Video Play Video

Worked 41.25 hours this week. Quite tired. But finally got time off!

I have spent the last few hours sitting in Safeway and using its internet to upload the video of my rough performance onto youtube. And it's finally done!!!!

HOW EXCITING! (Susan voice)

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Everything has been running incredibly well. Restaurant, tours, play, schedule, tour groups, everything!

Can't wait to see myself in the newspaper. Should be soon. Steve promised he'll bring out a copy of it for us to see =)

As for us at the cannery. We have spent a weekend without Anne's manic laughter. Like when she's sitting across from Susan and Naomi frantically laughing at me taking a picture of my silly attempt at making sushi.

Feels slightly weird without she around laughing at random things. But she's coming back today! I'm going to try to attempt taro tapioca soup again. Hope it's better this time.

We made cake for the fisherman that gave us the salmon yesterday, and made another one which we gave to Mark from Cassiar Cannery for drying us into town. He drove us in today. We saw a deer stopping right in the middle of the road when we got into Port Edward. It just turned around and looked at us even as we stopped right in front of it. Then it walked away as if nothing happened. Sure was funny. Wish I had a picture of it.

The way Mark described his living to us was really fun. He bought the entire Cassiar Cannery for the price of a Vancouver appartment ^^;;;

Now he grab logs floating down river and phone a wood worker in Port Edward. The wood worker come and take the log to his mill and turn it into plywood. Then Mark fix up someone's something and gets a freshly caught fish in return. No even need for groceries!

Sure will miss all the laughter of this place when I go home. It's so much more bright and cheerful here, even though it's the rainiest city in Canada.

On another note, we haven't had sunny days for quite a while now and it's getting cold =(

Sure doesn't seem like summer. Hope it will warm up.

This is my first time posting here~

Visit my own blog at here !!^^!!

Parallel Pain

City Girl's Opinions on Wildlife

HELLO!!!

Ever since I thought about coming out to work at the Cannery, wildlife was a huge concern. Keep in mind, in Toronto, we have squirrels, the occasional skunk, and around York's campus, the rare fat groundhog...not exactly "wildlife".

So why do I wait so long to post about wildlife? Well, 1. I'm lazy and 2. Last time I thought salmon would be more interesting. However, a few days ago, Anne was walking down the road toward Port Ed to catch the bus when she encountered a small brown bear on the road, turned, and walked back. Turns out, said bear is a small grizzly and now the entire community is under grizzly warning. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!

Ok, so I'm overreacting a bit, but if you haven't noticed, I do that. A lot.

Anyway, since I'm posting about wildlife, I'd like to tell you all about two of the more amusing wildlife-related antics that just happened to happen to me.

One. The first time I took the bike out, I was about to enjoy a leisurely ride to the convenience store 6 km down the road to get a popsicle when I encounter Ed, one of the construction workers on site. Ed says to me "Careful of the wolves! I saw a couple down by the railroad the other day." Now I cannot tell if people are pulling my leg or if it's serious, so I say ok, wave, and try to leave. Then Bob comes along, and says "There are quite a few bears out there too." Ed says "Yeah, my llamas - he owns llamas by the way - chased a few up a tree once. It's the grizzlies you should be afraid of". Of course, now, I'm pissing my pants. Not literally. Haha. Bob then proceeds to give me his whistle, which I clip to my zipper, and I ride off in total panic. The popsicle was delicious, by the way. :P

Two. Anne and Naomi are always telling me "Don't get between a bear and its cub!" Apparently then they actually mull you, whereas if you're not between the bear and cub, they just sometimes mull you. Good times. So I'm riding to town, and I see a small, brown animal on the road. I panic because I think it's a bear cub, and that even though it's really cute, I'm about to die!!!! Of course, it was not a bear cub. It more resembled a large ferret, so it may have been a mink or a river otter. However, I don't realize until I get close, so when I do, I look at it, it looks at me, and we both take a deep breath and move on.

Anyway, there will definitely be more to say vis a vis wildlife at the Cannery. For now, I remain un-mulled.

Susan :)

PS. Sorry for the massive post!!!! Actually, I'm not really sorry, but I figured I'd attempt apologizing. :P

Swallows

Okay the post everyone expected from me. To be honest, I swear I don’t know my wildlife that well. I certainly spent a lot of time talking about it, especially swallows but that wasn’t so much knowledge as lack of knowledge. As everyone writing this blog knows, I spent a while wondering sporadically what sorts of swallows we had. Mostly because I wasn’t sure and there was variety. Obviously this means that I didn’t know that much about swallows. I just cared a little bit more to attempt to find out.

Summary of story: we have Barn Swallows and Tree Swallows at North Pacific. Barn Swallows are easy, I was just less sure of the Tree Swallows and unsure if there were other varieties. I think it’s just these two.

Barn Swallows, for those who care and those who expect it of me, have dark blue backs and reddy undersides. They also have notably forked tails, which most other swallows in Western North America, do not. And in comparison to any of the other swallows that could be here you would call the barn swallows tail forked and disregard the others’ as not really comparable. The tree swallows have green backs and white undersides.

The barn swallows tend to get into the main buildings quite a bit and they like to let you know with quite a bit of noise when they’re flying around in the rafters. Of course, they are barn swallows so checking out old buildings and probably nesting somewhere in them is to be expected.

The cannery itself is situated between two features that attract the Swallows, the water and a bog. Because of this Swallows are certainly not something to complain about, even when they’re mucking about in the main cannery. With so much insect habitat around the more swallows the better. As soon as you walk in land even a little bit, like say behind the buildings in the fire lane, the whole living on swampy ground thing is readily apparent. So here’s a post to the appreciation of swallows, their antics, and their diet.

And to finish up here’s one out of the three hundred pictures of swallows I took with Naomi’s camera. By the way that’s not an exaggeration; I took three hundred pictures of swallows.

Anne

Yes, me again.

I would like to preface this post by saying that I hate to post twice in a row (for both your sake and my own personal pride)...however the others are engaging in yet another episode of BBC's Horatio Hornblower (apparently quite good) and I was left to the task of relaying our conversation that took place while waiting for Anne's amazing apple and peach crisp...I almost omitted the peach part for alliteration, but what is a blog without honesty?

A recap: Cannery life as a horror film. Five young tour guides living in an abandoned boardwalk village, inhabiting barely a quarter of the rooms in an old hotel, six kilometers away from the five hundred member community of Port Edward. No cell phone reception, an older watchman living on the site, huge cannery buildings and many smaller ones are perfect for an epic knife chase or quiet hanging scene. There was much debate, but basically it was decided that Anne or Susan would die mysteriously, possibly followed by Lu or Paul, and I would survive until the end (unsure why, I was pouring my tea and therefore unable to argue this role). Spider, the watchman, would be the prime suspect, but in the end it would be happy go-lucky Steve, our manager, who would be found guilty. The tension of being the middle man between the tour staff and the board would be too much, or the lack of salmon steaks on the café menu a travesty too awful to bear. To clarify...none of us are living in the haunted room...and Spider hosts barbecues with fresh caught fish...and Steve and Liz have campfires with amazing food. So Hollywood may have to look elsewhere. But then again...

Moving on, I think I feel as though (for Laura, as she is reading this I am sure) I should hit some key points about today. Anne saw a light brown bear on the road this morning, I ate blueberry puffed wheat for lunch, Susan was overwhelmed by her protein packed meal, and it is now my bedtime. Oh, and yesterday I went on a biking/running/garbage hoarding adventure (Leah may understand...running always = garbage hoarding) that left me displeased with the concept of getting out of bed this morning. Such a nice feeling.

The sun is high in the sky, the clock has struck 8:23, the tide is heading out, and alas I bid you goodnight...or perhaps farewell. Who knows what the various cannery ghosts think about our screenplay?

Not quite the big city...

Naomi reporting from Skeena Drive
First of all, I would like to congratulate/thank my fellow cannery inhabitants for actually contributing to this blog and not leaving me looking like some crazy person who is bored out of my mind. I actually just spent the week at "home" (one of several, sorry mom/dad) in Vancouver. Got to spend the weekend hanging out with a bunch of my extended family, see my cousin Gabriel enter manhood, my brother enter middle age (21 is quite the achievement), and celebrate it all with some tasty food. Who does not like polenta hors d'oeuvres and mocha cheesecake? Not that I don't appreciate my current diet of lentils, oatmeal and rutabagas, but variety is always successful. Wondrous time. I believe that brings my total to 4 weeks spent at home since last September...but alas there are things to learn, hippies to commune with, fish to can.

As much as I enjoyed my sejour in the city (an actual city, as Lu can attest to), it was very nice to come back as well. I was happy to note that the cafe had not collapsed in my absence (although I believe Anne was very crazed over the weekend), World War III has not yet broken out among the staff due to close quarters, and the lovely blanket of cold mist from the beginning of May had returned to Inverness Passage. I got a nice recap of the various shenanigans I missed while gone, and tonight I got to cook some of the quinoa my lovely father bought for me in Vancouver (I chose the black one, it's very pretty as the tail bits are white, in case you are wondering). Who knew they had black and red quinoa? Obviously I am uncultured and need to break out of my shell. I spent the day today in the cafe making food for tourists, serving chowder, and prepping for the school group we have coming tomorrow...luckily not too big so it should be manageable.
If nothing else, to quote Anne, "We have good cookies. People always leave happy after a good cookie."

Beer Gardens

Before I start on my actual post, I just want to protest the use of the word "city" for Prince Rupert by my fellow bloggers. A cluster of buildings that can be passed over by less than 1/2 hour of walking does not count as a "city". It is a cluster of buildings pretending to be a city. Now that I've finished my little rant about the careless use of the word, I'll go on to my actual post.



So, Susan and I went to the Beer Gardens, sorry, "Seafest Gardens", on Saturday. We heard about it from Steve and Spider, our winter watchman, at Spider's BBQ. Anne didn't go because she was exhausted and Paul didn't want to go. Susan really wanted to go, but not along so she said "I'll go if Lu goes". Now I didn't really want to go, but I knew that if I said "no", Susan will look at me betrayed for the next 3 months. So in the interest of peaceful living for the summer I agreed to go.



We arrived at the party around midnight and immediately thought it looks like a school party because of all the girls wearing barely enough cloths to not be arrested for public indecency. There were definitely enough police officers for that - probably 1 in 10 people was a cop. That was our first clue that it wasn't a regular school dance. Our next clue was all the parents and grandparents sitting around looking at their grandchildren/children dancing on the dance floor to sounds that approached pop music often heard on the radio. It was quite awkward at the party for us because we didn't know anyone. Mostly we just stood, drank beer, and people watched.

We stayed till 1:30 before giving up (we were going to stay until 2:00 because we heard riots start then) and going to Lila's home to spend the night. Susan and I were going to share a bed because there was only 1 free bed in that house. We prepare to go to sleep and Susan falls asleep on her side. I'm just about to fall asleep when Susan starts to... wheeze... then gasp... then snore. I was going to kick her out of the bed when I remembered that Lila has a cat and Susan is allergic. She would probably die on the sofa, so instead, I moved there. I'm preparing to fall asleep on the couch when... tick tock tick tock... I hear the clock on the fireplace mantle. I don't know about you, but I can't sleep to the constant ticking of a clock, so I listened to it till about 3 something almost 4. I slept for about an hour when Susan decided to go to the bathroom. Of course this woke me up again and it back to listening to the clock. I fall asleep again at around 6ish, unfortunately... Lila decided to wake up at 6:30 and makes coffee in the kitchen beside the living room, so once again I woke up, but I refused to get out of my sofa. Lila leaves the kitchen at around 7. I loitered around in my sofa until my alarm at 7:30.

So I get up at 7:30, after about 2 hours of sleep, feeling "strong emotions" towards Susan, and seeing the rain. What a perfect way to start the morning. We decided to get breakfast at McDonald's because we didn't want to walk in the rain. Afterwards we go to the Civic Centre for the bus. The bus was late, and I said "it's Sunday, maybe the bus doesn't come in the morning"... We looked at each other... and decided to try to hitchhike to get back (btw this is the Highway of Tears we're trying to hitchhike on). At this point you might be wondering why we were so desperate to get back. The answer is pretty simple, we were working that day and only Susan has the keys to access the money. Besides we thought it would be cruel to have only 2 people running entire cannery and the restaurant and the tours and the play and the... well you get the idea. We get on the road and start sticking our thumbs out. We got soaked watching cars whizz past us. Time for plan B, we decided to call to the cannery to ask if Paul or Anne would see if Spider would pick us up. Susan called and got the busy signal. Tried again a couple of minutes later... no one picked up, so Susan left a message. And we tried the hitchhiking idea again. Anne calls back and promises to look for Spider and call us back if she does. We go back to hitchhiking. Once all our cloths were plastered on us, Anne calls us back to tell us Spider will pick us up at McDonald's at 10:00. We turn back to walk to the McDonald's and what do we see? Our bus... our very late bus...

That was our... what adjective should I use? Let's use "interesting", shall we? So, that was our "interesting" adventure in the "city" of Prince Rupert. May it never happen again, or I will not be responsible for my actions towards Susan. As for our shift that day? that's another story...

SALMON!

Hello World!

I am about to post about one of the most classic "life at the cannery" moments. Before I do that, though, let me introduce myself. I am the resident business student: you know, one of those people who prances around in suits and exploits single mothers. Also, I'm from Toronto, so this whole living on the water thing, a bit of a change for me. However, the life here has its perks, and salmon is definitely one of them!

So the other day, Lu and I go down to the dock to kick Steve - our workaholic, happy-go-lucky manager - off the site so that he actually goes home and eats a meal (quite the accomplishment for him, I tell you). Anyway, as we were doing that, we encountered these fishermen Steve was having a conversation with. They seemed pretty nice, so of course we stood around in the rain and chatted a bit.

Later on in the evening, after we finished watching movie 2 of 3 of the Bourne series - excellent movies, btw - we here an ominous knock on the door. Who could it be? The five of us live on a cannery in the middle of nowhere, and it's not like we have neighbours. As it turns out, one of the fishermen was standing there, holding this giant spring salmon, and offers to give it to us! So here we are, five tour guides, one large salmon.

They were nice enough to gut it for us, but we underwent the adventure of cutting it into pieces and sticking it into various containers to freeze - freezer bags, yogurt containers, peanut butter jars, jam jars, you name it, we used it. The result? Salmon for dinner every night!! Quite the deliciousness, and for a business student from Toronto, quite the interesting evening.

There, I've posted. Signing out from Safeway,

Susan :)

This is the introductory post for Anne. Despite what Naomi said I am a tour guide I just happen to also be Lead Researcher (just as Susan is Head Tour Guide, for those keeping track). Despite this vague and expansive title my first post is going to be about work in the restaurant. Why yes, as Lead Researcher and Tour Guide, I am also part of the group that runs the Cannery Cafe (Naomi and Sam are leading the effort).

Today, June 12, I spent the day managing the restaurant alone. Naomi is away and Sam has the weekend off and has returned to civilisation. For the most part making food in our cafe is slightly odd, as I have no experience in operating a kitchen, except, of course, for my own use. Before I go any further I should mention that I am certified to safely make food for people (hence how I ended up working in the restaurant). Actually making the food is pretty straight forward, but why anyone should pay me for this still puzzles me. Managing to serve people, make the food, and keep track of incoming customers by ones self can be a little difficult, but that's what a polite but somewhat urgent call over the radio is for, and before you know it Susan's there being frantic with you.

Starting today I also started a new daily task, one which I, or the current restaurant person, will start each day off with. So now, along with all of the restaurant tasks, we will also be checking the chlorine levels of the tap water to ensure they stay within range. There is always variety in the tasks we take on at the cannery.

Before I ramble my way out of this first post I am going to finish up with a mention of my mysterious friend the steel box from the kitchen. Our sanitizer in the restaurant, probably a dishwasher at some point, is a bit of an enigma. Like most dishwashing devices it is a box with a door that opens and trays that slide out to place dishes on. It's only control is an on off switch which is located on a control panel next to the temperature gauge. The control panel rests on the floor much of the time and often I will crouch down in front of the machine pick up the panel and perplexingly stare at the temperature reading wondering exactly what the machine is doing. The machine gets very hot and thus is useful but the methods of using it are very subtle. When it's on it runs at its own pace and it will occasionally act on its own accord when turned off. I have no doubt that it knows what it is doing but I still hope whenever I close it with another load of dishes that the power light will come on and it will start the cycle.

This has perhaps been an odd place to start my commentary on the cannery but I think it covers at least a lot of my experiences. Such as finding myself in charge of a small cafe and wondering a little bit as to why. Or staring at the needle of the temperature readings and wondering if its going up or down all the while being quite sure there is a better way to do this.

Anne

Wilp School

I had my first school group today. They ranged from toddlers to elementary school students. And they had a lot of questions for me! I took them through the can-making line, canning line, and the store. They had a lot of fun watching the machines run and learning how they work. They also really enjoyed seeing things in the store that their parents used when they were younger. They realized just how much life experience their parents had! And just how recent some inventions are. We also enjoyed making fish. We coloured them and stuffed them with newspaper; we made an entire school of salmon! My salmon, Sammy the Salmon, made some new friends that the kids introduced to him and some of his new friends stayed behind to keep him company. It was also really cute when I got a flower from a girl as thanks for the tour. I really enjoyed interacting with the kids and learning just how energetic they can be. I can't wait for my next school group next week!

From the middle of nowhere,
Lu

The beginning of the second month...

So, after a month of co-existing, we have decided to take the next step in our relationship. At least, I have...we will see if the others follow. Every so often something so ridiculous would happen and, as is the case with our generation, the cry of "what has this world come to" was generally followed by "we need to start a blog."

To set the stage (drama reference for Paul):

There are five of us (plus Sam, who lives in Prince Rupert, so she has maintained a level of sanity the rest of us have long given up on achieving)
We are living and working for the summer at a historic site in the form of an old cannery fishing village on the coast of BC.
This blog is likely to die within a few hours due to our dependence on dial-up internet, ridiculously nonchalant attitudes, and the fact that a blog is a very weird concept if you think about it. No one cares (or should care) about how Susan thought our dinner conversation about the game D&D was referring to Department of National Defense for its entirety. Or about my embarrassing wiring attempts at making dial-up internet work (which I will not describe to save my tech-savvy father's pride).

However, I figure this is a test...I have done the legwork of setting up a communal email and blog (which, by the way, took two Arrogant Worms songs and the opening credits of the third Star Wars just to load the four necessary pages). Tomorrow is Monday, and seeing as the museum is closed so none of us work, we all venture to the big city of Prince Rupert and can access wireless in the alcove of the Safeway exit. All except me, as I am laptop-less. If there is any chance that my fellow Tour Guides (and Anne, as Head Researcher) will join this online endeavor, it will likely be tomorrow. I will wait until then to properly introduce myself, as I refuse to blog solo and it has passed my 8:30 bedtime.

Dim stage lights with "Canada's Really Big" by the Arrogant Worms.

Naomi