Day 8–Last minute heroics by the VP

I write this on the bus to Shell’s airstrip. I’m on my way home, but I almost didn’t make it. I decided to leave my backpack with all my PPE (personal protective equipment) at site. I also accidentally left the contents of my wallet in the backpack. I realized this on the bus back to camp (to get to the airstrip from site, you have to go back to camp first) and I panicked!

These are the thoughts that went through my head: DAMMIT! F*CK! BLARRGGHHHH! F*CK!

I sent a few messages, hoping for a miracle…I knew if I didn’t get my ID, I couldn’t get on the plane. Luckily, a miracle happened…

Roger Keglowitsch, PCL Senior Vice President of Heavy Industrial, brought me my stuff. He was at meetings on site during the day and caught a truck back to camp shortly after the busses left. Would your company’s VP do this for you?

Day 8–Meating It Up

Remember Matt? He’s the guy who’s shift I was taking while he was on vacation. He’s back, and he shared this awesome lunch tip with me. Matt takes a vegetarian wrap from the bag up room as well as a package of lunch meat (yes, there are packages of lunch meat in the bag up room). He unrolls the wrap and delicately arranges the extra meat (he prefers ham). I call this “meating it up”. I’m certain that this term will catch on.

Chris does something similar. He the turkey out of a turkey sandwich and puts it into the vegetarian club sandwich. It would be so much easier if they just made a proper turkey club sandwich.

Day 8–Fruit Loops

Along with the eggs, sausage, bacon, more sausage, and more bacon, the dining room also has a selection of cereals available for breakfast.

I had fruit loops this morning. Got a problem with that?

Day 7–Fire! (From a few years ago)

I’m at the Kearl Expansion Project. Some of my coworkers were on the Kearl Initial Development project as well. During the KID project, massive forest fire swept through the region. Site and camp were evacuated for several days. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on your views) the Kearl lake site wasn’t damaged. I snapped this from the bus on my way to site. I think my wife calls this tertiary succession…

Day 6–Prime Rib & Handy Hints

Usually the dining rooms are about half-full at any given time. There’s always a place to sit with plenty of room. Today both dining rooms were packed. Workers housed in one of the neighbouring camps got booted over to Wapasu East. It was extra busy. I thought it was extra busy just because it was prime rib night.

The prime rib was actually quite good. I asked for medium rare and got a medium rare cut. It was a bit surprising. The Yorkshire pudding was acceptable as were the peas and mashed potatoes. The carrots were so-so, as were the mussels. Not bad, just not as good as the rest of the meal. Note: the horseradish is pointless, I don’t know why I keep getting it with beef dishes, it has no kick, and no real flavour. 

I ate in dining room 1 today. Dining room 1 has the normal menu, but also caters to people with special dietary requirements. Look, they have diabetic friendly desserts…

Handy Hints

If you’re coming to Wapasu Lodge for the first time, or coming to any work camp for the first time, here are a few tips that might make things go smoother for you:

• Bring laundry detergent. I prefer doing laundry as opposed to packing for a week to 10 days. I like Tide pods, they’re easy to manage and less messy.
• Bring a pillow. Seriously. The pillows here suck.
• Towels are provided, and they’re adequate, but you might want to bring your own. Don’t forget soap. There’s no soap here.
• A few ziplock/tupperware/rubbermaid containers for packing lunches. The ziplock containers with the screw top lids would be good for packing soup for lunches. The containers provided in the bag-up room suck and they’ll leak all over everything. Ask me how I know. 
• Workout gear. There’s a cardio gym, weight room and a yoga room. Use them. 
• If you’re a coffee snob, like me, bring your coffee stuff. We’re working construction, the coffee sucks. Always has, always will.

If you’ve been in camp before, this stuff is all obvious. If you’re reading this while you’re in camp for the very first time this will all seem obvious later. 

Day 6–Happy Wapasu Sunday

Late start, didn’t get out of bed till 4:11am. Although I passed on this lovely opportunity, the dining room had eggs Benedict for breakfast.

Brass Alley was lit up by a rainbow again this morning. I’ll bet the other end lands right at Kearl Lake!

Day 5, Wapasu Notes

Off the bus I went straight to my room and changed into my workout gear and headed to the previously mentioned “Cardio Gym” to run a few clicks. Last time I went it was pretty quiet, but tonight the room was packed. I counted 16 pieces of cardio equipment being used by 14 people. That counts as packed. In case you’re wondering what my workout gear looks like, here it is…

 

Yes, that’s my bag of laundry beside me, in case you’re curious.

Dinner

After the workout and cooldown (I sat on the bench outside for 10 minutes), it was time for dinner. The dining room was full, so I asked to share a table with another lone diner. Danny introduced himself and we got chatting. Originally from New Brunswick (just like grandpa), the operating engineer (OE) now calls Edmonton home. He said he usually works for Cenovus in the winter (certain types of work are best carried out in the winter months when the ground is frozen), and works at one of the other major jobsites in the spring and summer months. I mentioned this blog to him and he wanted me to stress to anyone coming out to Kearl Lake that it’s important to get out and do something in the evenings. Doesn’t have to be every evening. Doesn’t have to be something really involved. It might just be a walk, it might be a run. Maybe you’d just want to sit outside for 10 minutes. We both agreed if you stay in your room all the time, you will go crazy! Danny was an excellent dinner companion.

He’s also keen on starting a jiujitsu open mat at Wapasu. I’ve got my first participant (after me).

 

We also both agreed the pork loin and potatoes were excellent this evening. We also agreed the best dessert in the dining room is ice cream.

It felt good to walk straight out of the dining room holding my ice cream cone up proudly. Security wouldn’t dare stop me.

Day 5–WEEKEND PARTY!

The weekend is here! Time to PARTY…and when I say party, I mean work. It’s 5:33am and I’m already on the bus to work. I did allow myself to sleep in an extra 5 minutes. I always sleep in on weekends.

It’s a beautiful morning here at camp, someone was even kind enough to turn on the rainbow this morning.

Day 4–Notes on Dining

Dinner tonight was interesting. Tandoori chicken was on the menu. Bold and ambitious! The execution was a bit lacking though and the chicken turned out to be more like an Indian themed roast quarter-chicken, but it was still pretty good. Roast beef was a bit dry…not sure why I felt like I needed 2 meats, maybe it’s because I’m usually surrounded by vegetarians.

Tandoori chicken!?!

My co-worker suggested I mention the “No Removal of Food” policy. As the name suggests, no food may be removed from the dining rooms. It seems a bit odd that someone can’t take a snack back to their room to nibble on, but we’re in the middle of the wilderness, there are wild animals…including wild rodents. The more food we have lying around, the more problems we’ll have with rodents. I’m happy to follow the “No Removal of Food” policy. Chris did point out that people are allowed to leave the dining room with ice cream (there is an ice cream cooler in the main dining room). Chris believes this is because ice cream isn’t food…or the ice cream at camp isn’t food…

It’s 6:33pm and I’m going to bed. Getting up at 4am is tiring.

Day 4–Site Lunch

Workers pack their lunches in the “bag-up” rooms at camp. The building trades workers typically keep their lunches in designated lunch rooms with limited fridge space, so some of them use lunch coolers (like for picnics!). Office staff have a bit more fridge space so I can grab stuff that requires refridgeration. I usually go for sandwiches, beef pies, carrots & celery, yogurt, and cookies. The sandwiches aren’t bad…after they’ve gone through the panini press.

Suvarna charges the new guy $1 to use her “Big Boss Grill”, but since I’m really likeable, she lets me use it for free.

A panini press turns this mediocre sandwich into a glutenous and meaty culinary delight.

My office mate makes a salad by breaking carrots into a container filled with lettuce and other vegetables. He doesn’t have a knife.

Some people get really creative with lunch at site. The kitchen has at least two slow cookers. Someone even made chili today. Note that this isn’t just reheated chili, I watched someone throw in the ingredients for chili at 6:15am this morning.