Hey, remember me the guy with the a-kicker of a moustache, I’m back! Our new Toaster 6000 sleeping bags are absolute belters. We only needed to use one as a doona and we were smoking even with the stove on low. A quiet morning in the office while Tan did the important stuff like washing and sweeping out the tent. 
My plan was to write up the audit in the afternoon but at times my role as the “pinch hitter” means the plans can change quickly. “Dan. Can you show Derek the holes at Wolf Lake so he can pick them up – the chopper will be here in 15 minutes”. “Tan get your gear, we’re going”. It wasn’t long and Tan, myself and Derek were waiting at the old camp. I gave Tan a few pointers and we adopted the crouch position and were walking underneath the rotating blades of the chopper.
Tan’s first chopper ride! It took a while for her to get the belt on and we were off to Wolf Lake. Getting up in the air, one month after my last flight and the scenery has changed dramatically. The birch has yellow leaves and the tamaracks (a deciduous pine tree) are bright yellow spotted in a blanket of green. The muskeg has taken on an orange-brown colour and the blueberry bushes are now red. It’s hard to believe we are in the same place.
Tan loved the chopper ride and it was good to see Wes again. I called him a “wanker” because that’s what we do. Wes was typically smooth and we barely felt the ground when we landed. We dropped into the central area of Wolf Lake and had to wait 45 minutes for the GPS to reach the base station 14 km away. While Derek and I played with the GPS, Tan went through her chopper induction. These are the nasty parts, stay away from here and get down low and go, go, go. In the interim, we all walked to the bald eagle’s nest. It was all quiet on the eagle front.
Wes had to go for an hour, so we dropped in on the southern area and I was amazed at the rise in the water level here. The semi-dry swamp was now in places up to 20cm deep in water. We starting picking up the collars and sat around while the GPS did it’s thing. 
My plan was to write up the audit in the afternoon but at times my role as the “pinch hitter” means the plans can change quickly. “Dan. Can you show Derek the holes at Wolf Lake so he can pick them up – the chopper will be here in 15 minutes”. “Tan get your gear, we’re going”. It wasn’t long and Tan, myself and Derek were waiting at the old camp. I gave Tan a few pointers and we adopted the crouch position and were walking underneath the rotating blades of the chopper. Tan’s first chopper ride! It took a while for her to get the belt on and we were off to Wolf Lake. Getting up in the air, one month after my last flight and the scenery has changed dramatically. The birch has yellow leaves and the tamaracks (a deciduous pine tree) are bright yellow spotted in a blanket of green. The muskeg has taken on an orange-brown colour and the blueberry bushes are now red. It’s hard to believe we are in the same place.Tan loved the chopper ride and it was good to see Wes again. I called him a “wanker” because that’s what we do. Wes was typically smooth and we barely felt the ground when we landed. We dropped into the central area of Wolf Lake and had to wait 45 minutes for the GPS to reach the base station 14 km away. While Derek and I played with the GPS, Tan went through her chopper induction. These are the nasty parts, stay away from here and get down low and go, go, go. In the interim, we all walked to the bald eagle’s nest. It was all quiet on the eagle front. Wes had to go for an hour, so we dropped in on the southern area and I was amazed at the rise in the water level here. The semi-dry swamp was now in places up to 20cm deep in water. We starting picking up the collars and sat around while the GPS did it’s thing. We saw a squirrel, ate beef jerky and talked shite. The bugs were sticky but at least they weren't chewing bits out of your exposed skin. 
We had to make some pickets, a 12 footer for me and a wobbly 14’ for Derek. They did the trick and will be visible in any snow depth! Making pickets for collars is a lot of fun. First you find a perfectly straight pine tree with a good taper, raze the branches off it, cut your “name plate” by stipping off some bark and then just give it to the poor tree. Once it has fallen, you give it a bit more of a clean up, chop the narrow end off, add some flagging and chuck it in the casing in the hole.
We stopped at the northern site so Derek could find all of the holes and made a small mud map. Easy!!!
On the way back, I gave Wes some curry about everything and anything. Wes knows I am a tourist in the chopper and today I was especially pleased he was the pilot. Not far from camp, Wes spotted a big bull moose and got down low and circled it a few times. This thing was magnificent and Derek counted 8 points on each antler. It was huge and we were wrapped. Even better for Tan, who took a while to spot him as it was a memorable flight for her. Funny thing is that Tan thought she wasn’t going to do any flying for a while.
We had to make some pickets, a 12 footer for me and a wobbly 14’ for Derek. They did the trick and will be visible in any snow depth! Making pickets for collars is a lot of fun. First you find a perfectly straight pine tree with a good taper, raze the branches off it, cut your “name plate” by stipping off some bark and then just give it to the poor tree. Once it has fallen, you give it a bit more of a clean up, chop the narrow end off, add some flagging and chuck it in the casing in the hole. We stopped at the northern site so Derek could find all of the holes and made a small mud map. Easy!!!On the way back, I gave Wes some curry about everything and anything. Wes knows I am a tourist in the chopper and today I was especially pleased he was the pilot. Not far from camp, Wes spotted a big bull moose and got down low and circled it a few times. This thing was magnificent and Derek counted 8 points on each antler. It was huge and we were wrapped. Even better for Tan, who took a while to spot him as it was a memorable flight for her. Funny thing is that Tan thought she wasn’t going to do any flying for a while.
We buzzed over the camp, our tent has the white roof on the far middle left. 
We went for a quick walk complete with bear bangers and bear spray. Dave, the cook, got a bit jumpy at lunch today when three wolves appeared out of nowhere. The bear banger gave them a fright and they were off. We had a quiet night in the tent, a little stuffed but it was awesome.
We went for a quick walk complete with bear bangers and bear spray. Dave, the cook, got a bit jumpy at lunch today when three wolves appeared out of nowhere. The bear banger gave them a fright and they were off. We had a quiet night in the tent, a little stuffed but it was awesome. 
We hopped off to plane for 10 minutes to grab some cargo and a couple of passengers and the pilot (the man seems to do everything) took our photo. 
As you can see the plane (apart from being another prop… sigh) is quite small. It’s quite strange to be able to see out the pilots window, particularly when coming in to land and they are trying to line up the run way. A quick stop and we were off to Points North, about a 90 minute flight. The sun disappeared and we couldn’t see much at all including the run way until we were almost on top of it. 
Brendo met us at the airport and we caught up with him and the boys looked at core and talked work for a while. Brendo drove us out to Raven Camp (about 30 mins – although we had to head back half way there and refuel as the petrol light came on). At this point it was around 5 degrees. We stopped at Kewen Lake at Dan’s request to reminisce about the many fish he caught there.
We then went to a massive outdoor store that sold EVERYTHING a man might need. Guns, target practice fake animals, fishing, hunting. All of that stuff. There were stuffed dead animals including a polar bear in the store. Dan bought himself a new fly reel and flies to do some fly fishing including a small new rod for me. When we were at the cashier a man just walked into the store with his massive gun under his arm to buy ammunition I’m guessing. We thought it was highly amusing because is he had done that at home everyone would of thought it was an armed holdup. No one batted an eyelash in this store. 
We dropped our bags of purchases back at the hotel where I stayed and Dan went out to conduct a lab audit for a few hours. When we came back we went over to the bottle shop and bought a couple of bottles to take up on site. The bottle of red wine is “the prize” when I get through four weeks of no drinking (if it lasts that long).
We are off to Raven Camp in Northern Saskatchewan tomorrow. Our last flight for a little while. Apart from our flights to both get to Toronto we worked out we have taken 10 flights in a month!! I think we’ll both be glad to have a break from flying! A number of people have noticed that Dan has gone MIA from blogging for a little while and I’ve been updating. Don’t worry, he’ll be back soon!
We only had around an hour wait at the airport and we boarded another plan for the three or so hour hour flight to Saskatoon. So what do when the bulk of your day is spent either at an airport or sitting on a plane? Well, have a few drinks of course, to the point you start getting a bit rowdy and a bit stupid on the plane. Not to the point of waking Mr Excitement asleep on his tray across the row from us though! 
So we arrived in Sudbury, (it was 8 degrees) to our hotel. We went next door to the Shark Club which is like a sportmans bar but had (count them) 18 TV’s. Even each individual booth had it’s own individual TV. 
We had a few drinks and dinner and called it a night. Now, whilst it may seem like we have been living in a pub for the last month, remember that we are going to a dry camp on the 25th – so no alcohol. Thankyou for your emails concerning our livers. 
Lunch done with, we went back to the dump, desperate to see a bear. Again, not a bear in site. Even after Dan undid the window trying to terrify me further!!!!
We drove to Georgian Bay to the lighthouse considered to be the sixth great lake. It was freshwater and we tasted the water. It was great, even though later we read that the lakes are so clear due to acid rain! An old lighthouse was in the area and we shielded from the wind for a while and enjoyed probably the last bit of sun and warm weather that we would see for some time.
We did see more amazing rocks which had turned smooth from the glaciers.
Sudbury has one of the biggest Nickel Smelters in the world. It has a massive stack but the housing sits right underneath it where its emissions disperse. Would you want to live here??? Check out how close the houses are to the stack.
