Me in Kootenay

The view from my Cabin....
The river we had to cross in Kootenay to get to the site.... :)

This is going to be VERY LONG! part one...

I have this all written out in a journal so I wouldn't forget it :P

06/21/10
The place we are staying at is just out side of Kootenay National Park called Nipika Mountain Resort. It is absolutely beautiful here. We stopped in at the town called Radium, B.C. before we went to the lodge so that we could have dinner and pick up a few groceries. Raduim has natural hot springs which I am totally going to visit those and relax in them. Now I can official say that I have been to B.C. :) We went to a place called the Melting Pot for dinner. It was really quite quaint. Not a lot of people in there, especially for Father's Day. I don't have to pay for any of my meals because they are all included in my trip costs. hahhahahah I can eat all I want. On the way back to Nipika we have to pass through these thinks called the Iron Gates. Two extremely tall cliff faces with a small road that had be blasted between them. Talk about impressive. Made me feel really quite tiny. We also passed by a pictograph site which Brad has been doing some work on. Two of the pictographs dating to the turn of the century. They were first photographed in 1914. They were drawn by the Ktunaza, an Eastern Columbia Plateau group with plains cultural influences. On the way back to the lodge we saw a black bear on the side of the highway just munching away on food. It was really cute! I was told it was a mid-sized black bear so I took a couple of pictures. It was my first time seeing a black bear. It was really exciting for me. We also saw a deer, a buck actually. It was still growing its antlers for this season. My first time seeing a live buck. Ahha. :) There is a lot of wildlife on Settler's Road, which is the dirt logging road we take to get to Nipika. It's almost guaranteed that we will see some wildlife on the road each time we drive it. The lodge is really quite wonderful and beautiful and I'm going to take a million pictures of it. The lodge we were staying in is called Kootenay Cabin. It's spectacular. I get to sleep in the loft which is okay, Brad and Dave each get one of the rooms. The bed is super comfy and warm which is perfect for me and I can't wait to sleep in it. The front of the lodge faces the mountains so every morning I'll get to wake up and see them first thing. The resort is just a few clicks outside of the park boundary so you can see where a little bit of the logging has been done. Anyway, off to sleep for the first night...

06/22/10
Today was my first trip into bush and forests of Kootenay National Park. There were just the three of us out there, Brad, Dave and I. This was my first real outback experience and it was EPIC! We headed into the East part of the park and had to cross the Kootenay River. Let me tell you, aside from us and the park wardens, there is no human habitation or interference on that side of the river at all. Probably cause no one wants to cross the river. It was really swollen from all of the mountain top run off and had an extremely strong current to try and cross. We put the canoe in the water at the gravel pit about 1.8km by the water flow and approx 1.5km walking distance from the site we were going to. For the most part the trek is along the waters edge but with the river being so high we have the hike through brush and downed trees. We had to carry our packs with screens and shovels all through the wilderness. That was fun. -.- It takes about an hour and a half to walk to the site. The site is called 494T and is located on the north side of the oxbow pond south of the Suede(or Swede...i can't read my writing there...) creek. There was a hearth feature that was found last year that we were reopening to see if there was any more information to be gathered from it. We saw lots of deer while walking through as well as some pretty fresh bones probably from a cougar or bear kill. Luckily we didn't see any Grizzly bears, apparently you don't want to have a run in with on of them. The site was in cougar territory as brad and his crew from last year had a very close run in with one. We did see the cougar's scratching post...a tree with the bark shredded. Talk about a big kitty... O.o I took a picture so I could show Mom. hahahahaha. I also saw elk antlers that were shed from last winter. I now can tell the difference between Elk and Deer solely based upon their antlers :P Oh yeah, I'm cool. There were little bite marks all over the antlers because the mice in the forest go and chew on it to get the calcium they need. Brad was saying that my legs would probably be tired from all the hiking around, but I think it will be more of my shoulder's than anything from carrying the pack and screen. At the end of the day we hiked back to the canoe and paddled our little hearts out to get back the other side of the river. We went back into Radium for dinner this time to a German restaurant called....I don't remember....lol But I had a delicious steak dinner. On the drive back to Nipika we saw female elk on the side of the road eating something or other...holy wow....much bigger than a deer. There is also a little black bear that is hanging around of Settler's road around 6-8clicks in. Back at the lodge we decided that we were going to fire up the wood burning hot tub and relax in it. It was really cool, I'd never seen anything quite like it. I wasn't able to stay in it for long because I had already had a headache and the super hot water was only making it worse and making it very difficult to breathe. You can't control the temperature in something like that because of the fact that it is wood stoked. I was pretty tired so I went to bed pretty early that night.

I shall continue part two tomorrow!.... :)

So!!!!! I freaking love my job. I spent the day actually excavating on the Bar U Ranch site. The purpose of this excavation is to find out the architectural information about the root cellar on the Ranch. It was built between the years of 1910 and 1917 but they aren't sure which year exactly. It is a really cool building. Bill and Brad (the main arch guys on the site) were asked to get the info so that in the next few years the site will be able to reconstruct it to it's original state. The Bar U Ranch is in the foothills of the Rockies which is really beautiful. It was a cloudy day so I couldn't see all of the mountains but I'll get to see them right up close next week when I spend 10 days right in the heart of the mountains. SUPER EXCITED! I'll be doing excavations tomorrow as long as we don't get rained out so please NO RAIN! lol :)
OH, my exciting adventure for yesterday was rafting down the Elbow River. It was a ton of fun. I also met a whole bunch of new people. They were pretty eccentric and hilarious. I'm hoping to do that again soon.
But i'm off to bed. Night all and I miss you.

First Day at Work....

Had my first day of work today and it was awesome. I didn't even mind that I had to be there for 8am, meaning I had to drag my butt outta bed at 6:30. I finally met Bill and Brad, two of the archaeologists that work there and they were hilarious. So funny and I think this is going to be a really fun summer. I was working in the lab today getting to know the artifacts and studying the reference collections for the Bar U Ranch site, Jasper National Park, Banff and Kootenay. Really interesting collections, didn't expect to see so many shell casings from Jasper Park. I will probably be working in the lab for the rest of the week but starting next week I'll be working in the field at the Bar U site.

http://www.pc.gc.ca/eng/lhn-nhs/ab/baru/natcul.aspx

There is a link to see some information about the site. It's a cool site. (Nic you should look at it cause it's a Western Ranch :P) Then after that I think I'm going to be in Kootenay for 10 or so day, living in a little cabin in the mountains. Talk about super fun and exciting. I'm trying to decide where to post all of the pictures that I am taking....so when I figure that out I'll let all of you know.

Well, I'm going to head to bed soon as I do have to be up really early from now on.

Cheers All and I miss you All.

P.S. If you are looking for something funny to watch please look up Tommy Tiernan, Blue Collar Comedy Tour, or Jeff Dunham. All are pretty much EPIC beyond all belief.

Ahem...

So, I spent most of yesterday wandering around downtown Calgary by myself. It was actually really cool. Seriously made me think of downtown T.O. and what it's like to walk around there. I was there around lunch time and all of these executives from the major high rises were out of the streets having lunch. It was really interesting to experience that. I also figured out which bus route I needed to catch to get me downtown. I luckily have a bus route right by my place that will drop me off right in front of the office building that I need to get to every morning. Tis quite handy. I headed down to the Parks Canada office so I could finally meet David and Phyllis, the two people I was corresponding with over email and telephone about this position with Parks Canada. It was good to finally see them in person. They had all sorts of paperwork for me to fill out which was joyous fun. At least now I don't have to do it when I get to work tomorrow. Which is my first official day! YAY! I met most of the historians that work in the office but didn't get to meet the other archaeologists cause they were all in the field, save the Jess (I think that is her name) who looks after all of the lab work in the office. I am really excited to do this job. There is this cool thing that is downtown called the +15. It is a series of catwalks that connect the second floor of most of the big high-rises and it is all shopping centers and food courts. It is really cool. I asked why it was called the +15 and the answer I got was that the catwalks are 15ft above the ground. I am still using my home phone number which means any calls will be LONG LONG distance so I've got to go out and get a Calgary number today. Should be fun stuff. I still don't think that I am used to the time difference yet cause I get hungry and tired at Ontario times. Aside from getting that new telephone number, I'm not sure what my plan is for today.

random thoughts...

So the downtown of Calgary is quite beautiful. In the one park area in the downtown there is a fountain and all around them in the ground and gardens there are these random pink gophers. They are quite strange, but oddly amusing. When I was walking around it felt quite similar to home, though the downtown has many more sky-rises more like TO. Still, the city had somewhat of an older feeling to it. I was able to see which building I will have to get to every day and which bus will get me there. It doesn't look it will be too difficult to manage my way around downtown....it will take just a little bit of time to get a feel for everything. I did however find a really good pub/restaurant that had amazing food. Talk about YUM! OH, and from certain points in downtown you can see the Rockies in the distance. They look kind of surreal in the distance, makes me think i am in some kind of fantasy film. The whole time difference is making me hungry at very odd times and I get waves of extreme tiredness. BUT, I was able to get a new and fluffy pillow for my stay here and I'm quite excited about that. :)

Till Later.

First Impressions....

I am finally here in Calgary and I'm staying with a couple of friends from CY09, Dave and Vaike. :) Their place is a basement apartment with two bedrooms. It is really quite a quaint little place and I am grateful for their hospitality. The flight here was really good and the staff at WestJet is absolutely awesome. I did have an interesting time in the airport going trough security. They totally tore apart my one piece of carry on luggage like I was trying to take something on the plane that I should not have. They then proceeded to tell me that I could not take it on the plane, but instead I had to check it. LAME! I already had two pieces of luggage checked and it was going to cost me $75 to check a third. Once I explained the fact that I was moving to Calgary she waved the charge for me so I was able to check 3 bags. She was very nice. The flight staff were really nice too. The guy's name was Charlie and there were three lady flight attendants whom he called his angels. :P He was quite hilarious. I must say though, I do love to fly. Being above all of the clouds at approx. 38000 ft. and seeing them from above rather than below was beautiful. I had to take lots of pictures for my dad. He loves clouds. But overall, the best thing about the flight was when we were coming into land and seeing the Rockies in the distance. They were stunning from that distance so I can hardly wait to see them up close. Calgary is a huge city, though surprisingly not a whole lot of high rises or tall buildings, only in the downtown core. Dave and Vaike are going to take me on a tour of the downtown today so that I can get some bearing of where I am going. I had a fairly decent sleep last night, though I got chilly at one point. Which is easily fixable for tonight as there are blankets galore in this apartment. I still have very mixed feelings about all of this, but I'm sure those will dissipate over my time here.

Love all of you and miss you lots.