Tower Lake Camp and Beard, Week 10

Well, it took us a few days to get settled, but we've moved back into Tower Lake. It sure has changed since I first stayed here; the first year all we had were two shack tents (one for sleeping, one for logging and splitting), and an old trailer used as our kitchen and office. This year, we're living in the lap of luxury, comparatively.

We have a washcar with four showers and eight sinks, and the water pressure is better than I get at home. We have two nice, new accomodation trailers, each with four, two-bed rooms. And they have real beds!

We also rented a large camp generator to power this whole operation, and that means power 24 hours per day.

Now for some pictures of our little operation - This first series is taken from atop our core logging trailer, roughly central in camp, in a circle surrounding it.

To start off, here you can see our kitchen trailer with a shack tent built onto it to serve as a dining area, and behind that our washcar.


Next, looking down the hill towards Tower Lake, is the caboose where our core splitters are staying, the core splitting trailer across the trail from them, and our storage trailer (which in the past served us as a kitchen and office).


This is the trailer where I stay, my room is in the second one in from the right.


Next to us is the other sleep trailer.


The next couple of pictures are of the many, many core racks at Tower.



The two shack tent frames in the next picture are where the drilles will stay if they ever show up. We were supposed to see them on Monday, now that's been pushed back to Friday...who knows when they'll actually show.


And this is where all the previous pictures were taken from, our core logging trailer.


This is another nice shot down the hill, including the little island in Tower Lake I really like.


Next is our wash car from the front. It's so very nice having real showers!


This is a cool little cabin down the hill from the camp. We've used it as storage in the past, but it really is a historical site, it was built by a prospector, Eric Partridge in the late '50s.




Here are a couple of pictures of my room, quite a change from the old camp.



Well, I'll pretty much wrap this up here, but I'll leave you one last shot of Tower Lake.


And, of course, the beard, week ten. Seventy days.

Camp Move, and Beard, Week 9

Well, tomorrow is our big camp move to Tower Lake. It'll be nice to have a change of scenary, and I'm really looking forward to not having to make that commute out to Tower every day; a one hour, 16 km drive is not fun, let me tell you.

As soon as we've made it into camp, and the internet is up again, I'll take some pictures of the new set-up to share with all of you lovely people.

Oh, and for my beard fans (all two of you), here is beard, week nine. It's getting pretty bushy, I'm not sure how much longer I'll be keeping it (at least without significantly shortening it), so enjoy it while you can!

Camp Life Addendum

Well, a little later than promised, but better late than never! Here are a few additional pictures from camp.

Here is our wash tent:


In the interior, you can see the corner of our washing machine (new this year, and boy is it nice being able to wash clothing that way, rather than in a 5 gal. pail), and our propane heated shower.


The hot plate, wash basin and mirror where, if I was so inclined, I would shave...


...and the large container we use to store water for washing and showers.


Next up, here is our generator shelter. This is what keeps our camp running!


To close off, here is a picture of the trail going down to the lake we camp (and our dock), and then another shot of the dock and the bay. I don't often sit on the dock of the bay, but sometimes it's kind of nice.

Almost Famous

So, I just finished watching the movie with the same name as the title above. It was, quite simply, excellent. It kind of makes me feel like I wasted my youth; I mean, which is cooler, going to university, or touring around with a band?

I finally saw the famous Tiny Dancer scene. The sound track for the movie is awesome; lots of Zeppelin, plus some Skynyrd, Cat Stevens, Rod Stewart, and The Who, among others. The songs in this movie are the sort of ones that made me want to take up guitar.

It seems like so many of my favourite movies have a strong musical influence, and Almost Famous has joined those ranks. The Blues Brothers, High Fidelity, and Empire Records are some other notable names in that collection.

That's it. I just thought I'd share.

Camp Life and Beard, Week 8

Well, I figured that I would show you guys what the camp is like where I have spent each of the last three summers.

First, where I live, in the geologist's shack tent.

Here is the tent from the outside:


Below are three of the corners of the tent: Mine, Richard's, and the stove's. The other corner, previously occupied by Tyler, just has a bed with a foamie on it right now, as Ty's gone on break, so I won't bother including it.




Next, here are a few pictures from the "parking lot", where we keep our quads and various trucks, there is also a tool shed there, an area we use for fuel storage, as well as our logging and splitting area.




Next up is our processing platform, sort of the central area of our camp, although it's getting used less and less as run out of places to till sample. Here are shots of it from two sides. For those who are unfamiliar (pretty much all of you), our primary reconnaissance exploration method is taking till samples, which we process on-site, and then count the gold grains to determine where there are anomalous concenrations of gold in till.



Next to the processing platform, we have the lab building, where the microscope work takes place, as well as serving as a makeshift office.



Here are a few interior shots of the lab:




This is the office and accomodations of the head geologist in camp, formerly Klaus, now occupied by Ron.


Next up, possibly the most important structure in camp, the kitchen! Below is an exterior shot, as well as a couple of the inside.






That's enough for now. I've got some more pictures to upload, but I'm wearing down, and I've still got to go for a run before supper. I'll continue with part II in the next few days. So, for my beard fans (Yay Meg and Julia!), I'll leave you with my beard, week eight!

Trip to Flin Flon

Earlier this week, Tyler, Mary and I traveled to Flin Flon for the field trip organized to present the TGI 3 (Targeted Geoscience Initiative involving the Saskatchewan Geological Survey, Manitoba Geological Survey and the Geological Survey of Canada, along with involvement from Laurentian University) mapping results in and around Flin Flon.

I met Harold Gibson, one of the leading volcanologists in Canada, who will be teaching the first class in my masters program, staring in September. It is happening a bit later than I was expecting, from Sept. 18 to Oct. 1, but it sounds pretty cool. In addition to touring outcrops and such in the Sudbury area, we will be going to Albuquerque, New Mexico for several days! Also, for this first class, all of the assignments will be completed during the course, rather than having additional work after the class is over. It'll be nice to be able to come home without anything else hanging over my head.

We received a short course in shear sense indicators from Bruno LaFrance (who will hopefully be my advisor for my masters project), and then spent Tuesday afternoon, all day Wedneday and Thursday morning touring outcrops, looking at the mapping results of several of the individuals working in that area. There were some viguourous debates among the experts that have worked in these areas, which sometimes got a bit esoteric and more than a little boring for those of us less familiar with the Flin Flon area, but despite that we saw a lot of neat stuff. It was also a nice opportunity to meet some other geologists that I wouldn't have normally encountered. I met a number of masters students from Laurentian; I'm hoping I'll run into some of them again during my brief sojourns to Sudbury.

On Tuesday evening, I went out to my aunt Eileen and uncle Jim's place, about twenty minutes outside of Flin Flon. Eileen served us a wonderful supper, including a blueberry pie she baked in honour of my birthday, and we had a very nice visit.

Unfortunately, Tyler and I were called back to camp early, so we missed Harold Gibson presenting his results on the Thursday afternoon, as well as the wrapup barbeque on Thursday evening, which would have been a lot of fun. That was disappointing, but at least we saw as much as we did.

Okay, now for the stuff most people are probably looking for, the pictures from this outing!

Here is easily the most prominent landmark in the Flin Flon area, the huge smoke stack that vents the smoke from the smelter there. This picture truly doesn't do it justice!


The large red building in the picture below, which looks like a grain elevator, is the head frame for the mine in Flin Flon; this contains one of the elevators which gives access for men and equipment to reach the mine depths.


In the picture below, we see another head frame, giving access to another part of the mine.


Here is the field trip group on the first outcrop we visited on Tuesday afternoon.


And our group marching along the train tracks out to see some outcrops; as you can see, there were quite a few people out for this the first day, somewhere around 30-35.


Warning: the next several pictures are probably really only of interest to geologists and other science freaks. To the best of my knowledge, there are very few such individuals who read this thing (pretty much Chris Reed, I would think), so I guess I'm just putting them up for completeness' sake.

This next picture is of Bruno LaFrance, heading up an outcrop with some very nice quartz veining.


This is the same outcrop from the opposite side. For those of you less inclined to look at quartz veins, a girl wandered into the shot while I was taking it.


Look at those shear sense indicators! Okay, you can just smile and nod.


Here's a nice 'S' fold.


Below, there are nice pillow selvages, showing the border between three basaltic pillows.


Here is a quartz vein that has been micro-faulted.


Okay, now I'll put up a few more scenic pictures.






How could I forget, Isis, the rock dog? Having her along was a big distraction, but she was kind of fun, too.