It is an infrequent requirement of my profession to travel to site for various reasons and one such opportunity required myself and two colleagues to venture over the border to Saskatchewan, to the town of Saskatoon. The name has a Looney Tunes feel to it I think, unintentionally finding yourself pronouncing it with an over emphasis on the 'toon bit, or maybe that's just me. Now such journeys are normally undertaken by air, the vast distances between major cities normally exclude the option of driving, particularly for a day trip. However, in this case, due to the late arrangements and the relative closeness to Edmonton (it is only 525 km, a mere hop away), my colleague decided we would be better off on the road. So it was that I found myself outside Stantec Towers at 5.00 am, semi awake and wishing that I worked in a bank. They have sensible hours, banks.We set off on the ubiquitous Yellowhead Highway, heading east and settled in for the 5 1/2 hour journey to our neighbouring province. It was cold, it was dark, it was the middle of the bloody night, but we had coffee and hot muffins so all was well. Thank God for Tim Hortons. There was little traffic and so it was only a short time before we hit the border town of Lloydminster. The night was receding as we drove through and it wasn't long before the sun decided to put in an appearance. The sunrise was made all the more spectacular by the fact that Saskatchewan is flat. Really, really flat. It's so flat in Saskatchewan, they say, you can watch your dog run away from home for a week. This meant that you could see the sun, a huge orange blob, squeezing itself over the horizon and popping into view like the stuff you get in those lava lamps when they warm up. It was quite wonderful. Then everything went gray.In what was a quite dramatic turn-around, our blue skied, orange splashed morning was suddenly obliterated by something I had not seen in Canada - dense fog. Now, I'm sure Saskatchewan is a pleasant enough province, wide sweeping prairies, open rivers etc. It's just that I didn't see a single thing, zilch. The odd nebulous structure by the side of the road and that's it, all the way to Saskatoon. It meant I could catch up on my sleep though. I ought to mention at this juncture that I was not driving. Our day passed fairly uneventfully, we came, we saw, we stood knee high in snow taking pictures and making notes and it wasn't too long before we had to head back. After a hearty meal we hit the road again, coffee supplies re-established and secure in the knowledge that the drive home could not be worse that the drive here. We were wrong. There is something worse than driving through fog. Driving through freezing fog - in the dark. My colleague, born and bred in Alberta and who was probably driving trucks before puberty, was an assured driver, negotiating the insane conditions with confidence and only raising his eyebrows above horizontal level when the visibility got so bad, I had trouble making him out from the passenger seat.
Ice build up on the truck aerial after driving though freezing fog. There is never a glass of whisky around when you need one....There were others less fortunate than us, identified by the fact that they were upside down in a roadside ditch, or embedded in a bridge pillar, thankfully it would seem, unhurt but rather embarrassed. By the time we reached Lloydminster again, the fog had receded and the rest of the journey to Edmonton was clear. As it was here that the fog descended before, I have come to the conclusion that Saskatchewan isn't really flat, it's just that nobody has seen it and therefore assumes it is.All in all it was a long day, the best part of 12 hours on the road and most of that covered in a cloak of fog. Our site visit met it's objectives however and the day was productive, although even my Albertan colleague was moved to say in the office the next morning, next time - we fly.
As the first month of the new year retreats into the distance, winter here in Canada has loosened it's icy grip a touch. After the snowfalls and the plummeting temperatures, the weather has turned distinctly milder with the result that you can actually venture out of doors without several layers of thick fleecy underwear. In fact, last week saw a most unusual winter occurence - it actually rained. This has had a distinctly strange effect in that the snow became wet, turned to a slushy mush and then froze again when the temperatures dropped at night. Now, instead of a winter wonderland, we have an icy menace. Roads and sidewalks have basically been turned into large scale ice rinks and even though Alberta's vast army of ice scrapers and gritters has done their job on the highways, the pedestrian lot is not a happy one. Walking on sheet ice is tricky to say the least and the daily journey to work (I don't really feel the term commute applies here) is enlivened by the sight of the Edmonton public stepping and sliding their way around like an army of geriatric ballet dancers.This thawing and freezing effect has had it's beneficial moments. Last week, Stantec Towers suffered a burst water main and we lost all our water supply to the offices. With no washrooms available for use and a sprinkler system that could not operate, the offices had no choice but to close and send us all home. Even though management were quoting municipal regulations and minimum working conditions, I suspect the real reason for the decision to abandon work for the day lay in the fact that the coffee bar was closed and the psychological effects on a workforce denied their caffeine rights was too much. Here in Canada, no coffee = no work.Talking of winter conditions and keeping in touch with what is going on in the old country, it was amusing and a little smugness inducing to see the state of the UK after their recent snowfalls. Roads blocked, trains cancelled, schools closed and the infrastructure once again grinding to a halt accompanied by the usual howls of protest about the government's seeming inefficiencies. However it would be unfair to draw too many comparisons to conditions here. To start with, Canada's winters are guaranteed. It gets cold, it snows, it lasts for months and consequently the resources and lifestyles are there to cope. Winter boots for example, are available for purchase, anywhere and at a reasonable cost, as soon as autumn appears. In the UK, one suspects that winter boots are only available at major branches of Snow and Rock, right next to the climbing crampons and the ice pitons. Cars and trucks here have snow tyres, commonplace and used regularly. Walk into a branch of Kwik Fit in the UK and ask for snow tyres and you will probably get a set of radials painted white.You get my drift. We are set up for it here, the UK isn't. Vive la difference.
