Blizzards & Doggie Birthday Celebrations
Last weekend, after about three days of what seemed like non stop snowfall, Bentley and his two best friends celebrated their 2nd birthdays. All three pooches were born within three days of each other. Bentley & Marshall were both born on the 2nd of February and Callie on the 31st of January.
Saturday morning, a group of us with about 10 dogs went for a snowshoe out on the lake in the morning where the dogs romped around in the snow, chasing and wrestling with each other. Bentley and Rain, both Border Collies, couldn’t resist the urge to try to herd the snowmobiles that roared past on the lake. This scares me a bit because no matter what I do or say, he just cannot resist the urge to chase them. At least he gives up when he realizes they are getting smaller, and that there is no way he is going to catch them. What is funny is that when he picks up the scent of a snowmobile, he rolls around in the snowmobile tracks because he thinks this will help him sneak up on them.
Later in the afternoon we had a little doggie birthday party at Callie’s house. (I know, I can't help it! Nothing is too good for my B!) They played some more chase, wrestled around some more and gobbled down their birthday cakes. What a dog lover I must be, as a vegetarian, to have baked these disgusting concoctions for my B and his friends. The ingredients included eggs, salmon and potato dog food, peanut butter (natural & organic, of course), honey, olive oil, baking soda and whole wheat flour. I iced them with a thin layer of natural peanut butter and decorated them with real bacon sprinkles. Instead of candles, they each got 2 pepperoni sticks. My apartment stunk for two days!! But they loved them.
The next day I took Callie and Bentley out for another romp out on the lake. It was very cold (-28º C with the windchill). But it was clear and beautiful and thankfully snowmobiles were scarce because (I am guessing) it was Super Bowl Sunday. We did come across a few kids who were ice fishing. They had a few holes in the ice, one of which attracted Bentley’s attention. The kids thought he was thirsty…..but it turns out he was stealing their bait!! Bentley loves to eat live fish. After apologizing, I had to hook him up to a leash and drag him back to the car or he would have eaten all of it!!
Since there was about 50cm of new snow in the last few days, I decided to check out the local ski hill with another coworker who is also from B.C. We went there with an open mind and did not have great expectations. We decided that a half day was probably going to be enough since we anticipated getting bored quickly. Well, it definitely was not very challenging. After we got our passes, I said to my friend, well maybe we should look for the black diamond runs?? To which he replied with a grin: "They are all going to be green runs to us!!!". He wasn't kidding. I barely had to speed check on either of the 2 runs that were groomed to the point where it didn't matter how much it had just snowed. There was a sweet spot under the chair lift (at least there was a chair lift!) that was pretty much untouched powder. Above it was taped off with caution tape. I ducked under and got a few good turns in knee deep heaven before meeting a ski patroller at the bottom. Unbelievablly, I almost lost my pass!!! Apparently, unlike at Whistler the caution tape is not just a suggestion here, it means it was a closed area. It certainly was not marked as a closed area. Instead of arguing, I played dumb and told them that it was my first time here and that I did not realize it was a closed part of the hill. They let me go, but banished me from returning to the only powder on the hill. We did about 4 more runs, only to get our money's worth and decided we were just too bored to go any longer. At least we gave it a go and are trying to make the best of living in North Bay. We decided that we may return once the terrain park opens. I havn't ever really learned to ride the terrain park, so maybe it will at least offer me a challenge! We are also hoping to get to Mont Tremlant in Quebec at some point which is a bit bigger and has several more runs.
After a good weekend of fun in the snow and with the dog, I got sent up to Moosonee for a few days on a charter. It was a good thing that I have been getting out in the cold a lot lately, otherwise it would have been a shock to my system. For those of you unfamiliar with Moosonee, it is on the south west side of James Bay. On the day we arrived, the temperature was -37º C. I was very grateful for my parka, ski pants, and winter boots while securing the airplane on the brutally cold and windy tarmac. Since there is no hangar for our airplane, we had to use engine heaters and tents and we even removed the battery and brought it indoors to guarantee we would be able to get the engines started again. In the time it took us to do this, even though we were dressed warmly, we still had to go indoors twice to warm up our fingers. We did stay in a very nice B&B in Moosonee. Although, it was a chilly fifteen minute walk to get dinner in the only restaurant in Moosonee. The next day we took our clients to two reserves in Fort Albany and Attiwapiskat. Both are very isolated places with small gravel strips. All in all it was great remote winter operations experience for me, but I am grateful that I have not had to go there too often. It was nice to return to a balmy -15º C in North Bay on Wednesday.
Last weekend, after about three days of what seemed like non stop snowfall, Bentley and his two best friends celebrated their 2nd birthdays. All three pooches were born within three days of each other. Bentley & Marshall were both born on the 2nd of February and Callie on the 31st of January.
Saturday morning, a group of us with about 10 dogs went for a snowshoe out on the lake in the morning where the dogs romped around in the snow, chasing and wrestling with each other. Bentley and Rain, both Border Collies, couldn’t resist the urge to try to herd the snowmobiles that roared past on the lake. This scares me a bit because no matter what I do or say, he just cannot resist the urge to chase them. At least he gives up when he realizes they are getting smaller, and that there is no way he is going to catch them. What is funny is that when he picks up the scent of a snowmobile, he rolls around in the snowmobile tracks because he thinks this will help him sneak up on them.
Later in the afternoon we had a little doggie birthday party at Callie’s house. (I know, I can't help it! Nothing is too good for my B!) They played some more chase, wrestled around some more and gobbled down their birthday cakes. What a dog lover I must be, as a vegetarian, to have baked these disgusting concoctions for my B and his friends. The ingredients included eggs, salmon and potato dog food, peanut butter (natural & organic, of course), honey, olive oil, baking soda and whole wheat flour. I iced them with a thin layer of natural peanut butter and decorated them with real bacon sprinkles. Instead of candles, they each got 2 pepperoni sticks. My apartment stunk for two days!! But they loved them.
The next day I took Callie and Bentley out for another romp out on the lake. It was very cold (-28º C with the windchill). But it was clear and beautiful and thankfully snowmobiles were scarce because (I am guessing) it was Super Bowl Sunday. We did come across a few kids who were ice fishing. They had a few holes in the ice, one of which attracted Bentley’s attention. The kids thought he was thirsty…..but it turns out he was stealing their bait!! Bentley loves to eat live fish. After apologizing, I had to hook him up to a leash and drag him back to the car or he would have eaten all of it!!
Since there was about 50cm of new snow in the last few days, I decided to check out the local ski hill with another coworker who is also from B.C. We went there with an open mind and did not have great expectations. We decided that a half day was probably going to be enough since we anticipated getting bored quickly. Well, it definitely was not very challenging. After we got our passes, I said to my friend, well maybe we should look for the black diamond runs?? To which he replied with a grin: "They are all going to be green runs to us!!!". He wasn't kidding. I barely had to speed check on either of the 2 runs that were groomed to the point where it didn't matter how much it had just snowed. There was a sweet spot under the chair lift (at least there was a chair lift!) that was pretty much untouched powder. Above it was taped off with caution tape. I ducked under and got a few good turns in knee deep heaven before meeting a ski patroller at the bottom. Unbelievablly, I almost lost my pass!!! Apparently, unlike at Whistler the caution tape is not just a suggestion here, it means it was a closed area. It certainly was not marked as a closed area. Instead of arguing, I played dumb and told them that it was my first time here and that I did not realize it was a closed part of the hill. They let me go, but banished me from returning to the only powder on the hill. We did about 4 more runs, only to get our money's worth and decided we were just too bored to go any longer. At least we gave it a go and are trying to make the best of living in North Bay. We decided that we may return once the terrain park opens. I havn't ever really learned to ride the terrain park, so maybe it will at least offer me a challenge! We are also hoping to get to Mont Tremlant in Quebec at some point which is a bit bigger and has several more runs.
After a good weekend of fun in the snow and with the dog, I got sent up to Moosonee for a few days on a charter. It was a good thing that I have been getting out in the cold a lot lately, otherwise it would have been a shock to my system. For those of you unfamiliar with Moosonee, it is on the south west side of James Bay. On the day we arrived, the temperature was -37º C. I was very grateful for my parka, ski pants, and winter boots while securing the airplane on the brutally cold and windy tarmac. Since there is no hangar for our airplane, we had to use engine heaters and tents and we even removed the battery and brought it indoors to guarantee we would be able to get the engines started again. In the time it took us to do this, even though we were dressed warmly, we still had to go indoors twice to warm up our fingers. We did stay in a very nice B&B in Moosonee. Although, it was a chilly fifteen minute walk to get dinner in the only restaurant in Moosonee. The next day we took our clients to two reserves in Fort Albany and Attiwapiskat. Both are very isolated places with small gravel strips. All in all it was great remote winter operations experience for me, but I am grateful that I have not had to go there too often. It was nice to return to a balmy -15º C in North Bay on Wednesday.
posted by Leanna @ 11:17 AM
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