Hi Everyone,

Well, it's just about time for us to start another field season in the Territories. Mike and I have decided to start a new blog for this summer, The Territorial Times. It can be found at:

http://www.theterritorialtimes.blogspot.com


Mike will be leaving on May 30th and will probably start posting soon after that. I will be leaving on June 11th and blogging soon after that.

See you all soon!
Micheal n' Mel

So, this is a very different post than the previous...but I had to put the pics somewhere!
Enjoy!
Mel

A Day in the Life… of core

We have 2 drills at Blende. Only one works. That’s a long story. But the short story is, we have one drill that works around the clock, with 2 shifts of drillers. So at the end of each shift we end up with a whole pile of new core all lined up in boxes. This is where the geologists get all excited when they see sparkly minerals in the core.

The first thing that happens is that the core has to be ‘geoteched’. What this means is, they convert all the measured intervals from feet to meters, as well as taking lots of other important measurements from the core. Karla was our lovely geotecher until she left to go learn about Calculus. We all miss her terribly, especially Powder. We now have Glen and he’s doing a fine job.



The next step is that I get a hold of it, and describe the crap out of it. I create what is called a core log, which is a long description of the entire drill hole, the rock types, and the mineralization (if any) in it. The next step is that I mark out any of the samples that we want for assay, to determine how much of each kind of metal is in the core. Usually we sample a good portion of the entire drill holes. This means that I get to draw all over the core with china markers – its’ the easiest part of my job. Then our lovely geotecher will assign each sample a sample number and then – it’s out of our hands! Actually, we have to move the darn stuff and stack it so there’s still a bit left to do. The boxes are actually quite heavy – quite hard to lift on your own. I’m going to have some good biceps after all this!

Now the core is put through some punishing treatments. First of all, the core must be split. Only half of the core will go for assay so it is split in one of two ways. Either it is sawed, which is slow but clean. OR it is split the old fashioned way:

This is Nick. Nick likes to break rocks. Really. Even when it's snowing. It’s hard work and one person can do about 10 boxes of core in a day. That means that a typical 30-40 box drill hole takes a few days to split.

In our camp the samples are then crushed into a fine powder so that we reduce the amount it costs to ship these samples for assay. The crushing lab is a big metal box that the lab guys work in. It’s dusty work and they end up being shaken up the entire day while the crusher is going. On a good day they can get through about 50 boxes worth of core in a day.

This is Brett. Brett works really hard and still finds the time to climb mountains in the evening. What he ends up with after all this is a wee little bag:

Then we say goodbye to the samples and the rest of the split core is stacked here to remain over the winter.

Yesterday I finished logging the LAST drill hole. Very soon the whole camp will be moving out (demobilizing). I have my ticket though – I will be home late on Friday. 2 more sleeps! Next time - I'll show you what REALLY keeps this camp running. The cooks! See you all soon,

Mel

I know there has been a big gap in the blogs as of late. With Mike gone I sort of threw myself in to work, it makes the time go faster. Plus I've been having some technical difficulties with the site. It sounds like I will be leaving camp around the 22nd (yay!) so I will try to make the last week of blogs fantastic.

The theme for this blog is Fall Colours and Animals In Camp. Two things that definitely brighten my days here. The leaves are nearly gone but for the last few weeks we’ve been watching them turn to yellows, oranges, and reds. The brightest colours seem to be from very small plants on the ground that turn brilliant red and yellow (see pic in Mike's last blog).

Right before Mike left, we got the opportunity to get a lift with the helicopter to go poke around looking at rocks for a while. A treat not having to walk over the mountains for a change! The colours were neat to see from the heli and they were a nice backdrop even in the rain.


We had a really good time hiking around up there, but we had a small incident while up on the slopes. I had taken a granola bar out of my pack while on a talus slope, when my backpack fell over. My bear spray fell out and managed to puncture itself on a rock. Suddenly it started hissing and Glen said ‘You guys better get out of there!’ – so Mike, Bob, and myself ran uphill (which was the only way we could run) which was upwind of the spray. Mike and I inhaled some and Bob got some in his eyes, but luckily it was in such a small amount that we only coughed for a while. It seemed quite funny after the fact, but it was a bit scary at the time.

Back on topic though, winter is definitely on the way. Today the snow stayed on the mountains all day.


Luckily we have our trusty diesel stoves to keep us, and the dog, warm.

This is Powder. He’s the camp dog. He seems to be rather quiet and cuddly in camp, but he’s got a heck of a big-dog bark when we’ve had Grizzlys in camp. He also REALLY enjoys racing the Rhino (our oversized golf-cart) and chasing down ground squirrels. Hopefully he doesn't figure out we have a mouse in camp, he won't last long!

Here's a picture of Dan helping me get a picture. He jumped a little when the mouse poked his head out a few inches from his face, without warning!

The other nice thing about having powder around is that he LOVES to go out on traverse with us. He got really good at going on whatever talus slope or mountain that we decided to climb up. It was nice having something safer than bear spray as a deterrent with us.

Stay tuned for the next blog that will show more about what we do here at the Blende Camp…I’ll also try to show a few of the people around camp here, before we all have to go home.

Till then,
Mel

Hello again,

This will be my last entry for the summer, as I am heading back to Edmonton this coming Saturday. I will be starting the new semester at school next week and it will be a busy start, labs begin the day after I return to school and I will have to get samples ready for upcoming lab time at the end of the month… so exciting! It will be good to get back to Edmonton but I will miss it out here at the Blende. The summer has been good and now it is well into fall and the colours are here to prove it (see photos).

I will be leaving Melissa in camp here for a couple weeks and she will be taking over core logging in my absence. I leave you here with some photos of the fall colours to enjoy and I hope I can see a second fall when I get home.

cheers,

Micheal.

I hear that it is still summer somewhere. It has snowed almost every day here on the mountains. Each day it gets a little closer. Today it was about halfway down! The leaves are turning here too. I’m really excited to see them change, it’s going to be really pretty I think. I just hope that it doesn’t snow on them first.

Things have been going fine here. We have been preparing for a while because today we had a visit from a bunch of investors. They just flew in for the day and we had to show them all the sparkly rocks and cross-sections and maps that we’ve made. They were all pretty used to working in offices so they were very stunned by our camp. In a good way. They couldn’t believe how well stocked and organized our kitchen was and how well the camp seemed to be running. It’s a good thing that they weren’t here a few days ago when both drills were broken down!

The drills are both back on line now. The camp should be getting back on track soon. I’ve been in the office for a couple days getting the map ready for the investors. It’s been nice not hiking up mountains every day. I feel like I’ve been getting a bit of energy back. Last night, Mike and I stayed up late so that we could watch for auroras. There were a few out so we tried to take pictures with the tripod and my camera. They turned out okay, but most of them were not focused very well. I’m not sure how we can fix that. It was really exciting taking pictures of aurora for the first time though, hopefully we’ll get another chance before Micheal heads home.



Mike leaves camp on September 8th and hopefully I won’t be too far behind him. He’s done a really good job here, so I’ll have some pretty big shoes to fill. I have to take over his job of core logging, and he’ll start teaching me all about that next week.



There are many different things that I’ll have to do after Mike leaves, like saw rocks. Using the saw requires you to wear lots of protective gear that makes you look as good as this:



Just so he doesn’t feel bad, I’ll post a dumb picture of myself, also wearing protective gear:



That’s me wearing the stupid bubble helmet while I’m riding in the back of our souped up golf cart – the Rhino. Don’t worry though, Mike looks way better without all that gear. Even in the morning:



Funniest part is, he took that picture himself. I wish I could be there to see what his parents say when they see his neard (neard=neck+beard).

I should be around for at least a few more weeks. I’ll try to keep the Blog updated more often once I’m not traversing every day. Sounds like we will be finishing drilling on the 15th (if the water lines don’t freeze before then) and then a week or so of catching up on the backlog and taking down camp.

Have fun everyone – enjoy wearing t-shirts and shorts!
Melissa

The first frost has arrived!!

We got the first big frost of the fall here in camp. Yesterday morning it was freezing… quite literally. Everything was covered in frost until the sun came over the ridge and our house for washing off the core was even half frozen. I guess this really isn’t that exciting, but when things stay the same any change is good, even if it is freezing temperatures. And it really signifies the season changing into fall. The leaves are also well on their way to falling off. There are already many different colours developing in the trees and shrubs around camp.

Oh, and I saw my first star of the summer last night, and some of the guys here saw an Aurora the other night. It is actually getting dark out, finally. Enjoy the rest of your summer.

mike.

Check out our ride!

For the last week we have been working on putting together a geological map of the property using old maps and new field data that we are collecting. It’s been going well, but it’s tough to cover a lot of ground on foot and we don’t normally have a helicopter in camp. Today we lucked out though, the second drill was flown into camp today and so we were able to get a ride out to start our traverse. Normally, we have a Bell 206 (Long Ranger) Helicopter that comes into camp but today…the BIG Heli came to town. The beauuutiful Bell 204 – think about the big Helicopters with the sliding door that you see in Vietnam war movies, although this one is painted like a large dragonfly or bumblebee.




We got picked up in style and because I was ‘navigating’ I got to sit up front. The only rule was – I had to not touch the controls. This heli has dual controls so there is a joystick and foot pedals on my side, moving in unison with the pilot. It was really in my best interests to obey that rule.



Mike and Margo had fun sitting in the back, where they had enough space to have their own dance party. I guess it’s quite a novelty to have to WALK over to open the door to get out. Talk about powerful! Absolutely effortless to get this heli over the mountain. Unfortunately our flight was altogether too short, and in no time (maybe 5 min) we were put down at our starting spot.



Then we were on our own to get back to camp. It was a pretty good day, we covered a lot of ground. I’ve been pretty sick with a cold so I did my best keeping up to Micheal. He’s been on a diet of Kit Kats and Chocolate pudding for a couple months and still manages to bound up hills. We rolled back into camp at about 8:30, so we’re both beat. It will be an easier day tomorrow, so I’ll get to recover. Mike on the other hand will have to manage core from 2 drills. I guess he’ll need to get back on that Kit Kat and pudding diet right away.

Melissa

It has been almost a week that I've been in the fancy schmancy Blende camp, north of Mayo. My time at the Lodge was absolutely amazing and it was very hard to leave. The people were so special there and the location was absolutely stunning. It's quite an isolated place, only accessible by VERY robust vehicles. Like the one pictured below:


This is the Czechoslovakian Army truck that the owners of the lodge use to transport people and gear back and forth from the 'good' part of the Canol Road to the Lodge. It rides like a dream!

There were lots of things to do in the evenings. The weather was usually nice so we would find things to do outside. Although, there were some hazards:


This is Bronwen trying to catch up on her reading with a little help from the horses. We also had intense games of Extreme Croquet:


Which required serious skill to avoid the piles of horse manure spaced throughout the course. And if we ever got bored of that, we could always watch Bronwen juggle:


Getting back to work though, we got to see some really neat wildlife:



Photos courtesy of Josh. Luckily we only saw Grizzlies from the chopper.
Of course, it all had to come to an end:


But I was extremely fortunate to end up in Mike’s camp for the rest of my time here. I managed to snag a couple days off in Mayo with Mike, to preserve my sanity and catch up on some must needed sleep. Thanks again to Kerri and Trevor in Mayo, we had a wonderful time. Tomorrow we get to go out on traverse together, which is fantastic! Take care and see you all soon.

~the signpost~


~mel and me at the signpost~



To the Signpost We Went

Melissa has made her way to Blende, finally. I went out to Mayo for a couple of days last week to meet her and we stayed with Trevor and Kerri again. The one afternoon we were there they took us on a drive back up to Keno City to try and see the signpost. Luckily the weather was more cooperative and we got to see it, it was actually quite beautiful out. For anyone that does not know, the signpost is a post on the top of the hill with a whole wack of signs with distances to various places around the word. It is a nice view from the top as you can see in the pictures.

The first day Melissa was in camp we went on a traverse with the other girls in her crew and our head geo, Bob, so they could all get familiar with the rocks in the area. Melissa will be mapping the area around the drilling, so we can get a better handle on the area.

I have included some pictures from the signpost, at the top, as well as from our trav, at the bottom.

mike.


~melissa looking at some outcrop on trav~


~mel on a ridge (on left)~


~the mode of transport around the property~

Here is the first installment of Melissa's blog she sent me to update. It is a bit late as mail from the lodge is sluggish.

July 10, 2006

I blinked, and now my only holidays for the summer are over.

We made it out of camp on Friday and into Mayo at 4pm after a 2 hour helicopter flight. I was very lucky to have a place to stay in Mayo with my cousin Trevor and his girlfriend Kerrie. I was also very lucky to get a shower and laundry done in short order after arriving, which I am sure they were grateful for too. Mike finally arrived at about 10 pm and sported some sort of growth on his face, some would call it a beard. I was still able to recognize him though. The next day we took Mike on the standard tour up to Keno Hill, but unfortunately the clouds were right down to the ground, so we had to look at postcards of the signpost instead of actually driving up to it (it’s a really common photo spot in the Yukon). We did get to see the museum and have hot dogs at Mike’s place (different Mike!) so it was still really good. We managed to get Trevor’s truck very dirty – apparently the dirtiest it’s ever been!
That night was nice because we went to see Pat and Ada (Trevor’s grandparents) who have been really nice to our family. Of course they fed us (even though we had supper already) and we left with a bag of goodies. They have so many interesting stories and know so much about the area. Pat is in his mid-eighties so things were a lot different for him growing up. He showed us a picture of him and his brothers and sisters on a raft on the Yukon River, the oldest around 14. They lived near Pelly Crossing and in the fall would head down the river to Dawson City for school. I guess it was about a 4 day trip. Pat said that his father would tell them: “Why should I par for a steamboat ticket when the river flows that way?!” A very different life.
Sunday we drove to Dawson City. Thankfully we left the rainy weather behind. Trevor and Kerrie went golfing while Mike and I puttered around town. We had ice cream and saw some of the sights. For supper we went to a fabulous Mediterranean restaurant, which seemed entirely out of place in Dawson. Then we were off to Diamond Tooth Gerties. We did not gamble but did watch the Can Can Dancers. It was quite good and Trevor almost got dragged up on stage. After having a few drinks (the first for me in over a month) we headed out into the sunlight at 1am back to Klondike Kate’s, where we were staying.
I left the next morning with my crew (who were also staying in Dawson) and I left Mike in the care of Trevor and Kerrie. A really terrific weekend and so many thanks to Trevor and Kerrie, who were extremely gracious hosts and patient tour guides. I hope Mike and I can return the favour some day.

July 11, 2006

I’m back to work after my 2 days of holiday, which has to last me until the end of the summer apparently. Although, we were informed right before our holiday that our program will be cancelled at the end of July instead of the end of August. Whoops, they didn’t have enough money! The company has said that they will try and find us other placements in other camps, but who knows [they are all now going to Blende Camp].
For now though, we are in an absolutely stunning lodge on the Canol Road, just inside the NWT border. Yesterday morning we left from Dawson City and drove south, the first 4 or 5 hours were uneventful. The drive to Faro was quite pretty and we hit the town of Ross River at five o’clock. We filled up the gas tank (last stop for gas on that road!) and headed for the ferry. Lo and behold, the ferry closes at 5… We talked to the ferry operator and pleaded our case but he had no sympathy for being 10 minutes late. Faced with spending the night in Ross River, we drove around a bit and suddenly noticed that the ferry was moving across the river. We went up to this ferry operator to see if we could persuade him to help us out. “For a price” he told us. Well, I’ve never had to bribe anyone before. He made it seem like it was all official, but I think we all had some serious doubts. I felt like asking if we could get a receipt for it, but thought twice ☺. Then we were finally on our way down the famed Canol Road. For the most part it is a single track that you can’t go faster than 60 km/h. It was okay going (only 1 big puddle splashed over the hood) until the last 40 km. Usually the lodge sends an old army truck out to get people across the last stretch, but it is passable by truck… if you don’t mind a few dents and scratches. The worst part was a part they called the Boulder Creek, where we needed the truck in 4 wheel low, in 1st gear… and we still just barely made it. The truck got high centered a few times, and we scrubbed both bumpers… thank goodness it’s a company truck! We finally rolled into the lodge at 12:30, ending our day of 14 hrs of driving. The Canol Road is incredibly scenic and quite nice if enjoy the isolation. Oh, I forgot to mention 2 things: 1) We were driving a Ford – take that JJ! 2) I got to drive the nasty stretch, which was super fun!

Melissa

Hello,

Well, it’s pouring rain here tonight, we seem to have lost our nice sunshine for a bit. Things are rolling along well in Blende Camp here, core is spinning and geology is getting done. I talked to Melissa today and it sounds like she and her crew are doing really well down at the Dechenla lodge. I guess the country around there is absolutely beautiful, and they found golf ball size sphalerite! That’s bigger than I have ever seen. So there will be some updates on the Dechenla lodge with accompanying pictures whenever Melissa gets to a computer.

The plans have been arranged and it looks as though Melissa will finish off her summer here at the Blende! The best news that I have heard all summer. We need a couple of people here to map the property, so it was decided that she would be a great candidate, I of course did not really object. And I am supposed to tell Trevor and Kerrie that she will be through Mayo around the 1st or 2nd of August.

We are on hole number seven now for this summer and yesterday we broke the thousand metre mark, but still along way to drill to get the goal that was set. Hope all is well with everyone, I have attached some photos of the area around camp that I recently took.

micheal.