinner.
Shelley & Katie.
Kelley. I'm not sure what she was doing at the time.
A photo in Mount Robson on the way home. I liked this photo because of the distinction between the blue-green of the spruce tree on the left, and the richer forest-green of the pine tree on the right and slightly in the foreground.