11 Days in the field

Well after 11 days in the field i had to quit. I got up to my new job and the terrain was much easier to handle. Compared to Grande Cache it's flat but by flat this means compared to mountains. The ground is very uneven, the forrest is mossy and most of the ground is really soft. So again i go out having to bush bash to get to each point that needs surveying. The bush was getting thick sometimes and i was finding it hard to crash my way through. I have so many bruises on my leg it's not funny. I am sporting some of the biggest bruises that i have ever had in my whole entire life. So i struggle through even after my first 2 days of falling in the swamp. The first day i fall in and get that wet that i had to go and sit in the truck and dry off while everyone went back and kept surveying. The second day i literally walked 5 minutes on the way to our line and get to my first creek and tried to cross and i literally fell in up to the waist. I had to be pulled out. Again soaked we went back to camp and i spent the day in camp because they had to keep working and i was too wet. You have to be so careful of hyperthermia especially me i am not used to the winter weather so i stayed in doors that day. So on day 3 we go out again and i get through the day without falling in. Cool. But then after a couple of days, even though i was getting used to the work that i had to do, the weather started to go below zero. It got to minus 10 and i just found it so hard to cope with the weather that on what turned out to be my last day one of my bosses looked at me and said i think you should stop doing this, you can keep doing this if you like but you look so miserable and i think that you are going to struggle more when the weather gets worse. Minus 10 sounds so cold and believe me it is, but to a true blue canadian it's not that cold. People kept saying to me what are you are going to do when it gets cold. I was not sacked and it was completely my choice to go in the end and i cried tears of relief when i made the decision and it does take a while to get used to a winter this cold. There are some that adjust very quickly and then there's me. Most of the time i struggle with Melbourne winter. So i gave it a go and decided that it just wasn't for me. I am back in Calgary now and think that i will just stay here for the next couple of months as i only have 8 weeks left on my visa and i know a couple of people here so i shall just stay here and then decided when to go and where i am going to go on the way home.

It's beautiful watching the snow and seeing it all around on the roof tops and across the paths and stuff but man it's cold. Also i find that the snow sticks to everything and then it melts and things get wet. So what is a pretty thing turns out to be a right royal pain in the ass. But only about 8 weeks left and then i come back to summer.

There were some photo's taken of me out in the field and so when i get ahold of them i will post them so you can see some of where i was.

take care as always

Shelley
xxxxxx