Resilience Amidst Nature: The 2013 Whitecourt Planting Season

On June 19th, we had crazy thunderstorms all night. On the morning of the 20th, we started to go to work but turned back for safety reasons, because we thought that the access roads to our blocks might wash out during the day and we'd be stuck. Everyone went into town for the day, and a few hours later, the main bridge on highway 66 collapsed, making it impossible to get trucks or people back into camp. Our camp remained isolated for 35 days. We worked out of motels for a bit then moved to another contract and set up a fresh camp, after using a helicopter to fly out as much gear as possible. This is the same flooding that shut down the central core of Calgary for a week. We were living in tents in the middle of the worst hit areas. Luckily, we didn't lose anything significant, unlike many people in Calgary and surrounding areas who had homes destroyed. By the way, the photos on this page aren't in chronological order, so you'll see photos jumping back and forth from before and after the Flood.

There should always be a primary and a backup mustering point in camp, as a meeting place in case of an emergency.

Mathilde.

Canada Goose and goslings.

Kerry, looking out the window at a washout.

Reviewing the game plan.

Chas.

Erik.

The breakfast lineup at five minutes before 6am, at the motel in Cochrane.

Mike.

Paddy.

Unloading a truck.

Alyx and Kole, setting up the satellite internet dish.

Destruction in Bragg Creek after the Flood.

Kini.

Nicole.

Tereza.

Debbie. No, seriously.

This was funny. This picnic table was floating around in a small lake after the Flood. I saw it again several hours later, and the Tim Horton's cup was still sitting on the table, albeit lopsided. So I decided to take a photo.

Connor.

Digging a grey water pit.

Ania.

Emilee.

Taking nature photos. This owl became a bit of a mascot in camp, since it hung around constantly and wasn't too shy of the planters.

Flying gear out of our stranded camp. I wish that I'd gotten a good photo of the shitters being flown out.

Thierry, Jeremy, and Simon, setting up the propane tanks for the kitchen.

The crummy, parked on one of the blocks.

Southern Alberta can be a nightmare to work in, due to heavy mud that destroys equipment. Having a fleet of decent quads is a must.

Unloading a truck.

One of the blocks. Nice scenery.

Simon.

Luke. It looks like he might be throwing his juice bottle onto the ground for completely unknown reasons. Just checking to make sure gravity is still working, I guess.

Sarah.

Andrew, waking up in the morning.

Arriving at the block.

ATV's aren't permitted to drive around without permits in a lot of these areas. We got permits for all of our ATV's and vehicles. These guys, apparently, did not.

A chain of locks on a gate. Look closely, you'll see this is a wise idea. Three different organizations each have a lock in this chain, so employees from any of the three organizations can get access through the gate if they have a key for just one of the locks.

One of the blocks.

Another amazing view.

Chris.

A close-up of the owl.

A squirrel.

This pilot was doing turns around our block early one morning.

Susie.

Random hay bales.

Steve, in action.

The road into one of our blocks. This is the section that initially caused us to decide to have our regular day off a day early.

Not one of our trucks. Not sure why he parked it in the water.

Crew ahead.

Kerry.

Another block.

Thom.

Who says that all the blocks in Alberta are flat?

Long walk-ins into blocks are common.

An unknown lake.

Morning stretches.

Andrea and Andrew.

Kathryn.

A butterfly. Look at its colouring. The spots on its tale are apparently nature's way of protecting the butterfly by making predators think that the head is at the tail and has large pincers.