I have decided to post before I am chastised for not posting. It's best to stay ahead of these things.
At the end of June I went over to Haida Gwaii for a couple of days. Definitely one great thing about working here is that you are already in a place to go and see a lot of other things in the area. My trip to Haida Gwaii was pretty great. It's amazing what you can see in two days and I do love a ferry ride. And perhaps I should have posted sooner seeing as how this is something to post about. However, short of a step-by-step recap and a slide show it's best to simply say that it was a good trip and you should go.
The one topic I did want to cover is how it feels to work in the tourist circuit and then to promptly join in. It is odd. Waiting in the ferry terminal to catch the 11 am ferry to Skidigate I couldn't help but notice that I recognised everyone there. Including the one school group. I had seen them all at North Pacific. I had either given them tours, checked them in or sold them things out of the gift shop. When I did get on the ferry as groups started coming out of the vehicles and on to the passenger deck I recognised even more people. There was a lot of waving and "how are you?" and "Oh me? I'm just taking the weekend off," and general pleasantries. Even once I reached Haida Gwaii I continued to see some familiar faces around. Including a second school group that had also been through the cannery. It's certainly interesting how oddly predictable the whole tourist circuit is. Certainly we knew before hand that many of the people who visit it us are headed to Haida Gwaii or to Alaska, but it's an entirely different thing to suddenly jump in and experiance exactly what this means.
So, for anyone who has ever been on a trip and thought "we keep seeing those people, they must be doing a similar route," as most people have at some point. It's really not just you, and it's not just those people and you as well. Take a good look around you. Perhaps everyone has been doing a similar route and been through the same places. Just a thought.
As one side note about being a tourist in north coast BC. It is now mid July and foggy, damp, and rainy. For all those tourists that keep asking: Why yes, this is summer. Welcome to the coast, and I swear it is sunny sometimes, even warm; just not usually for long.
Anne
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Bike Ride - July 7th
Right now I am sitting in Safeway using its internet xD
Well what do you expect with North Pacific Cannery's dail-up >.<
Anyway despite Port Edward's grizzly warning I rode my bike into town.
When Naomi goes on a bike ride with Susan, Naomi doesn't have to worry. She rides faster Susan so the grizzly would go after Susan first. Then we'll be rid of our fearless hyper leader XD
Oh but going out alone Naomi says it's important we don't sneak up on the bear as bikes are fast enough to do that...So her solution?
Sing off tune broadway musicals :D:D
Imagine the bear trying to cover its ears but it's paws not coming up high enough, so it rolls along the grass trying to cover it meanwhile escaping from the terrible noise XD
Well I on the other hand decided to completely confuse the bear by singing ゆいこ's Trust (youtube one put heavy emphasis on guitar). My new favourite song. So male singing female pitch, and in another language. Hopefully the bear would go o.O before it realize it can catch up to my and get me XD.
But it was my first bike ride since Port Edward got the grizzly warning. And boy it felt good!
And as I was about to get out of the forest road, flying down the last hill into Port Edward. I saw these guys.
They just turned around and watched me! I scrambled for my camera in my backpack and took a picture. All the time they just looked at me. I wish I could walk around and take more pictures. But I need to catch the bus.
So I resumed my flight. And as I neared them they decided to cross the road one after the other so I had to break to let them pass without slamming into them ^^;;;;
Great Ride!
And I brought my camera along. The scenery from Port Edward to Prince Rupert was as beautiful as ever.
Enjoying the sunshine!!!!!!!
Parallel Pain
Well what do you expect with North Pacific Cannery's dail-up >.<
Anyway despite Port Edward's grizzly warning I rode my bike into town.
When Naomi goes on a bike ride with Susan, Naomi doesn't have to worry. She rides faster Susan so the grizzly would go after Susan first. Then we'll be rid of our fearless hyper leader XD
Oh but going out alone Naomi says it's important we don't sneak up on the bear as bikes are fast enough to do that...So her solution?
Sing off tune broadway musicals :D:D
Imagine the bear trying to cover its ears but it's paws not coming up high enough, so it rolls along the grass trying to cover it meanwhile escaping from the terrible noise XD
Well I on the other hand decided to completely confuse the bear by singing ゆいこ's Trust (youtube one put heavy emphasis on guitar). My new favourite song. So male singing female pitch, and in another language. Hopefully the bear would go o.O before it realize it can catch up to my and get me XD.
But it was my first bike ride since Port Edward got the grizzly warning. And boy it felt good!
And as I was about to get out of the forest road, flying down the last hill into Port Edward. I saw these guys.
They just turned around and watched me! I scrambled for my camera in my backpack and took a picture. All the time they just looked at me. I wish I could walk around and take more pictures. But I need to catch the bus.
So I resumed my flight. And as I neared them they decided to cross the road one after the other so I had to break to let them pass without slamming into them ^^;;;;
Great Ride!
And I brought my camera along. The scenery from Port Edward to Prince Rupert was as beautiful as ever.
Enjoying the sunshine!!!!!!!
Parallel Pain
雨のち晴れ - The After-Rain Sun - July 4th
Yesterday was simply pouring rain. Well this weekend has been pretty much pouring rain. And it has also been pretty dead in terms of visitors. Susan thought we would all be overwhelmed by the Canada Day, long weekend, Independence Day crowd, but that didn't appear at all. And with 6 people on yesterday, at least 3 of whom were stationed in areas where they could get no work done. So after one of the slowest day in weeks and most unproductive day since ever (I had my netbook so I was fine) the day finished just as we expected it to. Absolutely no problem because we had 6 people on. Everyone had extra time to stand/sit around. And most of that time was used doing nothing because we're not assigned to the station where we can do work. In other words, a failed work day.
This morning we were still sulking from that. And the miserable rain continued. But then I found a key and some money trays and a money box for the café And then Naomi successfully re-programmed the cash register. She was able to do this because she's actually been assigned to the station she's normally at! And we got to open up the cash register and change all its button labels so now it's so much more simple to operate! (Before we had to punch all prices in individually by their actual prices.) And it has a proper tray to hold money! And the café has a proper box to carry money with so it won't fall all over!
And the rain began to slow. Naomi went on her break. Lu came and not much for her to do but teach her the basics of the cash register and mop the floor. Then the first tour set ended, and people entered for dinner. It turned out it was one of those unusual (cold and miserable day where) almost all the guests came into the café so they can get a hot meal. One after another they ordered food, and just the first run it was 3 chowders, 1 tomato soup, 1 quiche, 3 salmon melts, 2 soup/sandwich/beverage special (they chose chowder/salmon melts/hot chocolate). So first run it totaled to 5 chowders, 5 salmon melts, 1 tomato soup, 1 quiche, 2 hot chocolate. And while Lu was busy taking orders making drinks and taking out food I was busy trying to make everything at once. Then more orders came in for 2 additional tomato soup, 1 veggie sandwich, 1 chowder, and 2 more hot chocolate (I think it was). Obviously it was impossible for me to make everything at once. Lu also didn't write down the orders so it was also confusing. Haven't quite finished her training yet. But anyway I put all my past kitchen experience to the test, and was preparing soups and sandwiches all at once. Luckily only a little ways in Naomi came back on break.
Quickly finishing 4 soups and their biscuits. I asked Naomi to take over soup, veggie sandwich, and quiche (stove/microwave) while I made salmon melts (toaster/counter). Had great fun trying and successfully making 5 salmon melts all at once. Well 2 first 3 later but in very quick secessions. Also cut up cucumbers and tomatoes and putting dressing on them for plate decoration for 7? different plates. Naomi was used to the mayhem and quickly got the quiche and veggie sandwich and most of the soups ready. Lu was great support in making drinks, putting out plates for us, and taking out the food. All in all I stayed a bit over an extra 15 minutes. But in that time we got almost all the food out. Everyone got everything they ordered within 20~ minutes of placing the order, with the first dish out by 7~10 minutes. This is (I think) acceptable speed even for Vancouver cafés, and great for us! And definitely worked only because I had stayed behind.
And I am happy. =) As I walked out the café, being complimented on my cookie by guests on the way out, the rain had stopped.
And while sitting down relaxed, playing freecell, and enjoying my break, I get a frantic knock on the door. First thought was "oh no, kitchen rush".
But no. It was some guests who wished to talk to me! And the guests was ACE BLAZER, fellow administrator on Creative Assembly's Total War forum, and his family! And they were the people I cooked for and they were the people who complimented me on the cooking! And it only gets better! I talked to them about me, about here, asked them about their trip, and invited them to watch SRS.
And when I went to the front to prepare for SRS, there was the lady who wrote the newspaper article I was in! And her children was there too! And I had a large crowd!
I was all energized and began my performance. The crowd was not the biggest I've performed for, but certainly the most reactive I've ever seen. Even in parts usually no one react to, they laughed. And the more the laughed, the more energized my performance was. And the more they laughed. It was just great!
And just when I thought it couldn't get any better, Susan told me that she had invited Ace and his family to dinner with us! We're all excited now! The sun was coming out! It was warming up too!
And Naomi was able to reprogram the cash register so it gave as an end-of-day receipt too. Now café stats would be SO much easier to track!
It was all sunny now and slow enough that I got everyone to take their break! Relaxing! And with Lu and the front desk, Susan giving tours, we were back to normal, productive setup! Productivity returned!
After work we quickly went into food preparation mode. Lu was main chef and cooked salmon and eulachon. Susan added to Naomi's veggie soup and made a salad. Anne and I set up tables. Then Ace and family showed up with broccoli and cauliflower and a desert pie which Lu stir-fried.
We had too much fun telling our guests about our time up here and watching their expressions. Ace and his brother Daniel was relatively quiet, but their facial expressions were simply too good to miss as we told them Lu and Susan's adventures in town, Lu's obsessions with rapists, Anne and her mom getting lost on the single road in Haida Guai, and many, many stories.
We took out the pie and divided it. There was three pieces left of the pie. And we saw two strangers on the boardwalks.
First Lu went over to tell them they can't be here. Then Susan, being even more hyper than ever, dragged them in to join us. 5 staff 4 tourists 2 Prince Rupert local kayakers had phone around a "ghetto" (as Susan would say) table, sitting on benches and old chairs, laughing at everything!
Had too great of a time that I forgot to take pictures :'(
It was sunny! I could see white clouds and blue sky! O(^^)O
雨後天晴 The After-Rain Sun. It's 雨のち晴れ Alicemagic Style =D
Oh yeah got these two pictures side by side. Saw them in this order too. Thought it was meaningful =)
Parallel Pain
This morning we were still sulking from that. And the miserable rain continued. But then I found a key and some money trays and a money box for the café And then Naomi successfully re-programmed the cash register. She was able to do this because she's actually been assigned to the station she's normally at! And we got to open up the cash register and change all its button labels so now it's so much more simple to operate! (Before we had to punch all prices in individually by their actual prices.) And it has a proper tray to hold money! And the café has a proper box to carry money with so it won't fall all over!
And the rain began to slow. Naomi went on her break. Lu came and not much for her to do but teach her the basics of the cash register and mop the floor. Then the first tour set ended, and people entered for dinner. It turned out it was one of those unusual (cold and miserable day where) almost all the guests came into the café so they can get a hot meal. One after another they ordered food, and just the first run it was 3 chowders, 1 tomato soup, 1 quiche, 3 salmon melts, 2 soup/sandwich/beverage special (they chose chowder/salmon melts/hot chocolate). So first run it totaled to 5 chowders, 5 salmon melts, 1 tomato soup, 1 quiche, 2 hot chocolate. And while Lu was busy taking orders making drinks and taking out food I was busy trying to make everything at once. Then more orders came in for 2 additional tomato soup, 1 veggie sandwich, 1 chowder, and 2 more hot chocolate (I think it was). Obviously it was impossible for me to make everything at once. Lu also didn't write down the orders so it was also confusing. Haven't quite finished her training yet. But anyway I put all my past kitchen experience to the test, and was preparing soups and sandwiches all at once. Luckily only a little ways in Naomi came back on break.
Quickly finishing 4 soups and their biscuits. I asked Naomi to take over soup, veggie sandwich, and quiche (stove/microwave) while I made salmon melts (toaster/counter). Had great fun trying and successfully making 5 salmon melts all at once. Well 2 first 3 later but in very quick secessions. Also cut up cucumbers and tomatoes and putting dressing on them for plate decoration for 7? different plates. Naomi was used to the mayhem and quickly got the quiche and veggie sandwich and most of the soups ready. Lu was great support in making drinks, putting out plates for us, and taking out the food. All in all I stayed a bit over an extra 15 minutes. But in that time we got almost all the food out. Everyone got everything they ordered within 20~ minutes of placing the order, with the first dish out by 7~10 minutes. This is (I think) acceptable speed even for Vancouver cafés, and great for us! And definitely worked only because I had stayed behind.
And I am happy. =) As I walked out the café, being complimented on my cookie by guests on the way out, the rain had stopped.
And while sitting down relaxed, playing freecell, and enjoying my break, I get a frantic knock on the door. First thought was "oh no, kitchen rush".
But no. It was some guests who wished to talk to me! And the guests was ACE BLAZER, fellow administrator on Creative Assembly's Total War forum, and his family! And they were the people I cooked for and they were the people who complimented me on the cooking! And it only gets better! I talked to them about me, about here, asked them about their trip, and invited them to watch SRS.
And when I went to the front to prepare for SRS, there was the lady who wrote the newspaper article I was in! And her children was there too! And I had a large crowd!
I was all energized and began my performance. The crowd was not the biggest I've performed for, but certainly the most reactive I've ever seen. Even in parts usually no one react to, they laughed. And the more the laughed, the more energized my performance was. And the more they laughed. It was just great!
And just when I thought it couldn't get any better, Susan told me that she had invited Ace and his family to dinner with us! We're all excited now! The sun was coming out! It was warming up too!
And Naomi was able to reprogram the cash register so it gave as an end-of-day receipt too. Now café stats would be SO much easier to track!
It was all sunny now and slow enough that I got everyone to take their break! Relaxing! And with Lu and the front desk, Susan giving tours, we were back to normal, productive setup! Productivity returned!
After work we quickly went into food preparation mode. Lu was main chef and cooked salmon and eulachon. Susan added to Naomi's veggie soup and made a salad. Anne and I set up tables. Then Ace and family showed up with broccoli and cauliflower and a desert pie which Lu stir-fried.
We had too much fun telling our guests about our time up here and watching their expressions. Ace and his brother Daniel was relatively quiet, but their facial expressions were simply too good to miss as we told them Lu and Susan's adventures in town, Lu's obsessions with rapists, Anne and her mom getting lost on the single road in Haida Guai, and many, many stories.
We took out the pie and divided it. There was three pieces left of the pie. And we saw two strangers on the boardwalks.
First Lu went over to tell them they can't be here. Then Susan, being even more hyper than ever, dragged them in to join us. 5 staff 4 tourists 2 Prince Rupert local kayakers had phone around a "ghetto" (as Susan would say) table, sitting on benches and old chairs, laughing at everything!
Had too great of a time that I forgot to take pictures :'(
It was sunny! I could see white clouds and blue sky! O(^^)O
雨後天晴 The After-Rain Sun. It's 雨のち晴れ Alicemagic Style =D
Oh yeah got these two pictures side by side. Saw them in this order too. Thought it was meaningful =)
Parallel Pain
Heaven and Hell - July 2nd
I got on the newspaper! Of course I knew that from quite some time ago but I actually got the article! Here it is =)
Of course it is a crappy article (unanimous agreement by all co-workers on this point) but at least I am in the newspaper! It said my performance in SRS was great! Oh and by the way this article, like all newspaper articles, obviously never bothered to fact check, because I didn't restore the script to its original version. I altered the version of the version handed to me and there was at least one or two versions before that one. Why are reporters so lazy?
But all that aside I AM IN THE NEWS PAPER I AM IN THE NEWSPAPER! =D =D =D
And today I gave another great tour! Even if I am telling the same jokes over and over it still makes me smile feel good when people laugh at them. And in my group was a drama teacher for Prince George. She said my SRS was great! It's always good when someone who actually knows what they are talking about told you you did a good job =D
And afterward I was informed that we got more salmon! Spider caught us an entire new salmon =)
Apparently he just brought the life fish into the café and Naomi almost puked on seeing it and had to chase him out >.<>
But we got the fish! It's a sockeye this time. And It was not gutted so I had to gut and cut up the entire thing.
And my lunch was fish liver, heart, and gale bladder. I forgot it's attached to the liver and just ate the whole thing. It was good until the gale bladder popped in my mouth. Then it was bitter all over o(>.<)o
And salmon roe XD
Didn't know how to prepare it so just ate it raw with cooked rice. Still good (at least I loved it!).
Speaking of food. Susan cooked eulachon today in 5 different ways. All were incredibly delicious! There was butter/onion, honey/sesame (oil?), ketchup, curry (o_o), and miso! (O.o)
But they were still all so good!
We were 2~3 weeks into the Spring Salmon and just 1 bag and a bit of it left to go. Then Spider gave us a large chunk of halibut. Then Anne brought clams back from Haida Guai. And then Steve brought us eulachon. And now another full sockeye salmon!
No need to buy meat for another month it seems~
If you actually want to read the hell part, read it here.
Parallel Pain
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Major Catch Up
So. It's been awhile. That is why this is a post to fill in on the several occurrences that I had meant to recap shortly after but promptly went to bed.
The first was the day of fish. Horribly traumatic experience. It began as usual: oatmeal for breakfast, hanging out in the mess house all morning prepping for the day, finally getting customers for lunch when the site opens. In short, Spider (the winter watchman) walking into the Mess House kitchen asking if he should put the fish in the sink. I promptly turn around and almost puke as he is holding a VERY fresh (as in not fully dead yet and still twitching) sockeye salmon, meant as a gift for us tour guides. Now, I am not generally that squeamish of a person, in that we often have fish heads in the fridge here and such, but I don't do well with something like that sprung on me. Needless to say, I told him that this was not the best time/place for it, and he took it elsewhere. Luckily Sam was there to finish organizing the serving of most of the food as I was not exactly in a great state of mind for the next while. Also in that day, fish was taken out of the fridge to defrost and leaked fish juice on some of the vegetables (I evacuated the others and Anne helped me clean the fridge), eulachan (pronounced ooligan) was had with dinner (little fish with eyes that stare at you from the plate). All in all, not one of my best days. I had a salad for dinner.
Ok, now that you have finished rolling your eyes and saying "What a drama queen!"... (completely valid, I'm aware). We had our first dinner guests on Sunday! To be fair, we often had Steve join us for dinner when he was at the site working late to save him from the fine gourmet of granola bars, but these were actual guests! Someone that Paul had connected with via some online gaming forum but whom he had never met in person stopped by the site with his family that day and Susan, being Susan, invited them for dinner. It was actually really fun, although to be fair we are isolated and possibly anyone new would be excitement, but they were really nice and we made a ton of food, and they brought some veggies and a pie. Coincidentally they were from West Vancouver, and had gone to Sentinel for high school, so that was a bit of small world syndrome. Also, just as we were finishing dessert, there was a couple wandering down the boardwalk but we figured that instead of just asking them to leave the site, as we usually do, we invited them in to consume 2 of the 3 pieces of pie that were left! They were from Prince Rupert and just investigating our dock for possible kayak launching/access, and I did my usual quizzing them about Haida Gwaii (I do this to everyone who mentions they've been there...gathering knowledge for my plan to head over in August). Eventually everyone headed off, but all in all a nice endeavor!
Finally (now that your eyes have glazed over), I just wanted to say what a nice day off I had today. I woke up at 8 to call Mark from Cassiar Cannery (down the road), to see if he was headed into town (he said he'd call later), and drank my tea on the boardwalk in the morning sun as no one else was up yet. I lazed around until 9:02 at which point Paul ran downstairs to begin registering for courses via dial-up. I'm guessing you haven't noticed the problem here? Lucky. Phone line=internet access. Meaning that if Mark were to call I would not know...hmmm. I debated just hanging around until the bus at one, but I wanted to swim so I hopped on the bike and made it to Port Ed in 16 minutes...if that would not have outrun the grizzly I don't know what would. Plus, I sing (read:bellow) off-key show tunes when biking by myself, so that scares it away. Anywho, I went to the pool, bought some bulk chickpeas, cookies from the bargain store, deposited my cheque, and bought veggies from Safeway. Then, coming back on the bus at 2, I promptly took my books down to the dock and read in the sun (and fell asleep between 4 and 5). With curry soup, salad, and salmon berry sugar mush (Susan made "crisp") to finish the day, it was a good one.
That is all to report of note, on a work-related note I actually gave a tour for the first time in awhile this week, so that gave me a chance to enjoy the rain instead of hiding out in the kitchen. Hopefully the sun will stick around for a bit as I have Friday off as well!
The first was the day of fish. Horribly traumatic experience. It began as usual: oatmeal for breakfast, hanging out in the mess house all morning prepping for the day, finally getting customers for lunch when the site opens. In short, Spider (the winter watchman) walking into the Mess House kitchen asking if he should put the fish in the sink. I promptly turn around and almost puke as he is holding a VERY fresh (as in not fully dead yet and still twitching) sockeye salmon, meant as a gift for us tour guides. Now, I am not generally that squeamish of a person, in that we often have fish heads in the fridge here and such, but I don't do well with something like that sprung on me. Needless to say, I told him that this was not the best time/place for it, and he took it elsewhere. Luckily Sam was there to finish organizing the serving of most of the food as I was not exactly in a great state of mind for the next while. Also in that day, fish was taken out of the fridge to defrost and leaked fish juice on some of the vegetables (I evacuated the others and Anne helped me clean the fridge), eulachan (pronounced ooligan) was had with dinner (little fish with eyes that stare at you from the plate). All in all, not one of my best days. I had a salad for dinner.
Ok, now that you have finished rolling your eyes and saying "What a drama queen!"... (completely valid, I'm aware). We had our first dinner guests on Sunday! To be fair, we often had Steve join us for dinner when he was at the site working late to save him from the fine gourmet of granola bars, but these were actual guests! Someone that Paul had connected with via some online gaming forum but whom he had never met in person stopped by the site with his family that day and Susan, being Susan, invited them for dinner. It was actually really fun, although to be fair we are isolated and possibly anyone new would be excitement, but they were really nice and we made a ton of food, and they brought some veggies and a pie. Coincidentally they were from West Vancouver, and had gone to Sentinel for high school, so that was a bit of small world syndrome. Also, just as we were finishing dessert, there was a couple wandering down the boardwalk but we figured that instead of just asking them to leave the site, as we usually do, we invited them in to consume 2 of the 3 pieces of pie that were left! They were from Prince Rupert and just investigating our dock for possible kayak launching/access, and I did my usual quizzing them about Haida Gwaii (I do this to everyone who mentions they've been there...gathering knowledge for my plan to head over in August). Eventually everyone headed off, but all in all a nice endeavor!
Finally (now that your eyes have glazed over), I just wanted to say what a nice day off I had today. I woke up at 8 to call Mark from Cassiar Cannery (down the road), to see if he was headed into town (he said he'd call later), and drank my tea on the boardwalk in the morning sun as no one else was up yet. I lazed around until 9:02 at which point Paul ran downstairs to begin registering for courses via dial-up. I'm guessing you haven't noticed the problem here? Lucky. Phone line=internet access. Meaning that if Mark were to call I would not know...hmmm. I debated just hanging around until the bus at one, but I wanted to swim so I hopped on the bike and made it to Port Ed in 16 minutes...if that would not have outrun the grizzly I don't know what would. Plus, I sing (read:bellow) off-key show tunes when biking by myself, so that scares it away. Anywho, I went to the pool, bought some bulk chickpeas, cookies from the bargain store, deposited my cheque, and bought veggies from Safeway. Then, coming back on the bus at 2, I promptly took my books down to the dock and read in the sun (and fell asleep between 4 and 5). With curry soup, salad, and salmon berry sugar mush (Susan made "crisp") to finish the day, it was a good one.
That is all to report of note, on a work-related note I actually gave a tour for the first time in awhile this week, so that gave me a chance to enjoy the rain instead of hiding out in the kitchen. Hopefully the sun will stick around for a bit as I have Friday off as well!
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