The move cometh

Yes, it is not long now. On Monday, we leave the relative tranquility of Lacombe Park for the relative tranquility of Erin Ridge on the other side of the North-South St. Albert trail. Although the two neighbourhoods are only 3 minutes and a mile apart, they are quite different in their own way. Lacombe, at least the part we are in, is quite new. Most properties here are less than 5 years old and modern in their external appearance. Erin Ridge is an older, more established area and the average age of houses there is about 20 years - positively ancient in Canadian terms. The upside of this is that the plots and therefore the garden are larger and there is more space between houses. The area has more greenery as well, with wide avenues and streets populated with well developed trees and shrubs. The downside is that most properties are quite well worn and in need of a good refit. Our new home is no exception, with an older style kitchen and bathrooms, drab decor and an unfinished basement. The latter is actually a good thing as we can plan it out exactly the way we want it from scratch, like painting on a new canvas without having to get the turps out first. I will be documenting the restyling process over the months with lots of before and after pictures, so we can keep a running commentary on the progress, or not, of the work.

Our new home awaits

First things first though and we have a move to do. We are knee deep in packing paper and boxes at the moment as we put everything back into storage only 5 months after taking it all out. At least this time we are only crossing the Trail and not the Atlantic. As anyone who has moved house before knows, it is all hassle and bustle and here is no different. Moving companies over here do not give a fixed price, rather they charge by the hour. So the longer they take to load and unload your wordly goods, the more it costs. The onus is on you therefore, to do as much packing and stacking as possible beforehand. This weekend, with the associated dismembering of beds, computers, audio-visual equipment and all else in-between, is one I am not looking forward to. Still, the prospect of a bigger house, the dream of a home cinema and the reality of our very own hot-tub in our landscaped garden will spur me on.

Some views of the 'yard'

Albert

It is 9.30am on a Saturday morning and I'm doing what I thought would not be required until next winter. Shovelling snow. Yes, my hasty prediction along the lines of 'I think that's it' with regards to the snow proved to be somewhat premature as this week it dumped another five inches of the white stuff in the Edmonton area. This was a little on the mean side as the temperatures had started to rise to above zero in the last two weeks, lulling us into a false security and giving rise to a false dawn as far as spring was concerned. One of the strange side effects of living through continuous sub-zero temperatures is that when they do rise to a heady minus 3 or 4, it feels positively tropical. Coats and sweaters get removed and the year's first sighting of a man in shorts was spotted on the St. Albert transit last week. The snow had been fast retreating and in Edmonton city centre it had disappeared completely. Grass now poked it's way through the residual mud and people had started emerging from their long hibernation in their basements. Such was the euphoria, that the kids and Charlotte in particular were straining at the leash to get out into the garden, or in Canada's case, the yard.

Now, I always felt that the word yard, used to describe an area of grass, flowers and the general patch of nature attached to one's house was harsh. Yards describe areas of concrete and stone, bordered by ageing brick walls and which contain scrap metal or used cars. Garden, it seems to me, is a much better noun to use for our own little bit of Eden. Anyway, I digress. Charlotte, looking at some dismay at the fast disappearing snow, was very keen to build a snowman before it was too late. We agreed, it had to be done and so last Sunday, the entire family trooped out into the 'garden' with shovels, my old university scarf, an old baseball hat, two small potatoes and a carrot. After all, what self-respecting snowman could possibly exist without a carrot for a nose. The sun blazed down and in our fenced plot was surprisingly warm. So much so, that within a few minutes we had discarded coats, hats, jumpers and snow trousers as we went about our task. Snow, it has to be said is different in Canada from the UK. The dry climate here results in a very powdery, light snow which is next to impossible to form into clumps. This is somewhat disadvantageous when it comes to building snowmen and it took my considerable engineering skills to work out a way to get it to stick together. Basically, I breathed on it to moisten it and used it as a sort of binding agent for the main structure. This was all working well, much to Charlotte's joy, Eleanor's indifference and Claire's amazement until I tried to put the carrot in place. I pushed slightly too hard and the whole head exploded in a puff of crystals. Everyone laughed of course (schadenfreude is big in our family) so I had to make a head mark two. Finally, the snowman was complete, dressed and looking resplendent. We named him Albert. Of course.

Albert and family - Charlotte, Eleanor, Claire and myself
(and for Karen, Frances' ski-suit getting a fourth airing on Eleanor)

Firebag

An advantage of working as a design engineer within my field of power transmission is that you get to work in a nice warm office during these bleak winter months. Occasionally though, I get a welcome break from the office and get to go out to the business end of what we do and experience the real world of sub-zero construction work. It is particularly exciting when that site is in a part of the country that I have yet to explore. In this case, my travels are taking me north to Fort McMurray which is an hour's flight away from Edmonton. Once there it is another two hours drive north east to the site. My function was to carry out a site review of the project, which in this case is a 40km overhead transmission line being built to service the new oil refinery at Firebag river.

As a province, Alberta is rich. It has lower taxes than any other province in Canada and a high investment in the infrastructure which can be seen in the amount of construction work taking place in Alberta's cities. The reason for this is the huge oil deposits situated in the north and Fort McMurray is the gateway to those riches. These deposits take the form of strange stuff called oil sand and it is this which is being dug out of the ground in vast quantities. Imagine an area the size of England - now double it and that is the size of the area involved. Naturally, like everything here, it is a huge operation. To say it is a large undertaking is like saying that China has a few bicycles or Bradford has one or two curry houses. There are mines, oil sand refineries, processing plants, power stations, pipelines the length of the great wall of China and miles and miles of wilderness. All this needs power and power needs to be transmitted from A to B and that is where I and my merry band of designers come in.

The oil sands operation - those trucks are BIG.

The scenery is stunning, with huge lakes and vast plains. Forests abound, even though vast tracts are being felled to provide Canada's basic raw material, lumber, and the area is then mined for the oil sand. There are bears around here, and cougars, caribou, elk and wolves. If you spot any caribou you are to report it to the authorities for tracking purposes. I managed to spot a couple of grey wolves prowling around one of the access roads but not much else. Each plant site has very strict rules concerning safety on and off site. Alcohol is banned in many plants, smoking, well go figure and driving is monitored closely. My first morning required me to attend an orientation course to allow me to travel around the sites. I felt somewhat puny next to the riggers, drivers and plant operators I met and that was only the women....This is redneck country and no place for softies.

The Fort McMurray to Firebag road. In the background is one of the huge oil processing plants.

One of the most impressive things I saw there were the accommodation camps. After all, it is a bit much to expect your average worker to drive two hours from Fort McMurray in the morning in order to start a 10 hour shift, so the big oil sands companies have built huge semi-permanent camps to house the workforce. Now when I say camp, think not of a row of tents and the smell of fires or a quick chorus of 'ging gang gooly'. No, these are 1500 room hotels, each room has an ensuite bathroom, cable tv, double bed, lazy boy recliner and fridge. The camps have dining rooms, gymnasia, games rooms, shops and communal kitchens. I stayed in one overnight and I can quite honestly say that I have been in worse four star hotels. Waupisoo camp, I salute you.

Waupisoo camp - an oasis in the wilderness

It was great to see this side of Canada and get a bit of work done at the same time. I'm going up again in a couple of weeks, with hopefully another stay in Waupisoo. These pictures give some idea of what it was like, but they cannot portray the sheer scale of the place. The name Firebag, by the way, comes from the small pouch made from animal hide, that the native indians used to carry small pieces of hot coals in to keep their hands warm on their long winter hunting trips. With temperatures dropping to minus 40 at night, they obviously had the right idea.