We’re Moving!

Well, it is now official, we have finally managed to find a buyer for our house in Thompson and so are now in the middle of moving to our home in Nipigon, Ontario.

As mentioned in a previous post I am in the enviable situation of having enough “field leave” (days worked when I should have been off, such as weekends and holidays, that I was able to bank and carry over), as well as current (2009), future (2010) and banked vacation that my last day of work was August 12th.

In preparation I had spent much time last winter and spring getting our house read y for sale with us finally listing it the end of April. We first listed with Remax. When their contract ran out I tried for several weeks myself (here is a picture I used for the web site I set up). Then we listed with Century 21.

Unfortunately for us the housing market this past year saw a lot of houses coming on the market but the number of buyers dropping dramatically. While we put a lot of faith in the advice of local real estate agents they too were blind sided by the drop in the market and were unable to price our house effectively.

While a lot later than planned at least we finally found someone interested in buying our house (we only had one other offer and it was a really low ball one). But now we finally have that elusive “Sold” sign!

A week ago I left Nipigon and drove to Thompson bringing with me a trailer I had bought in August. I picked up our youngest son, Jordan, when I passed through Winnipeg so he could give me a hand packing up and loading the trailer. We arrived in Thompson to be welcomed by -34° C, without the wind chill! That quickly reminded me why I am anxious to leave! Here is the trailer pretty much packed solid.

Janice still has to work a few days at the beginning of January so we will drive back, again with the trailer, to get the final load before we hand our keys over (possession date for the new owners is January 15th).

Geocaching – Chapter 2 (the adventure continues!)

As I had indicated previously I have now taken up Geocaching – the search, using a GPS, for little treasures hidden by others who then have posted the coordinates of their cache on the web.

After taking a break of about two months while I did other things I have finally taken up geocaching again searching for and locating 4 in and around Nipigon. The first is located at a favourite location of mine: Mouseau Mountain, or otherwise know as “Tower Hill” as it is host to several telecommunication towers and at one time had a fire tower as well (now dismantled). What is special about it is the great overview one gets from this vantage point:

I made this trip special by bringing along and introducing to the sport of geocaching Jordan, (on the left) my brother-in-law Hans (on the right), his daughter Mandy, and his good friend Bill. Here is a picture of everyone standing by the cache, a small plastic box hidden amongst the rocks.

To find out more about this site here is the link: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=b24b6126-76c8-45f9-8e96-dfe5c9af330a

The next cache I located was at “The Bald Spot”, a bare area on the top of a diabase ridge that provides an excellent overview of the town of Nipigon:

Later that same day I located the cache at the “Nipigon Lookout”, a pull off on the Trans-Canada Highway. From here you can gaze down upon Nipigon, the mouth of the Nipigon River where it flows into Nipigon Bay and on to the nearby community of Red Rock. Red Rock is where my dad worked at the paper mil (now closed) and is host to the public and high schools I attended prior to leaving the area to attend university so many years ago.

And the last one I have located just today is on “Pancake Island”, a small island within the embrace of the Nipigon River. This one is actually meant to be accessed by using a canoe or a kayak. As it happens the island is attached to the mainland by a breakwater made of diabase:

What made this one a little “interesting” is that a portion of the breakwater just barely pokes up above the water. Enough to walk over, or at least it was when I crossed to the island. On the return leg the water had risen about 10cm and as a result I had to do some wading through the water such that I ended up with a bit of water in my boots!

Home Renovations

The last couple of months have been a busy time for myself. My last day at work was August 12th. I am now on vacation until the end of April of next year and then on May 1st I will retire after 30 years with Inco. A few days after beginning my vacation I loaded up my red Ranger pickup and drove 1,560km to Nipigon, picking up our youngest son, Jordan, when I passed through Winnipeg.

Soon after arriving in Nipigon I began some renovations on our house in Nipigon. As there had been some water leaking through the basement wall I had decided to excavate the basement and replace the moisture barrier membrane. And while at it I had decided to add some exterior insulation and replace the weeping tile as well as put in new basement windows.

Jordan was my assistant. We did the front, far side and back first. Janice’s dad, Ralph, had redone the water proofing a number of years ago, using asphalt covered with plastic. But he had not made sure the top edge of the plastic was sealed and water had penetrated in behind and then leaked through the block wall into the basement.

We peeled off the plastic, cleaned the trench to the base of the footing and installed the new weeping tile. This was then covered with crushed rock to make sure there would be maximum drainage. Here is a picture after putting in enough crushed rock to cover the footing.

Once the weeping tile and crushed rock were in place we cleaned the wall and then applied a primer prior to applying a product called “Blue Skin”. This is a plasticized membrane about 2mm thick and which sticks to the foundation wall. Here is Jordan applying the primer (helps make the membrane stick better) followed by the application of the membrane and then 2” foam insulation.

 

Then additional crushed rock was placed into the trench and it then partially backfilled. Working off the backfill we then put up pressure treated plywood to cover the above grade portion of the insulation to prevent UV damage to the insulation. After sealing the top edge of the insulation we then covered the top of the insulation and plywood with metal flashing.

 

The last part of the job was to: a) complete the backfilling, b) finish applying flashing to cover any part above the insulation not covered by siding, c) install new stairs for the side porch and d) install the new windows (triple pane awning windows). As a result the basement already is much warmer and much more comfortable.

And here is what everything looks like at this point in time (I still need to add some trim around the new windows).

 

Geocaching - Chapter 1 (A new beginning)

A word of caution, the following descriptions and accompanying photographs include spoilers (information that can give details away and ruin the experience of finding these particular caches yourself).

My friend Gordon, after several attempts, convinced me to give Geocaching a try. For those of you who are not familiar with “Geocaching” it involves searching for a container which contains at minimum a log in which you record your discovery using nothing more than GPS (Global Positioning System) coordinates and maybe a brief description of the site.

Seeing as how it has been quite some time since I used to get paid to hike in the woods looking for treasures using nothing more than a compass and an air photo or map I figured I would give it a whirl. As it turns out it is an excellent excuse to go for a hike! I have never been one to do exercise for exercise’s sake but if I can give it some other purpose (i.e. walking to and from work) no problem. And Geocaching fits that bill!

On my first attempt Janice came with me and we went to locate two caches not far from home on the Millennium Trail, a hiking trail that pretty much encircles Thompson. These two are “Knights Pride” (GCVXE3) and “Thompson Twilight” (GC1DPF4). Here is a picture of me after I had located my very first cache! This one was disguised quite well with the box being covered by a small piece of plywood with a large chunk of moss glued on top.

The second one (Thompson Twilight) was right beside an ATV trail. I was a bit disappointed in that it wasn’t as well disguised as the first in that it was covered by several pieces of wood with the un-weathered surfaces facing up and for a long time woodsman like me that was like putting a beacon on top. But even so I now have the Geocaching bug!

We were very foolish that day in that we left the house without any fly repellent and as it turns out the black flies and mosquitoes were out in full force. Needless to say we did not linger any longer than necessary and quickly beat a fast retreat home.

I have now signed up at Geocaching.com under the alias “rockhammer”. There I can locate what caches are in my immediate area and even download them to my GPS (a Garmin GPSMap 76CSx). The site also allows me to log any finds so that an online record is made. As I also want to include pictures of each find I decided I would add these particular “adventures” to my online blog.

So far I have only gone Geocaching on the weekends so my next outing was not until the following weekend. Being the systematic person that I am, and also wanting to return to my first two finds to take some more pictures, I started the same way I did the first time and then continued on. After going back to Knights Pride and Thompson Twilight to take some additional pictures I then continued on to “Sauger Cache” (GC13B20), “Knights Lair” (GC13P3J) and “Off Broadway” (GC1PGV6).

The first, Sauger Cache, is a small plastic container hidden under some sticks a couple of metres beside a small trail joining Sauger Drive, within the Westwood Subdivision of Thompson, with the Millennium Trail.

Knights Lair is located in the bush in behind the Thompson zoo and is a reasonable distance off of the Trail. This was the first find that I have made that consisted of a camouflaged box attached to a tree. My GPS got me to within about 3 metres of the cache. I really enjoyed this one in that it was off the beaten path and gave me confidence that my GPS will get me to where I want to go.

The last find was Off Broadway. This one is a rather sneaky one in that it is located right in the open beside a walkway between two streets (Broadway obviously being one of those two). It took me a little while to figure out where the cacher had hidden the quest, in this case a “micro cache” consisting of a cigar tube. There is a yellow guy wire protector pretty much where the GPS brought me and I immediately looked in the bottom but to no avail. Then I finally took a closer look at the top and saw a wire hook; the tubular cache was stuck in the top, held in place by a snare wire hook! A pleasant way to finish this day’s hike!

My next outing had to wait a couple of weeks as in the interim Janice and I drove to Thunder Bay to attend my niece Sarah’s wedding. But once I got back I went out at the first opportunity. This time I concentrated on 3 that were not along the Millennium trail but were scattered in the downtown area: “Pedal to the metal” (GC13KR4), “Wolf Woof” (GC1DPFT) and “Anay-Powin” (GC1HRAC).

As it turned out I picked a bad time to go; not that the weather was off but that there was so much human activity in all three areas that it was very difficult to be discreet! One of the rules of Geocaching is not to let “muggles” (non-geocachers who might remove or vandalize the cache) see you accessing the cache. The first of these three is at the Heritage Museum and the cache location is in full view of a major intersection. While I located the cache I had to return later in the day to actually access it and sign the logbook. The other two were even worse. In neither case was I able to locate the cache but only because of the high visibility of these two locations!

Wolf Woof is hidden behind a large limestone sculpture of two wolves howling at a limestone moon. One thing that threw me off somewhat was that the GPS coordinates are not very accurate in that the spot is in the middle of the road, about 10 metres from the actual cache. Another was that I wasn’t sure what the cache even looked like; was it a “micro” as at Off Broadway, a water-proof plastic container like most found to this point or was it something like the metal box at Knights Lair. But at least I had the opportunity to get up close and personal to one of Thompson’s “treasures” as it is a fine piece of art.

Anay-Powin is a small circular park located right beside MacDonald’s restaurant. When I got there I found two native fellows lounging on and beside a turned over shopping cart very close to where my GPS indicated the cache should be.

Both cache sites would have to wait for another day when hopefully there would be much less human activity!

On August 3rd, I left early in the morning to locate the 2 caches I had been unable to pin point the previous week and to complete my most ambitious journey of discovery yet; I planned to locate 5 others that day! On the agenda were: “Knights Den” (GC13RWK), “Burntwood River View” (GC1EKRH), “Millennium Granite” (GC1EKQM), “Millennium Aqueduct” (GC1EKR4) and “Nemo’s Walk” (GC1DPFJ).

As I had checked the description for Wolf Woof I now knew it to be a tube and a quick look behind the sculpture revealed it lying on top of one of the supports. On my previous visit I had looked right at it but had not realized it was my target! While signing the logbook someone honked their horn as they drove by. Later I received an email that revealed that person to be “windonfire”, another Thompson based geocacher doing his best to encourage me!

The next stop was the Anay-Powin Park. With no one lounging around I was free to finally search for the micro cache hidden here. Now that I had a much better idea of what a micro cache should look like it took me no time at all to find the small camouflaged film canister clipped to a branch in a spruce tree. One interesting item with this find is that beside a log sheet there is also a 500-peso coin (many caches have “trading items” consisting of small trinkets – the rule is that you leave something of equal or greater value than what you take)! The day was starting off quite well!

So with these two successes now under my belt I continued on to Knights Den. This one is located in the bush not too far from the memorial to bush flyers that was put up last year. This memorial consists of a Noorduyn Norseman on floats, in Lamb Air colours (the first air service in the area) and is set up as if it had just taken off from the nearby Burntwood River.

The actual cache is about 200 metres away from the memorial and consists of camouflaged lock box attached to a tree. It was very easy to spot but what really intrigues me is that there is so much sign of human activity (native Indian) in the form of abandoned campsites. I am amazed that no “muggles” have found the site and raided it of its contents!

The next location, Burntwood River View, turned out to be my most challenging find yet! Unlike some of the previous locations I knew nothing about this cache other than its location. My GPS put me a couple of metres away from a pair of large white spruce trees. It looked like an excellent spot for a “conventional” cache (a water proof container usually about 15cm square or larger). After checking every possible hiding spot I could find in about a 10m radius I finally came to the realization that I must be searching for something else, such as a “micro” cache. So, with my back to one of the spruce trees I started looking at the underside of the branches and there it was, a another camouflaged film container clipped to a branch!

This brings me to a criticism of many of the logs other people have written; too many comment on how easy or fast they were able to locate the cache. For me the thrill of the hunt is my primary objective, and not the self-gratuitous boasting of how quickly I found something, especially when I have already read the online description and know exactly what I am looking for. Other than quickly increasing ones find count where is the fun in that? True, I used that information for some of my early finds but that was more to help me get my mind around what the heck I was looking for, being so new to this sport. Obviously I plan to use the descriptions only as a last resort.

With the satisfaction of having made that find by being patient and methodical, including ruling out possibilities, I continued down the trail to my next quarry: Millennium Granite. Based on the name alone I knew it involved some form of rock outcropping, and sure enough I did. The cache is located behind a slab of granite gneiss that has broken away from the main outcrop and was covered by a couple of sticks.

The next proved to be another challenge but one easily met as Burntwood River View had taught me a lot. It only took a few minutes to discount that this cache was a conventional one. I always have a backpack with me with my supplies; water, camera and other necessities. A habit I developed many years ago is that I place my pack on the ground to mark my spot, whether it was where my traverse line was or now where my GPS says the cache is located, plus or minus 4 metres. So standing over it I began to survey the branches of the closest trees and very quickly spotted amongst the branches of a small spruce tree another micro cache consisting of a camouflaged film canister clipped to a branch.

With that find I began the hike back home with the plan being to stop along the way and locate Nemo’s Walk. Everything was going well; while walking along the trail my GPS indicated the cache was off to the side in the bush. I located a bush trail and followed it to the spot my GPS indicated. After about a half hour of looking high and low for everything, including micro caches I gave up. I couldn’t find it! So I left and went home and checked the web site. It indicated that the cache was a small plastic container at the base of a tree within some bushes and that the location was off. So back I went to the same location my GPS had indicated but looked further a field. About 10 metres away, right beside another bush trail was the fully exposed container, as indicated, at the base of a small tree within a bush. Another lesson learned: while a cache likely will be beside some sort of trail (the person who left it likely would have taken a path of least resistance) the GPS coordinates will not always be +/- 4 metres but could be up to +/- 10 metres or so.

So at this point there are now only 2 cache locations left within the immediate Thompson area left for me to find: “Knight Ski” (GC1GX2W) and “Koda Cache” (GC1R9KR).
These I visited on August 8. While I had planned to locate a number down by Paint Lake it wasn’t until I got there that I discovered I had not uploaded there location information to my GPS!

Knights Ski is a camouflaged metal box mounted to a large white spruce about 20 metres to the south of the cross-country ski trail located just across the Burntwood River from Thompson. It was a very pleasant day for a hike in the woods!

The other, Koda Cache, required driving out to Provincial Road 280 (the road to Gillam). There you walk down the right of way for a power line until you reach a stream. About 50 metres west, within a small grove of spruce, and right beside the stream is the cache. It consists of a small waterproof plastic box sitting on a branch. While this is a nice scenic location unfortunately the mosquitoes were quite abundant and hungry! As a result I didn’t linger very long!

A Weekend of Curling

It has been several months since my last post, mainly because it looks like my trips overseas have come to an end. But then I got to thinking that adventures do not have to just involve a foreign destination! And recently I had such an adventure.

One of my passions and one that helps me get through the Thompson winters is curling. It has been about 10 years now that I began curling on a regular basis and, as it turns out, it is one of those few sports that I am actually reasonably good at.

Because of all of the foreign travel last year I had to scale back and I just signed up as a spare this season - in effect a rock thrower for hire. But, as I have already mentioned, as my traipsing off to foreign lands has been greatly curtailed I joined up with my team from last year and we had been enjoying some success. One of my team mates, Bob Wall, suggested we go on a road trip. Because of Thompson's remote location there are not too many places within a reasonable distance. As it turns out, the community of Snow Lake, approximately 250 km to the southwest held a bonspiel soon after Bob's suggestion. So he signed us up!

Now the team I curled with last year (Bob, Mike MacKay and Guy Hansen) only curled on Wednesday nights. But this year they signed up for Tuesday and Thursday instead with they recruiting a different person to play the skip position (in effect captain of the team) since it did not appear I would be available. For Tuesday they got a fellow new to town by the name of Gary Adams. And for Thursday a fellow by the name of Rory Ardiel. As it turns out Rory had a hard time making games and since I was available after all I took over skipping on that night.

The morning of the day we were to leave for Snow Lake Guy called me to say that he would not be able to go. Fortunately Gary agreed on short notice to join us in Guy's absence. So I left work early and then went and picked up the others. Because of the late notice Gary did not have his curling gear so we had to delay our departure. We finally got to Snow Lake just as the opening draw was beginning. So we quickly changed and went out on the ice.

While in Snow Lake e we stayed in a bed and breakfast, although we didn't get much for breakfast! At least the rooms and beds we comfortable and the price reasonable. Here is a picture of the the B&B as well as well as a view of Snow Lake from nearby. And after that a photo of the snow Lake curling rink. Note that the truck on the right is the new Honda Ridgeline Janice and I purchased at the beginning of January; a perfect vehicle for four men and their gear!
As a quick aside, like most towns in northern Manitoba Snow Lake came to be because of mining. In this case it originally was a gold mine called the Nor Acme mine that operated for about 10 years beginning in the 1940's. The gold mine shut down in the '50's. Fortunately base metals were found in the area about then and there have now been a total of 8 mines (Chisel Lake, Chisel North, Ghost Lake, Anderson Lake, Stull Lake, Rod, Osborne and Photo Lake). In the early 1990's the gold mine was reopened. But now all of the mines are closed which is one reason the numbers at the bonspiel were down. But there is hope in that another base metal deposit has been found at Lawlor Lake but it will be several years before production can begin.

Most bonspiels guarantee a minimum of 3 games as it is usually a triple knock-out format. There are usually at least 3 events with everyone starting in the first event and with each loss one moves down to the next event. If you loose the third game you are out. Because of a lower number of entrants they changed it to two round robin pools of 5 teams in one and 4 in the other resulting in a guarantee of 4 games. As I always set my primary objective to play one more game than the minimum we were in a bonus situation right from the get go!

Here we have Bob (on the left) and Mike getting ready to sweep the rock I am about to deliver.

During the round robin we were very fortunate and won 3 and lost only 1 resulting in being tied for first in our pool! Much better than I had expected or even hoped. And the team we lost against we gave them a good run for the money. As it turned out, when the results for both pools were tabulated we were in a four way tie for first place. So for the playoffs the four skips each attempted to draw to the button with the closest being declared 1st and so forth. I was able to put us in 3rd and as a result played off against the team that was 1st. Again we played well but not quite good enough. Regardless it was a great weekend.

And here is a picture of the full team, in front of the curling club logo. From left to right: Mike MacKay, Gary Adams, Bob Wall and myself.