Bus Rides

When you work at Kearl Lake everything in your life is regulated by the ebbs and flows of the busses. You fly into Albion Airstrip and the first thing you do is climb onto a bus. And when I say the first thing I mean it. You don't even get to stop for a smoke and as some of these guys got on in Newfoundland a lifetime before it can get a little tense. But you do as you're told or they send you home. Just imagine 200+ grumpy tradesmen marching chain-gang style from plane to bus and you will get the picture.

the busses move slowly here as the roads are not paved and even at the mandatory snail-pace it's not uncommon to see vehicles in the ditch. Probably the driver fell asleep at the pace but not necessarily. The roads are also crowned and have a steep drop-off at the sides meaning the if you veer at all to the side of the road the ditch will suck you up. It often snows heavily and the road clearing crews amaze with their incompetance so finding the 'safe' middle of the road is a challenge.

As I mentioned before the buses move slowly. They don't often make it to 50km/hr and when moving around the camp's perimeter (they go around the camp's entire perimeter whenever they return to camp) they must never go over 20km/hr or the driver is suspended for 14 days! So after a very long day you get back to camp and have 15 minutes added to the drive via the scenic route!

The busses stage in a huge parking lot between the west and east camps right in front of Wapasu Main. Between the camps and the buses is 'brass alley' which is a very long trade or two for each with 25 or so doors each side-by-side. Each is a separate hall (walls only waist high) with a turn style that you must 'brass through'. That means swiping your card to make the turn style work. As most of the workers have their swipe cards on a lanyard around their necks they have to bend at the waist in order to achieve that. And as there is a Somali security guard in the 'alley' furthest to the left an observer might get the impression that we were all bowing to him. Once through brass alley we then climb onto our busses and wait for the 'take off' order from the head bus person. In the meantime the buses inevitably fill up with carbon monoxide from the 30 odd buses staging there making everyone, including the driver) a little dozy. This is possibly another good reason for mandating such slow speeds!

Gotta go as we are just pulling up!