24th March - Vancouver, BC - Points North SK

Today, I was embarking on a trip that I wanted to do but wasn’t expecting I was going to do it. I was heading to site in northern Saskatchewan to check on the progress, discuss some of the work I had done and review the project with a group of analysts. It took nearly a full day of travel to get to Points North and I am so glad I got up there. The trip went via Edmonton and Saskatoon. It was funny to see these cities with isolated snow patches and semi-frozen lakes. Very different from autumn when we were through there last.

The Rockies were snow covered.

So were the fields. And the lakes were frozen over!

The boys, Dave, Corey and Matt met us at Points and it was a beautiful clear sunny day and a touch below zero at -16 degrees C. Officially my coldest temperature, good for Australian, but pretty warm for a Canadian! The airport looked so different with snow piled up around the tarmac that had been ploughed off. The lake was covered in nearly a metre of snow.
On arrival to camp, I was so surprised to see it. All of the tents were surrounded with snow and the roads were covered in a layer of hard packed snow and ice. I got to my original tent I stayed in when I first arrived what seemed a long time ago and got set up (and put on my warm clothes).

I went for a walk and snapped some shots. The snow was up to 1m deep in places and you would fall through it up to your crutch. It was tough going walking through it.

The tents looked quite different from the summer season with all of the snow on them.

Our summer tent was nearly hidden from the thick snow!

In the fall, the guys cleared a small area and made a snowboard terrain park on one of the drumlin edges. I got to see Glasglacius and Cooktits nail some of the jumps.

Cooktits hit a ptarmigan while driving today and we were told it was good eating. Our chef cooked it up and to say it was yummy was an overstatement. The taste was a bit too gamey for me. It looked like a rhinocerous beetle in the baking pan.

Smokes ended up reading that night while I walked around in -20 to snap some shots, like the icicles formed on one of the logging shacks.

23-26th October – Raven Camp, SK

Last night, the 22nd, it “spewed” snow (sounds a bit better than pissing down as the snow flutters in the breeze and it is a slang Canadian term). I took a time lapse shot of the snow blowing in the wind. Today was all about finishing up the core logging at Points North and it was quite a relief seeing that last hole go out the door. Yay!! We made it back to our really toasty tent at Raven. Who needs insulation when you have a great stove and snow all around the thin canvas tent.She made it, Tan went 4 weeks alcohol free! Tan was wrapped and I was proud. She savoured her glass of Wolf Blass Cabernet Shiraz Merlot and it tasted better than she remembered. The morning of the 24th we had to pack up the office at Points. As soon as we got to Points it decided to snow. Not just a flurry but what would apparently be almost classed a blizzard it was that heavy. Everything including the runway was covered in a matter of minutes with snow and it proceeded to get thicker and thicker. A good excuse for a snowball fight. The packing up of the office and core shed continued with the snow filling up the back of the two trucks. Matt and I were happy to wrap up and head back to Raven Camp. On the drive back to Raven it became evident just how much it had snowed in the last few hours with suddenly everything covered in a blanket of white. It was rather spectacular.Kewen Lake is my favourite fishing spot. It's hard to believe from the shot below that we wading in this water catching pike a few months ago.

This is the start of the snow now that won’t melt as it is now unlikely to get above zero degrees for another five or six months. The wind picked up tonight and we had serious reservations that our tent would take off in the wind it was that bad.

Having only seen it in summer, the parkland at Hidden Bay was a blanket of green reindeer moss. Now it is a blanket of snow amongst the open trees. On Friday, we took Elena, another geologist out for a drive to see it in winter and go for a walk. It was quite with no one around the snow was untouched. Quite beautiful really.

Lucky this sign told us we weren't allowed to swim in the lake or we would of been in there straight away (well maybe not!!)


We also stopped off to show Elena one of the rigs working at Raven.

That day we both did some work in the office in the morning with Cookie, the pug, wanting to help out. Both the dogs are enjoying playing out in the snow.

6th October - Points North, SK

There were a couple of very sore heads this morning (not me though who is almost half way through her four week alcohol free challenge – go Tan). It was a late rise and then Brendo (who has poor piss fitness we discovered) had to go back to bed, just feeling too seedy. Dan struggled through feeling marginally better. It appears I was the hardest working person for the day updating the geological spreadsheets for the boys… hehe.

Yesterday, Wes’s generator in the helicopter died so the boys called on the other helicopter and pilot from Stony Rapids to come down and help out. Jim arrived, along with his 14 seater helicopter (huge) and we were all mesmerized. Poor old Wes and his helicopter now considered not worthy of any attention once this new toy was here. This baby costs just shy of $3,000 an hour to run and we all knew as soon as we saw it that we somehow, had to get a ride in it as a once in a lifetime experience, as it would only be at Points North for probably one day.

Now, to say Jim likes a chat is the understatement of the century. We wandered if the man had any human contact in the month that he had been at Stony Rapids. Jim arrived back from part of his days work at around 3.30 pm. We spoke to him and he was leaving in about ten minutes to do some pickups, drop offs and slinging and we WERE getting on that helicopter. We went and got some warm clothing plus a bag of stuff to see us through the night if in the worse case scenario happened and we couldn’t fly back to Points North. I didn’t like to ask what that worse case scenario might have been.
A quick helicopter safety induction, we buckled in and took off on our next adventure. Dan got the front seat. This helicopter only has two blades (compared to the other one that has three) and is much more powerful. In no time at all we lifted off. Whilst the helicopter itself is noisier and not as smooth as the other one it was still awesome, particularly when Jim flew really low at around 100 feet. We picked up Derek and Matt who were doing some GPS work. Unfortunately no one seemed to know where the next set of holes were and we spent some more time in the air aimlessly looking around with Brendo giving comments from the super coach in the back seat. We weren’t complaining! At the next stop we all got out to meet Bobby and Travis, the linecutters for around 30 minutes whilst Jim did some slinging. Due to the more dangerous work involved in slinging, the helicopter pilot is not allowed any additional passengers than those involved directly in the slinging.
Thirty minutes passes quickly, all seven off us piled in and we headed back to Raven Camp stopping for a while to hover over some drill sites so Dan could take some perspective photo’s for the corporate website. At Raven, we dropped off three of the passengers and picked up Lindsay and headed back to Points North. I took the front seat for this trip. It was awesome, albeit a little scary when Jim showed some of his maneouvers like tilting the helicopter almost on its side whilst flying (I had to hang onto the window for fear of grabbing some of the instrumentation - the second joystick was right between my legs). It was awesome.
We got back to Raven and promptly had to put on some music “Paint it Black” by the Rolling Stones. It did used to be the theme music to Tour of Duty and this particular type of helicopter was used in the Vietnam War (a Bell 205 - Hughie Hogg or Iriquois). Brendo did his best machine gun hanging out of the side of the helicopter impersonation. An absolutely awesome day!!

5th October – Raven Camp, SK, Points North

It was cold this morning. In fact minus 6 at around 8.00am.

The lake behind us started to freeze again. It will probably do this a number of times until there are enough consecutive days for the lake to be so frozen we can start ice skating on it (watch out Torvil and Dean!)

We headed over to Points North which will be our new residence for the time being. Points North is around a 30 minute drive on a gravel road from Raven Camp and is located at the airport. The office is actually right next to the tarmac and no more than 20 metres from where some of the planes park up. No such thing as airport security here. When the plane is ready to leave the pilot simply comes into the room where the passengers are waiting and asks “right, we’re all ready to go then”. Dan had a man knock on the office door and ask if he would be opening the canteen once to which he replied “do I look like I run the canteen”. (note: there is no canteen here but he did have a belter of a moustache then). It’s kind of cool with the seaplanes, planes and helicopters coming and going all day and you can look out the window and see them. Again, very different from any place I’ve ever worked.

It’s a little cooler here at Points North as the wind blows straight off the water so the wind chill factor is, well, cold! Meaning of course, that the everything is freezing quicker including the puddles on the ground. The Australian fascination with frozen water continues with the boys taking great delight in picking up the ice and smashing it on the ground (or with their head - Brendo).

We are staying in a rather dodgy room at the moment. We share the block of rooms with lots of other men here. There are no showers or toilets for women, so Dan has to go in, check there are no men and then I get to come in. The boys decided to crack the 1.2 litre bottle of Bacardi we bought with us. They made it home around 12.30am from the office much worse for wear and there wasn’t a whole lot left of the bacardi either, but they had fun. They may have even squeezed in a little work in between.

Zorro come out for brief moment, though it was a poor impersonation.

4th October- Raven Camp – SK, Points North – SK

We’ve been a bit obsessive lately checking out the weather website because it keeps telling us it is going to snow and then mother nature fails to deliver. However, this morning, there was a knock on the tent door. I opened it and there was Dan filming me seeing my first snow fall. At last it was snowing!!! It was as magical as I imagined it would be seeing my first snow fall. Small snow flakes drifting down in a cloud of white. Technically it was what is considered a flurry – a small snow shower, but it was fabulous none the less. The snowflakes sat on your clothes and in your hair. It started as a handful of flakes and then got heavier. We both stood out in the snow laughing aloud.

The snow stopped for a while and we headed over to Points North so Dan could give Brendan a hand logging as he is heading home to Australia shortly (there are a few Australians at the camp). Along the way we drove through a heavier snow drift again and stopped to shoot a video. We would post it but the link is to slow to upload the video here.

We headed back to Raven Camp late in the day and hit what is called freezing rain. When it rains and it immediately turns to ice when the rain comes into contact with anything making driving difficult when you can’t see out the windscreen!!

We stopped so Dan could have a quick fish in -2 degree weather with a windchill also. About 10 casts later he lost three lures and caught nothing but a chill.


As I write this it is -3.5 with a projected low of minus 6 tonight. The heater is struggling to produce enough heat tonight!!

18th August, Points North, SK

I was up early and had another trip out to the rig. The morning sun on the machine was very bright. I’m getting used to this flying caper. The other day I was reading about Midwest, a uranium deposit, a few clicks from Points North with a reserve grade of 5% uranium. Very nice. It sits under a lake and has recently undergone a feasibility study. The strip ratio is huge and it will be a 200m deep pit. I asked Wes to fly over it to check it out. Yep, it’s under a big lake alright. It’s going to fun to drain it.
On the back isde of Points there is a “grave yard “. Old buses, planes, demountables, mining equipment etc. All hidden away from prying eyes (unless you have a helicopter).
Got some logging in this evening, and reviewed the weak anomalism. Looking at the manual splitter, some thing I thought was obsolete, made me chuckle. I spoke with Matt and said “Don’t waste your time with that thing.” He is now going to Raven to split the core when he has the time.