SNOW SNOW SNOW!

My apologies to those of you who faithfully check this thing to tap into what trouble I am getting into in this tiny town. I have been feeling a little blog-mute lately, taking a break from putting my rambles out into the information cavern of the World Wide Web. I suppose that I have also been going through one of those lonely reflective times where I ask unanswerable questions and stare off into the mountains instead of writing, talking, reading or busying myself with all the other distractions of daily living. Living up here is very raw—there are no distractions, really, if you don’t hunt them down (sometimes literally). On Sunday night ,after a weekend in the isolation of my house with the exception of a few walks with Sanford, I decided to walk the 50 steps to the pub for a Sunday dinner and it was closed. Hello small town hours. So I drove up the hill to Bralorne instead. I was the only customer in the whole place. I sat right next to the fire and chatted with the new owner and his wife, who herself is from Uranium City, way up north on the border of the NWT. She experienced the boom and bust state of the mining industry when the mine shut down in her teenage years and her grade 10 class went from having twelve kids in it to having an enrollment of two the following year.

Exploring the old Haylmore mine site with sidekick Sanford.

Things are slowly turning around here, though. Last week I met a scout who works for BC Hydro, a guy up here checking out rental and hotel accommodations for a Run of the River project set to start up here as early as May. Construction would last about two years. The project could employ up to fifty people, and they are going to have a tough time finding a local workforce here because the Bralorne Gold Mine opened up this past year and has scooped up all those able-bodied enough to work the irregular mining shifts, both above and below ground. My thoughts about our hunger for power are rehashed, reopened.

All week a guy from town was burning stumps from his clear-cut that shaved bare a fresh patch of land beside the river. The blue smoke lay thick in the town streets, running down the artery of the valley towards Carpenter Lake. Apparently all the rock for the new hydro project will be blasted out of this piece of land instead of driven up the unpredictable route connecting our town to Lillooet.

It’s a strange thing, really. Without projects like these, the town dies, people move because there is no work; with the projects, more natural resources, what this place is wealthy in, are used. To keep the school open people need to have work here, and without the mine there would be no work. I would probably not be able to live here. My livelihood in this place seems inextricably linked to resource extraction, to scraping cavities in the wilderness that I so desperately love. It’s a strange predicament to be in.

Sure, people could still live here without the mine. They lived here while it was closed for a decade, after all, but it is a tough living; the growing season is short, and it costs money to have things shipped in from Lillooet. It seems that, with the way our society is structured, we are forced into becoming a part of the things we are against. It’s too late in the evening for a heartfelt ramble on this, or I’ll get all worked up before bed, so I’ll save it for a future post.

The strike last week saw me out demonstrating in front of the General Store for a single day. That was all I was willing to dedicate of my time out here on my own, and the small strike fee that I would be paid to join teachers in Lillooet would barely pay for the fuel to get there.

So, I skied, of course. What else is an out-of-work teacher to do?  Got in two of the best days of the season, by far, just minutes drive to Bralorne, a short snowmobile, a beautiful hike, and then the decent in POWDER!!!

Lunch stop with a view!

The run! My turns are the middle ones :)

Happy skier. Blue skies and powder turns with some cool people. Life is good!

No skiing this weekend though. Avalanche conditions were rated extreme in all terrain—in the alpine, at treeline, and below the treeline. No time to be in the mountains except at a ski resort.

It has snowed ALL DAY today, and I mean a constant, continuously-falling barrage of thick thumbprint snowflakes coming down hour after hour. I got one of my students to be the “official snow measurer” for the day, and he recorded a ten centimeter snowfall from 9:30 am to 12:40 pm. It appears that winter is still here after all! Hallelujah!