A Week at Environmental Services

A few weeks ago I got to spend a week working for the Environmental Services department of the mine, along with Kelsey and Ali. Jill was with us some of the time, but had more important white-hat duties to attend to most of the time. (For those who don't know, white-hats at the mine are 'staff', while coloured hats are tradesmen, electricians, instrumentation, maintenance, welders, contractors, and labourers).
We organized a shed, cleaned for a barbecue, and fixed fishing nets all day while sitting in the sun. But more importantly we had to catch fish fry from the trout spawning channel, so that we could populate various old pits around the mine site. (For those who don't know, the old pits at the mine are now lakes).
Click the thumbnail above for the entire gallery.

Arlington Lake camping

I just got back from our weekend of camping near Kelowna, at Arlington Lake. The trip started with Karen, Alana, Fletcher and I. Then Cody, Andrea, Cody, Karen, Linda, and Nathan joined us after the first night (they were all friends of Fletcher's, but now are friends of mine too).
We went rope swinging, free-climbed a cliff face, I improvised an awesome rain cloak, we went rope swinging, undertook some construction, tried to light a fire without matches (just for kicks), went rope swinging, drove the ATVs, went rope swinging, and spent from morning until night enjoying the campfire.
I've got two movies of myself on the rope swing; one conventional swing, and one superhero-style with a cape.

Calgary Stampede

My fellow student labourers and I paid a visit to the Calgary Stampede this last weekend. A recap of the weekend: We stopped at the Enchanted Forest along the way, visited the cheap beer garden in the Agricultural Center, had Fletcher hypnotized, saw the mountain biking show, and watched a K-OS concert. That was actually just the first day.
There was also a really great photography exhibit in the "Round-Up Centre", and all sorts of infomercial-esque items being hocked with free samples and the fast-talking salespeople just like you'd see on TV! I even hugged a cow without it scowling at me. (and not just any cow, this was a show cow - Alex could barely keep his hands off it.)
It's all in the photos, so click the thumbnail to view the whole gallery.

Jasper et cetera

Yes I know I'm slow at posting photos, but I usually wait until my memory card fills up until I actually load them - at which point I have a few trips worth of photos to post. So here goes one more: On the July 1st long weekend Megan, Colleen, and Tom came to Kamloops to pick me up and then we went on a road trip up to Jasper, Whitecourt (to drop Colleen and Tom off back at the tree planting camp), and then to Calgary (to drop me off with my ride back to Kamloops). We made time for a hike up the Bald Hills in Jasper during the trip. I shot two panoramas (warning: high megabytage)- one in a dried up river bed and one in the Bald hills.
The last night was spent camped near a farmer's field. I went to hug a cow but it just scowled at me.