Roughneck Hell

Who would have figured Northern Alberta could be so damn cold?

So I call up the Tri-City office to enquire about a few days of work before hitting the books, and they gladly agree to send me off to ol' Rig 13. "Oh, it's near Slave Lake" they initially say. Hey, that doesn't sound so bad, doesn't it? Only a few hours north of Edmonton. "Yeah, from Slave Lake head north to Caddote Lake and you're there!" I check the map...that's an additional 3 hours north of Slave Lake.

I left Edmonton at around 1am, and the roads were absolutely treacherous. Wind, snow drifts/ice, flurries, and speeding logging trucks literally made me fear for my life. For almost 200km I was only going about 60km/h! Upon arriving at Caddote Lake, I then turned 50km into the bush, on a meandering, hilly, lease road. At the end of the road was the Tri-City camp - my "Fortress of Solitude" for the next 10 cold days.

I've never stayed in a camp before, and it was basically like being in some sort of isolated, minimum security prison. Sure, you were free to leave whenever you wanted, but civilization was hundreds of kilometers away. In an ironic twist of fate, they had satellite TV out there, yet no working phones. The only positive aspect was that the beds were warm, we got our own rooms, and the cooks fed us like kings. Ten days out there and they didn't make the same meal twice.

I hear it was cold here in Edmonton while I was gone, but the warmest it got up north was -36C...before the wind chill. I was so cold, it was retarded. I wore 7-8 layers just to keep from losing precious body parts.

But I'm home now, and God forbid that I'll need to head back out there for a while. I'm back in my own bed and in the arms of the one I love. Believe me, I've never appreciated it more.

Currently: Fiddling around with my digital camera