Hard at Work!

Who would know a month would pass before I got around to another post.  I think it was perhaps seeing Wandering Willy posting again that spurred me into action!  Of course he has been off the air a lot longer than I, but it is good to see him on the road again.

Meanwhile, I have been working full time again, and been trying to move more of my stuff to my post-work location.

Overtime this summer has been good so far, so I don’t mind working for a while, but I’m getting itchy feet to get back on the road again and see some new sights.  I managed to get out on a couple weekend expeditions, but they will have to wait for the next post.

Most of my work involves grizzly bears at this time of year.  Early one morning I had a call about a sow grizzly and two cubs near a local resort on the lakeshore.  I got there a bit too late to see the bears, but I was not far behind them as I tracked them down a shoreline trail.  They had stopped for a drink, then continued on leaving wet footprints on the trail!

Later on, one of the helicopters we use had a slight ‘incident’, and it was decided to haul it to helicopter hospital for a precautionary check-up.  I have flown on this machine many times, but have never seen it in the air without a pilot before.  Or, without any blades, which were taken off to facilitate the move.  

The next incident involved both bears and helicopters.  One of our unruly bears discovered that he (or she) could break into facilities in the backcountry and get a feed of oats and other horse feed.  So we had to fly in to check and repair several of these locations – and install electric fencing to reduce the likelihood of recurrence.  (we used a different helicopter)

 

The bear was quite intent on getting in, and spent a lot of time and energy doing so, in spite of some doors and windows being lined with sharp nail points as a deterrent. It left some nice muddy paw prints all over the walls.

I guess this is the sign of a bad day if you are a long-haul trucker?  I came across this scene last week along the Trans Canada Highway.  I’m not sure what the cause of the blaze was, but it may have been as a result of overheating from a long hill climb.

   

These deer bucks thought they were hiding from me, but I guess they had forgotten that they had grown some new antlers this summer!  They’ll have to go to deer-stealth summer school I guess ;-).