Catching Up On The Colville With Teena - June and July 2010

My goal today is to finally get another post up on my blog.  This chore has been neglected way too long. The summer has flown by and there have been many things I could have been sharing.  I will just hit the highlights for now.

JUNE

Most significant was Jim and my 40th Wedding Anniversary. Jim gave me a homemade card.

Jim is holding one of our little sled-dog puppies in the early 1970's.

                      

The month was generally uneventful, except we enjoyed the usual bird activities ramping up, summer flowers coming on, and our muskox cow and calf still hanging around.

JULY

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July was a pretty full month, starting out with our oldest son, Derek, coming to the Colville to help out so Jim and I could get away on a little outing.  Bad weather prevented us from fulfilling our original plans of a camping trip inland, but we did have a gorgeous July 4th trip upriver on the Colville in our super cub, The Golden Plover.  We landed at numerous locations to enjoy the scenery and masses of flowers beginning to bloom.  

Colville River Bluffs - east bank

"The Golden Plover" on a Colville River sandbar about 40 miles above delta.

Lapland Rosebay (Rhododendron lapponicum)

Looking out at the Colville Bluffs from the cub

We flew along the Colville and the water levels on the river were still quite high, yet our usual sandbar landing spots were available.

Field of Lupine

Jim in the pilot's seat. Blue-bird day.

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Another July event was carrying on with usual summertime guests - mostly birders and people who love adventure in unusual places.  Among other guests, we had a delightful group of birders the first week of July: Jon & Peggy Traver, George Archibald, Sara Simmonds, and Matt Campbell & Carol Kasza.

Sara Simmonds, Jon & Peggy Traver, George Archibald

Muskox cow and calf wandering by lodge

They were treated to "close encounters" with our special summer guests,  Mama and son muskoxen.  (As I write here in late September, the two muskoxen have stayed near our home for nearly 5 months now.  They first showed up May 22 , when the calf was only a few days old.)

Sara and Teena on departure day

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July 6th was warm and sunny and a large caribou herd came by our place. We took the opportunity to harvested some much-appreciated fresh meat.  It is always nice to have our fresh meat delivered to the backyard so conveniently.

Fresh meat delivered to backyard

Ruby's first fresh caribou meat

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On July 13th we were treated to a special "first of its kind" event when our son Jay flew up to the Colville from Fairbanks with his 3 young children also aboard the Cessna 172.  It was the first time one of our boys had piloted a plane into the "old home base".  It was something Jay had been looking forward to for a long time, and it was exciting for Jim and me to have them here and exciting  for the kids to be at Grandma and Grandpa's house again.  Especially Natasha had been asking her parents repeatedly about when she could go to G-ma's house again.

Ride with Grandpa after arrival at Colville

Also aboard the plane was Jon McIntyre, our long-time friend and aircraft maintenance expert, who had come to help Jim prepare the C-206 to be flown to Fairbanks after several years of sitting idle at the Colville. After Jon got the C-206 prepped to fly, he and Jim left for Fairbanks. The C-206 was headed to a new home.  Jim was to return by commercial airlines and Jay picked him up in Deadhorse with the C-172 and returned him home to the Colville a few days later.

C-206 on take-off run at Colville

Grandma had to bundle up the kids to go for a walk on a blustery day.  Dad had forgotten how even summer days on the Colville could be quite chilly, so Grandma had to rustle-up some warmer gear.

Elisha, Melody, and Natasha

Kids watching TV with hot choc after cold walk

Kids with Grandpa

Natasha, Melody, Elisha at counter

 Time flew by and the day to head back to Fairbanks came too soon.

Dad getting everyone settled aboard the C-172

Grandpa and Elisha

Natasha in co-pilot's seat

Elisha and Melody not too happy to leave.

Good-by Jay and kids. Thanks for the visit!

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The next major July event for me was a whirlwind 5 day trip to Seattle.  It started with one day in Fairbanks to connect up with my brother Mark and his wife Denise.  That one day included time for enjoying a few events and friends at the World Eskimo-Indian Olympics (WEIO).  I saw friends from Barrow, Nuiqsut, and especially my friend Doreen Simmonds, a childhood playmate going back to the 1950's in Barrow.

Mark, Denise, and Doreen at WEIO

Friday, July 23, 2010 was a long day starting at 4 AM, flying from Fairbanks to Seattle, meeting more family in Seattle for lunch, and then driving to Sequim on the Olympic Peninsula with my older sister Merrily and her husband Steve, ending up at my dear friend Brenda Williamson's house for the night.

Brenda lives in a paradise of beautiful plants and flowers.  Since the last time I had visited her, the house was newly built sitting in a large empty field, so it was delightful to see the results of Brenda's green thumb and hard work. Timing was perfect to enjoy lush patches of bright flowers and plants of many kinds and colors.  I felt I was in an elaborate botanical garden or famous arboretum.

Part of Brenda's yard

Merrily and Brenda by front porch

Flowers galore

Roses

Brenda, Teena, Merrily

The stay with Brenda was short because the main reason for the Seattle trip was to attend two family reunions, so we returned to Seattle after only one day on the Olympic Peninsula.  The weather was beautiful and I reveled in the green scenery and beautiful mountains all around.  Mt. Rainier was spectacular the entire time I stayed in the Seattle area.

Crossing Hood Canal Bridge with Mt. Rainier on the horizon

This posting is getting too long, so I will continue in another installment, sharing pictures from the Wartes Cousins Reunion and my Mom's Orsborn Reunion.

Commencing Into Summer

Breakup of the river ice is long over now, but all the snow is not totally gone. The deep snowdrifts that build up around the buildings are still melting. Ice on our lake next to the house is weeks away from being all melted too. (Deep-water lakes all across the North Slope remain ice infested clear into July.) The prairie grasses are brown and dirty-looking, but will soon start turning green. In the picture below, taken from an upper window in our lodge, the river is ice-free, but one snowdrift that was over 12 feet tall in May is now down to 4-5 feet at the thickest. Away from the buildings, the ground is snow-free. Sometime in late July, I will put another picture up showing this same scene with tall green grass covering the land.


Added later for comparison (from August):

Let me back up a bit…on June 7th, the last of the river ice finished breaking up and was pushed out of the delta, the foggy weather soon broke and we had 5 days of clear, sunny days. On the 9th, my birthday, I took our small aluminum boat upriver for my first river outing of the summer. There was little wind to create waves, so it was smooth going, except the water flow was still under a lot of pressure and moving downriver with faster then the normal sluggish delta rate. I took pictures of some of the ice chunks that had been stranded along the bank as the broken ice churned it’s way downriver a few days earlier.
They were melting fast and already “candled” and falling apart, which the ice does as it melts and separates into long crystals.
Since that day, the water has dropped over 4 feet. There have been no more “nice” boating days, since it has been very windy and foggy. I look forward to more pleasant days that call me out to enjoy the river again…soon, I hope…exploring old haunts, flower picking, etc. Meanwhile, I’ll share some indoor flower pictures from my sunroom.

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Waiting

This time of year always make me feel like we're waiting for things more then usual. Waiting for the birds to return to the Arctic, waiting for the river to flood with spring overflow, waiting for the snow to melt, waiting to get out and do some boating, waiting for the mud to dry up, waiting for warmer summer days, and on and on.

Today I can say that some of the waiting is over. Most of our summertime birds are now back, the river began flooding on May 26th, and the snow has started melting but has a long way to go yet. The ice is not gone out of the river, so no boating yet, it has just started to melt enough to get muddy here and there, and warm summer days are still a ways away.

Waiting to get through spring break-up and into summer proper is probably not that much different then waiting for the changes to take place through any season, however, it is a bit more dramatic for us considering our transportation to or from our island home is extremely limited at this time and flooding is a danger every year.

March 28, 2010

I've been home from my job in Deadhorse for 6 days now and will soon have to leave for another stretch of work away from home. I've enjoyed lazy days and the company of Jim and our dogs.

For Jim and me, being apart is hard and time together is always precious. For the dogs, I come and go in their lives and they have gotten used to it. Jim is the constant in their world. Toby takes a day at a time VERY slowly now. He spends most of his time sleeping, usually under the woodstove or on his big pillow. In his old age, he can't handle the cold outdoors for very long at a time, and is getting unstable on his legs.

Ruby, however, is growing up and is a big bundle of soft fur and exuberence. She rarely leaves Jim's side inside or outside. She does get excited to see me when I come home though, and is willing to devote a portion of her time to me as well as her master. We play outside, go for long walks, cuddle indoors, and I enjoy burying my hands in her amazingly soft fur as she rests her head on my shoulder. With little effort (besides complete devotion) she has given us a lot of pleasure and carved a special place in our hearts.

She is so well furred, that she seems impervious to the cold and loves the outdoors. Here are some pictures of her enjoying the outdoors:

Spring Work Part II

Continuation of "Spring Work Part I":

It took 2 days to get to the first stop-over location, Kogru, where other equipment waited to be added to the train. This equipment had been stored on the Kogru runway over the off-travel season, due to spring weather complications last winter travel season. The train stopped each night along the way for crew to sleep, eat, and take care of travel needs. Like Winnebago travelers, the crew carried their "house" and all they needed with them. After a few day's layover at Kogru getting the stored equipment up and running, the cat-train strings continued west to their final destinations. One cat-train headed north to Drew Point and another south to the site on the Ikpikpuk River.

Logistics and support for all the people and equipment in these remote "camps" is a lot of work. One small cat-train is designated for resupply and runs back and forth almost constantly from the staging pad at Oliktok to the remote camps for the resupply of fuel and large items like replacement equipment. It usually takes about 2 1/2 days to travel one-way between the staging pad at Oliktok and Drew Point Camp, 3 days minimum to Ikpikpuk Camp. The Supply Train always has a survival unit (called the Escalade) with it for living quarters along the way. Storms can blow up at times and make traveling impossible, so the crew needs a warm place out of the storm to "hole up" until travel can be resumed.

Double tank fuel sled.

Groceries and other supplies, mail, small equipment parts, and personnel are flown to and from Deadhorse to the remote camps by aircraft. Runways were made at each site on lake ice, by plowing the snow off to make smooth landing surfaces. Marsh Creek charters Bald Mountain Air Taxi to make almost daily flights, usually with a DeHavilland Single-engine Turbo Otter. Bald Mt.Air's Twin-engine Otter has also been used on the job.

Plowing the runway at the Ikpikpuk site.

Single-engine Otter landing on lake-ice runway at Ikpikpuk.

I visited the Drew Point Camp on March 8th and it was a cold, clear day. I was able to see the camp, where up to 42 people can be housed, although there were only 25 people there at the time. Plus I got a tour of the pit operations, where all the work was being done to remediate the old well site, including the removal of pit material and 15 feet of well pipe.

Drew Point Camp aerial

Drew Point Camp 3-8-10

Teena & Marvin St. Clair (medic) at Drew Point 3-8-10

Both camps have medics that also act as weather reporters for flights coming and going. I've worked with Marvin on other slope jobs, so it was fun to get to see him on this job. That has been a fun part of this job, I've gotten to see lots of old friends from my previous years working in the oilfield. [This has mostly happened at the airport as people come and go to the slope. When I'm there on Marsh Creek errands, I often get to see friends from other companies.

The remediation work at the old well site at Drew Point seen from the air was only a small dark spot in a world of white.

Drew Point old well site along coast - Arctic Ocean beyond.

Drew Point Reserve Pit work removing material.

Marsh Creek introduced new side-dump sets with tracks for hauling the removed material on the overland trail to the Ikpikpuk Site. It is about a 12 hour round trip and will take many trips to complete the job. Drivers will be working around the clock until the job is done. Time is pressing and everyone and all the equipment must be done and off the ice by the end of April.

Steigers pulling side-dumps along trail. The new side-dumps had just reached their


1000 miles benchmark.

Keeping track of all the equipment on this job is part of my job and I hope you've enjoyed hearing and seeing a little of what I've been involved with this spring.

Spring Work Part I

I started working a new job away from home on February 1st. I'm doing mostly administration work, with a little expediting and housekeeping thrown in. It is in Deadhorse (Prudhoe Bay area on the North Slope) for a company doing remote clean-up and remediation of old military oil exploration sites in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPRA) this winter.

The company, Marsh Creek LLC, has a contract with the Borough of Land Management (BLM) to clean-up, support the old well site's "Plug and Abandon" crew, plus remove the contaminated gravel from a reserve pit near Drew Point on the Arctic coast SE of Barrow, and haul the material to another reserve pit well inland at another site on the Ikpikpuk River SW of Teshekpuk Lake. The coastal site is threatened by erosion and must be cleaned up before the entire site becomes exposed and contaminated materials fall into the ocean.

It is a major undertaking because the work is being done at an extremely remote area on the North Slope where no roads exist, so access is very difficult. This is in what Marsh Creek specializes. Using multi-unit "cat trains" pulled by large "tractors", whole "camps" are moved across the frozen ocean ice or tundra to the remote site. Everything is on sleds or have large ski gear. Everything needed to live and conduct the job is included in these "trains", from sleeping units, bathroom/laundry units, generators, water-making units, kitchen/dining units, office/communications units, fuel tanks, shops, incinerator units, and flatbed style sleds that carry heavy equipment like front-end loaders, trucks, heavy-duty outdoor heaters, and other machinery.

This year Marsh Creek has two remote "camps" in place. All work begins at Marsh Creek's shops and the home-base operations center ("camp"), as they're called on the slope, no matter how big a facility it is) in Deadhorse, where most of the oil industry's suppport businesses are located. Equipment and travel units had been gone over with a fine tooth comb in preparations for commencing the job.

Work at the remote areas couldn't begin until the ocean ice along the coast was strong enough to support the weight of the huge sleds and track vehicles moving along a predetermined route along the northern coastline, just off-shore. (The ice of northern lakes is another preferred travel surface, since that is much easier to travel on then rough tundra.) Marsh Creek has the necessary state and federal off-road travel permits required for ice trails or traveling across frozen tundra areas. Drilling holes to check ice depth is routine along the way before any heavy equipment can proceed., and careful aerial checks are made of the route ahead of time. Even "Forward Looking Infared" (FLIR) cameras are used to check out each camp site plus the entire travel route ahead of time for any possible polar bear dens, which must be avoided, even it it means chosing a new camp site or a long detour along the route.

When I first came to work, the first "cat-train" string was being delivered to the Trailhead near Oliktok by CH2M Hill trucks. (The sled units and tractors making up the "cat-train" strings do not travel on the road system, but must be hauled to the Trailhead by flatbed trucks. It is about 70 miles from Deadhorse to Oliktok on the permenant gravel road system.) A staging pad out on the ocean ice had been plowed clear of snow just off the road system at Oliktok. This is where all the equipment and traveling units were unloaded off the big trucks and then assembled into the cat-trains, sometimes called "strings". The trail had already been laid out with GPS coordinates and once all was ready, off the trains went. There were 13 strings each with its own power engine (like a Case Steiger track vehicle, or D-7 cat), plus a pickup truck on Mattracks leading the way.

Marsh Creek Cat-train moving along Arctic Ocean ice.

Cat-train string on the move.

Case Steiger pulling tracked trailer.

Case Steiger pulling Loader with Trimmer Set-up traveling across ice on a cold winter day.

Stay tuned for Spring Work Part II, and I'll tell you more about my job and this whole operation.

"Beyond" for sure, in Arizona

My sister-in-law, Denise and I went to Arizona for 10 days earlier this month of January, 2010, to spend time with my parents-in-law, Bud and Martha Helmericks, see my niece Faith, and also take some time to enjoy Arizona's beautiful natural wonders.

My father-in-law, Bud, just turned 93, and is in a full-care facility, so Mom Martha, Denise, and I would visit him most days after an hour's drive from Salome to Wickenburg. One visit was extra special since Bud's younger brother Jim and his wife Jemmi came to visit also, and we celebrated Dad Bud's birthday.




Martha reading birthday card to Bud. Bud brother Jim on left.

During our second week in Arizona, Denise and I rented a car and drove to Tucson.

We had time for only a few activities After walking the many trails at the Arizona Sonora Museum, we went and had dinner with my niece Faith Boice. This was quite a treat since we hadn't seen each other for many years.

Faith, Teena, & Denise standing

During our one full day in Tucson, we chose to visit the Arizona Sonora Museum and below are a very few examples of what we saw:

So many beautiful plants and flowers. There doesn't seem to be very many plants in Arizona that don't have some kind of prickly spines or thorns to poke you. We hiked around the many trails most of the day and saw so many things, including a live Harris Hawk demonstration , amazing mineral-crystal exhibits, a recreated natural cave system, and many animals and birds. As a brochure says, "(it) is a world-renowned zoo, natural history museum, and botanical garden all in one place!"

The next day Denise and I headed back north toward Phoenix, but drove a bit east first so we could drive the Apache Trail, which is a gorgeous drive through the rugged Mazatzal Mountains, partly along Apache Lake, and past the Roosevelt Dam. We drove many miles on a narrow, gravel road snaking around, up and down through the hill tops and canyons. It was breath-taking scenery!

Between Denise and myself, we took over 700 pictures along Apache Trail and the AZ Sonora Desert Museum the day before. Here are a few more from the Apache Trail area:

Well, you'll just have go there yourself some day.

Till next time,

Teena