8th August, Raven, SK

Busy day, sorting out rig stuff.

That afternoon, Derek and Heather (both geos) and I decided to take the quads on the ski-doo trails out to Lake Wollaston. Allegedly the tracks take you all the way out there. We hooked along and the trails became more overgrown and swampy. I was constantly pushing the quads out of the deep moss and muskeg. At one stage I was in past my knee in peat moss.

We traversed into deeper, more swampy and more overgrown area near the rim of the lake. It was that tight my fishing rod perched on the front of the bike hit a tree and broke 30cm below the ferrule. Oh well, such is life. After deciding to turn around which was a mission in itself we got out the mud hole and back to park land style tracks.
The quad bikes are fun but once again I was wet and covered in mud. We ended up fishing in the lake near the old camp and I caught one pike. The temporary fix up job on my rod was ordinary but it was still successful.

Up at 3:50am to check an end of hole.

30th July, Raven Camp, SK

Today we received photos of the Slush Lake camp owned by Cameco Corporation, a major uranium player in the Athabasca Basin. The photos showed smouldering piles of core, millions of dollars, up in smoke. The bush becomes tinder dry within a few sunny days. With lightning strikes, the bush blazes away. Typically the authorities let the fires burn themselves out but only when they threaten reserves and towns they fight them. The core was from the Millennia deposit and is now wasted. The cost of drilling is comparable to Australia, but when you throw in all of the associated costs such as camp, flights, freight, wages etc. the real ocst is probably in order of $500 per metre of core!! Look at the photo and have a guess at how much core has been burnt out! Lots.
It was inspiration to give the “bone yard” or the historical core storage area a partial clean up. This also had a second agenda of we will be re-logging old core soon so it will improve access. Dan and I get stuck into with machete and axes. We cleaned up on row very well. Dave joined me in the second row and we had a good chat while we weeded and pruned the local foliage. Dave had a great plan. Let’s rip out the stumps with the quad bike and winch cable. I was quite dubious but after the first one we were really give’n’er.
We ended up ripping out about 20 stumps and small trees with the quad and the tree ripping was great fun. We got a bit ambitious towards the end and went for some full blown trees. We ripped one but it was a bit taller than anticipated, so Dave ended up with a face full of pine needles. A good solid afternoon.

That night our Canadian football league football and rugby ball turned up. So kick to kick in the camp with the semi-real football was in order. Leo and my football skills really became apparent.

Little Dave was keen for me to go the Paul Senior out of Orange County Choppers. So I did. I am now the proud owner of an awesome mean looking moustache. A real Boonie and Merv.