Monday: December 12th
Hours: 8:00am - 7:30pm
I'm sitting on my bed in a cold dorm room at the Rabbit lake mine site. Its 8:57 PM. Despite how far north we are, (about a 45 minute flight past La Ronge,) the weather was pretty mild for mid-December. I assume I have to enjoy the small comforts during my stay, lest I go insane.
The day began as my profundity for packing light was shamed by the airline check-in when they informed me that my bag weighed 26 pounds, and thus was 6 pounds overweight. Apart from wondering what the hell I packed that was so heavy, I pondered why my supplies for a week's stay could only weigh as much as a stout 2 year old. Then I saw the plane and pondered no further.
I'm pretty sure I could pull one of these planes down the runway by myself given a length of rope and a desire to enter muscleman competitions. After cramming 20 of us on this thing, we were on our way. The mood on the plane was somber. I felt like declaring "Once more unto the breach dear friends" as we took off into a blizzard, but decided that might get me beat up.
Cameco sites are kind of like summer camp for kids whose parents don't know what fun is. I haven't been here but 5 hours, and already I'm staggered by the depths of bureaucracy. Everyone is in charge, yet nobody knows what's going on. So most of today was spent sitting around waiting for news of our arrival to spread to every relevant corner of the site, lest one office worker be left out and revealed as superfluous.
The room in I now dwell in feels abandoned. My night lights strobe and sputter as if brought in from the set of the movie Doom. The 9 inch television, (which I'm told I was lucky to have,) just wails at me sharply when I turn it on. Its high-pitched shriek suggests that I have woken it to some fresh hell, and that it would rather die than exist here for another second. Mercifully, I pulled the plug. I'm told all of C wing is like this, and that I should stop being such a little bitch.
That said, why is half of my wardrobe padlocked shut? What's in there? Narnia? Because if it's just toilet paper, I could really use it. There's apparently a toilet paper famine here right now.
The food is pretty good though. Score one for the small comforts.
Tuesday: December 13th
Hours: 6:30am - 9:00pm
I snap awake to a cruel 5:30am alarm. I've only had 4 hours sleep, but it's a small price to pay for a bottomless plate of morning bacon. You win this round Cameco.
But just as I began to ascend Mt. Bacon, I was informed we had to rush to catch the essential 6:30am safety meeting. Off we ventured into a morning wind that could charitably be described as "brisk". It would be another 20 minutes of sitting around before the meeting actually started.
"That's Cameco for ya," Chris quipped, "hurry up and wait."
Finally our actual job began. We had to replace a panel and about 100 devices in the residential quarters for long-term employees. These quarters may as well have been Valhalla: queen-sized beds, flat-screen televisions, a functioning fire system, carpeting...
Meanwhile, in cell-block C, someone decided to remove all the shower curtains from the men's washroom. I dropped the soap in the shower and had vivid "Oz" flashbacks. I snapped out of it yelling "LOLLIPOP GUILD, NO!" Some native guys looked at me funny. I may have just sullied the reputation of white people forever.
Actually the prison analogy isn't quite fair. It's more like an unkempt trailer park. If all the trailers were welded together into one big trailer.
We managed to do a two day job in one 14 hour day today. If our luck and energy hold out, we could be out of here by Friday. A sword of Damocles is held by the Cameco brass however. All they have to do is utter the phrase "well, since you're up here..." and then we're boned. We'll find out tomorrow. Meanwhile, since this is a dry camp, I have only the gentle roar of the mill to keep me warm at night. I may die. Again, we'll find out tomorrow.
Wait... braised short ribs for lunch and fried chicken and back ribs for supper!? Fuck yeah; I wanna live.
Wednesday: December 14th
Hours: 7:00am - 7:00pm
It's day 3. I've gotten used to the smell of sweaty ass that permeates the walls of this place. Perhaps it's because I am now contributing to it.
Things are looking up in cell block C though: the shower curtains have mysteriously re-appeared, and the chill of my room has been replaced with a sweltering heat, which is still an upgrade in the winter. Plus, our work is more-or-less done. A few minor tweaks and a plane ride and I'll be back in Saskatoon boring you all with more hyperbolic and long-winded descriptions of this place. It's a proud feeling knowing that we not only completed a job, but made it our bitch.
I was in the mill all day, so I now know what yellow-cake uranium smells like. All the safety gear was sweaty as hell, but for the first time this trip, I felt like an unaccompanied miner.
I'll give you all a second to let my genius wordplay waft over you...
...alright then. You're welcome.
Also, the prime rib they served for supper was a little dry. So it's official. This place blows.
Thursday: December 15th
Hours: 7:00am - 5:30pm
Overheard at the lunch table: "There's 300 feet of dick in this camp, and I can't get 6 fucking inches!" Touche' hideous woman. I suppose that's one of the unexpected drawbacks to a camp without alcohol. She's right about one thing though: there is indeed more sausage here than the deli section of Safeway.
I fly out tomorrow. All I have to do is scrub the radioactive dust off my boots, and some minor paperwork. The Internet here is unusable, but if it worked, my Facebook status would be "OMG COMIN BACK TO STOON BITCHES!!!!!!!1111ROFL LETS G3T SH1TTY LOL" Or something. Chris flew out earlier today, so everyone looked to me to learn how to make a fire system work. My vague answers either placated or enraged them, but who cares. I'm gone tomorrow.
I learned there's an indoor smoking section near C block called "X-wing". "Hey," I said, "we should take this thing go blow up the death star!" Had that line not garnered odd looks, I might have made a reference to photon torpedoes. Instead, the other guys in X-wing started speaking Cree to block me out of conversation. Twice now have I tainted the centuries of good will built up between our peoples. Sorry whitey.
I'd pray for this camp to burn to the ground, but I know for a fact they have a pretty up-to-date fire system, so I'll probably be back in a few months. I'm not sure if I'll loath coming back here. The long hours and sub-par accommodations were lame, but there was also enough bacon, coffee, and strudel to cause a skinny man to gain 10 pounds.
Regardless, I carved "BROOKS WAS HERE" over the door in my room. This will probably piss off the cleaning ladies. But whatever. I'm gone tomorrow.
