Well that was a crazy ten days!

 Here I was commenting about how quiet it was up here...well, not last week!

On Thursday the 17th, Byron and John arrived from Bissett, John to work on and put everyone else to work on the addition and Byron to get Fishing Lake Lodge ready for Patti's sister and family to arrive!

Friday morning John, Mike, Corry, Al and a local man, Reggie, started hammering away on the second level of the deck.

this how it looked Friday morning

First job was putting up railings on the stairs and decks!

they even let Corry use power tools and yes that is the same shirt again!

clouds rolling in...and the wind started to blow!

see that satellite dish?  that was for the internet here, shortly after this picture they took it down to move it further along the roof and we were internet-less for 2 days!  How do they expect anyone to survive?

proof that I am actually here

After a good day of work this is how it looked...and yes you can see that the rain came again!

Next was the interesting part, getting the rafters up to the second store and then up to make the roof.  Byron loves using equipment instead of man-power so again the backhoe was put to use.

But then man-power was the only way to do it..

it's starting to look like a roof

John hard at work

what ya thinkin about Corry?

 I guess a lot of thought is involved in maneuvering those large pieces around! 

This is the roof now, it will remain like this until next month when it will be sheeted, roofed and prepared for the winter.  During the winter Byron will bring up more supplies and the windows and doors via the ice road.

And then it was playtime while the weather was hot and sunny!

Let's see what next week brings...

Shhh! I think summer has arrived! Don't scare it away!

Finally after 7 weeks of not great weather we appear to be going into a sunny stage!  All I can say is YEA!

Last Saturday it rained so hard here and was so windy that the lake had waves that were ocean like. Scary! And some of the small boats out had 5 or 6 people in them heading to the Northern Store. We sat at the window, safe from the weather, and watched those crazy people taking their lives in their hands to go get some groceries or some money.

There were some great thunderstorms that were hitting harder just south of us.  We had a great show of flashes across the lake and we did hear a couple of big booms!  Which sent the big german shepherd cowering to our side!

Sunday morning started off cloudy but much calmer then the day before, until  the electricity starting going on and off.  Me with my big mouth said I wish it would either just go off or stay on not flick.  Guess what?  Our power went off and stayed off for 25 hours...

Boy is our life dependent on electricity.  Luckily we had a noisy generator for short bursts of power and thank goodness, the stove is propane..

By Monday morning or actually Sunday night late, the laptop was dead, the tablet dead, the cell phone dead and the freezers all 6 of them were starting to warm up!

Luckily for us the power came on about noon.  As it was the Northern Store had to throw out a good portion of their frozen goods and some of their fresh food.  What a waste! And this was the second time in the time we’ve been up here.  Why don’t they have emergency generators ??  A good question and one the managers there can’t answer.

In case you are wondering the Northern Store is a chain in the north that is the modern equivalent to the Hudson Bay Trading Co. of Canada’s early years.  They carry a little bit of everything at very inflated prices, due to all the freight charges.  But when you are the only store in the area people have no choice.  They all so do catalogue sales, are the Canada Post Outlet and cash all the Gov’t cheques for the Reserve.

The Managers House and Northern Store Dock

The red SUV is the Nursing Station's from the reserve side  so they can take injured people from the boat up to the
 Medi -Vac plane. Which happens almost every day!

The actual Northern Store

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday we had hydro crews fly in for the afternoon to do some work.  They use charter planes and we do the taxiing by truck from the airport to their vehicle on this side of the lake, or by boat across the lake to the reserve, where they also have a vehicle.  The pilots usually come down to the lodge and wait in comfort for the crew to do their work.  We have met a few different pilots and it is very interesting hearing the stories of their travels.  Yes Brian, I am talking about you!

Transportation back to the airport!

The Airport is directly behind us so the planes takeoff and land right over our heads

On Tuesday late afternoon, Al, Corry and I went out fishing.  For those of you who know me, you realize that fishing is not my favorite pastime.  Give me a boat and nice weather and a book and I would be much happier.  AND there is no way that I am touching any slimy stuff whether it is weeds or fish!!

So I only went along for the scenery, but, Al brought me a fishing rod so I tried.  But all we caught in the hour and a half that we were out there were small Northern Pikes.  So no fish for dinner..oh darn...

why can't I come?

The lake was beautiful though.  Little Grand Rapids is situated on Family Lake which connects to Root Lake on the south-east, I’m guessing here people, and Fishing Lake on the North.  Fishing Lake is where Al’s brother’s other lodge is.  That is where we spent time last summer and the fishing is much better there.  I even liked fishing there.  You put your line in the water and bam, there was a fish on it.

Now it is Thursday and once again work is starting on the expansion of the lodge.  Byron’s friend from Bissett, John, is the carpenter/supervisor of the build.  Today he has Al and Corry working away.  Tomorrow Mike will be back here to help and Byron will be coming from Fishing Lake Lodge daily to help/supervise also.  I will keep you posted on how the work goes!

A Typical Week

I started to write that title and then I realized there is no typical week up here.  Last week we had no guests and pretty crummy weather.  But even bad weather has its good points.  Beautiful cloud formations and lots of lightning!

On Thursday we had about 400 pounds of supplies sent up by float plane, it arrives at the dock across the lake and then we have to bring it by boat to our dock, load it on the truck and bring it up to the lodge.  No wonder everything costs so much up here!

On Sunday there were no flights in and out of Little Grand Rapids due to rain and high winds!  Even the Winnipeg airport was cancelling flights.  I watched the weather and worried because Corry was flying into Winnipeg on Monday and I was flying down to meet him.  Monday morning dawned with no heavy rain or wind but instead we had fog!  Basically zero visibility!  So we sat and waited and waited and finally at 12 pm the planes started flying...only 3 hours late!

it looked nice by the time we left..

but there were lots of clouds around and we kept loosing visibility

I arrived at St Andrews airport and rushed to our Jeep to see if it was still there and ready to roll after 6 weeks of being parked.  Thankfully it started right away and with GPS set I went to find the big plane airport so I could pick up Corry.

He was cheerfully waiting for me and after a few big hugs we were on our way!  First stop the hotel where we dropped off our luggage and then ran back to the car to start our shopping adventure.

Next was Cabela's... for those of you in the Vancouver area these stores are for the fishing, hunting and camping enthusiast.  $300 later and we had a new rod and reel and accessories for Al and of course a few extra things.  Hey what else is a Grandma for!

Then we started in on the boring shopping for food and necessities that I had been missing at the lodge.

Of course we had to go for dinner and we picked the "Olive Garden".  It was the first time I had ever left  being disappointed.  The salad especially was just not their normal deliciousness! Oh well!  We continued running errands and then retired to the hotel, me to put my feet up and Corry to go for a swim!

On Tuesday, Canada Day, it was a cold and windy day so we had a slow start and then went to find some fun.  We had checked on the internet and there was an amusement park called Thunder Rapids in Headingley, (close to Winnipeg) that had miniature golf and go-karts so we headed there.  But it was closed for the holiday!  For those of you not in Manitoba, it was a shock to me to find out that Manitoba has no shopping or anything on Canada Day!  And it was too cold to do outside activities!  Yeah I'm a wimp!  We finally found an indoor mini golf and played 16 holes (we skipped 2 to get around a slow moving group).  By the way, I was the winner!  But Corry got the only hole in one!

Picture from Corry's phone of the course

After a warm up in the hot tub and a couple of lazy hours at the hotel, we wandered out to find some dinner and then went to see the new Transformer movie at the IMAX.  It was a surprisingly good movie.  Mark Wahlberg made it through a whole movie without taking his shirt off!  I know that would be depressing for some, but oh well, no sex or nudity in this movie only machines killing each other!

On Wednesday afternoon, we caught the float plane back up to Little Grand.  Corry got to sit in the co-pilots seat for the flight and the pilot talked to him constantly for the whole hour.

Now it is time to get back to our day to day routine.

Corry's never ending job for the summer!

There aren't a lot of guests right now.  Do any of you want to fly up and go fishing??