Chronicles of Camp Doom, part I

Well, it looked likew the summer was going to be promising - there I was at the end of May, with a job offer to go field mapping in Northern Ontario, and hoping to enjoy myself and contribute and hopefully lose some weight. It sounded exciting and interesting. So I get on the bus on a Tuesday and travel North to Sudbury, to meet my boss for the summer and my fellow crew-members. well, some of my fellow crew-members, as I found out when I got there - not everyone would get there at the same time. I met Scott and Dave - crew members - and Martine, another student who was going on another project. We met, interestingly enough, at the supermarket - my boss Carole Anne took us there first.There, we had to buy a week's worth of food for the four of us. the budget - basically unlimited (I worked it out - we had an allowance of $36/day for food x 7 = ~$250/week x4 = $1000/week food budget - for 4 people!!!) You can imagine what it's like for four people, used to buying food that they like for themselves, trying to buy food that everyone will like and enough for 4 people. then, we are dropped off at the college and have to fit our food into 1.5 fridges ( we were sharing with another student, Laura). Then training begins. We get a whole whack of safety, sensitivity, skill triaining. in between, I am trying to help out my team leader by scanning slides, to what purpose, I still have no idea to this day. In fact, the whole bloody business felt pretty covert - where were we going? what are the rocks like? why am I copying 2 books' worth of slides? What is it for? Why did I take samples? were these important? Getting answers was like pulling teeth - partly because my boss was so busy. I found out she was stressing because she'd been given a year to complete as much of a 2-year area as possible - I found out later she'd been asked to do as much as she could of the area.
So, to kit up for this thing (you need a lot of equipment to run a field camp for 3 months) we went to the Warehouse, where our boss had ordered a bunch of stuff for our camp. Well, when we got there, another crew (which had hired 7 more people than originally planned) was kitting up, and had stolen our stuff. we were left picking through the warehouse, trying to come up with non-rusted saws, unbroken hammers, sandviks, decent chainsaw gear, and other equipment. We had to go out to buy basic gear like water containers, jerry cans, cots, tire kits, grease, etc. this in turn cut into our budget and further stressed our poor leader out. So by the time we were ready to leave, our leader was stressed, we were several thousand down in our budget and several hours late leaving. Sudbury turned out to be half schooling, half shopping trip.

To Wawa...
the travel to Wawa was not a lot of fun - partly because of the jerk I got stuck with. Scott had been getting on my nerves since training - in fact, all of the people I wanted to hang out with were on other teams - they were keen, fun, easygoing, and did not make me feel uncomfortable. Scott made me feel extremely uncomfortable - I mean, he's ask me uncomfortable questions. He's the kind of guy who likes to make people uncomfortable. and he did, on our journey to Wawa. I think the worst thing is that he could be such a nice guy, but chooses not to be. Charm cannot make up for character. and he talked about women as though we were little more than property - no feelings, nothing beyond a body to use.
Wawa was actually a lot of fun - we met up with another crew and hung out at the motel, chatting and playing cards. it was a good time. the next day, I got to drive part of the way to Thunder Bay, which made me feel good, as I was getting to contribute.

and Thunder Bay...
In Thunder Bay, Carole Anne learned that the gear we shipped would not arrive in Armstrong for another WEEK - not good when we're already strapped for time. so, instead of hanging around for another night with the other crew, we headed out for our destination for the summer.

and Armstrong, ho!