Camp Experineces

[Ironclad]

we're staying in the patry camp, while on a spray season. had been on the job for a while now and one day while we were winded out, we decided a football game was in order to get rid of the cabin fever and boredom.

it all started out ok, pretty much as a touch game, but things got just a little more agressive and it turned into a tackle, shove, push, trip, take the other out, game as more people joined. by the end of the game we hurtin', some of us a lot more than others as we were playing on gravel!!

was great for moral, not so much for skin.

[ray]

There was this one seismic camp...

 

We were in the rec room one night, watching tv.

The movie playing was 'Ike and Tina', a somewhat biographical account of Tina Turner's life.

There was a fair bit of domestic violence portrayed in that movie.

The cook's helper, and the camp attendant, both female, were watching it with us.

So the pilot, a certain Mouldy Ted, started provoking them.

"ah, she deserved it', and other comments along that line.

Finally, one of the girls snapped. She came over, slapped me, and walked out.

I protested, 'I didn't say anything'.

She gives me a glare...'but you're one of them'...and walked away.

 

The guys found that hilarious. I didn't at the time.

 

Winter seismic, the helicopters would get shut down around 4:30, 5:00pm because it would get dark early. The crews wouldn't drive back to camp till around 7:00pm. By that time, I've looked over the aircraft, put covers on, had supper, and parked myself in the tv room.

Which meant I had the remote control, and the crews had to watch whatever I had decided to watch.

I tend to watch news and documentaries. The crews preferred 'The Simpsons' and the like.

They would sit there getting agitated, but not say anything.

Once in a while, I would throw the remote control on the table and say 'I'm done'.

There'd be a mad scramble and fist fights over possession of that remote. It would be entertaining.

Sometimes, as they were fighting, I would pick the remote back up. Everybody would freeze.

The things we did to entertain ourselves.

[Elvis]

Wow you had TV and females how things have changed since My camp days, a heated crapper was a luxury

[dimit]

Anyone ever work for Stu Blusson?

 

This guy owns part of the Ekati mine; kinda wealthy! Also the cheapest SOB I've ever worked for. We were in a little prospecting camp, just me (pilot & cook), the driller and his helper, and sometimes Stu. When Stu was in camp, he cooked and looked at rocks.

 

Stu got got into a shouting match with the driller when he wouldn't eat the rotted cabbage and spam soup served for supper one night.

 

He'd keep the door to the cook tent open, then spray Raid on EVERYTHING to keep the bugs off. This was on the tundra, so the bugs didn't give a s**t about Raid. Another shouting match with the driller, followed by violent elimination of the Raid cans. THAT was cool!

 

Our frig was the Rubbermaid bin buried on the north side of the esker.

 

Stu slept in a Walmart pup tent.

 

We flew around the tundra in an R22. When the air was cold Stu wanted to do the drill moves with the 22. "The last guy did it." Shouting match with pilot...

 

Stu had OLD fuel caches all over the place, so I was always checking the fuel. Often enough the Color-Kut came out bloody red. Another shouting match.

 

On one trip into camp his meat purchases for 2 weeks amounted to $15 and consisted mainly of those shrink-wrapped deli ends. Nice!

 

Many "THANKS" to those kind souls who smuggled me into the cafeteria at Ekati for some real food.

 

And to his credit, Stu gave some of us our first flying jobs. Things could only looked up from there!

 

****

[Spitzair]

Some time ago I was on a fire and we stayed in a camp on the BC Alberta border outside of Manning. It was actually quite a nice camp, well equipped, clean and with a great kitchen! One evening I wandered into the dining room a bit before everyone else and on the menu board it said "Chicken Balls" :shock: I didn't let the cook get away with that one

About a year or so ago, Skullcap and I were working on a job in the Tumbler Ridge are and since there was no more room anywhere in Tumbler we stayed at a hotel in Chetwynd BC... There was this one car in the parking lot, a beat up old POS car that didn't move at all. One night, I think it was the night that the seismic crew showed up, we were all fast asleep until about 2 in the morning when all of a sudden "BANG BANG". What the??? Wierd, oh well, must be a car backfiring on the hiway. Took a peek out the door but my room was tucked in a corner way in the back so I never saw nothing. The next morning at the safety meeting the guys were all ranting about the gunshots that night. Turns out some chick who had stayed at the hotel for a while was involved in some drug dealing and the people she was dealing with weren't all that happy with her. She had checked out of the hotel some time before we got there but had left her little beater car in the parking lot. So these dudes figured she was still there and went up outside her room and fired a couple rounds through the window into the bed. Buddy who was sleeping in there had for some reason decided to sleep in the other bed and believe it or not he slept through the whole thing! The next morning he's sitting there on his bed wondering why the window was shattered and laying on the floor. But that's not all, the hitmen went down to the car that the chick had left in the parking lot, smashed out the window and filled 'er up with gas and were just about to light it when someone came along and scared them off. This car was parked between a bunch of others, what an inferno that would have been! The best part was that nobody bothered to call the Cops until the morning during our safety meeting! What a hoot that tour was!

[Murdoch]

It is many "moons" ago in a place called James Bay, "Jimmy's Lagoon" or La Baie James..........take your pick as you know it.

 

Myself and three others (both pilots and engineers) are living in a 16' X 24' tent with plywood floors, door, and walls with a canvas "fly" for a roof. In the center of this tent is s space heater that provides more than ample heat, even though the temps outside are greater than -40F. There's a bed for each of us in each corner of the tent. We are warm and comfortable and since no flying is being done because of the temps, we are heavily into our latest card game rage........Euchre. Thsi game requires rapt attention and amongst it's experts there is little tolerance for slowness in playing each hand.

 

We are all sitting there at a table, wrapped-up in the game, when one of the the camp cooks knocks on our door and walks in holding a long rectangular box. He enquires as to whether we might have an air pump of some sort. We had a float-equipped 206 in the camp in the past and we advised "yes we did and it's just over there under that bed". We continue with our game until my opposite partner's eyes begin to grow very large and we all turned around to see what he was looking at. The cook had the contents of the box laying on a bed and was inflating it. As we watched a totally naked and very well endowed female was emerging on that bed. We were stuck for words and he finished his project and we all noticed that she was stiff as a board. He picked her up, stuck her under his arm like a board, thanked us very much and left the tent and did so as though he had just fixed a tire flat. :lol:

 

Cap, please try to warn us when you post stories like this. The cleaning staff here at work just got very mad at me because I spit coffee all over the desk and wall. I spent the rest of my break cleaning when.... ah well, could've been worse. At least I missed the keyboard and monitor.

Good story.

[gwk]

A few years ago, I worked for CHC, out of Edmonton, and I had the pleasure of working with many good engineers. One in particular stands out, not because he was a recently landed immigrunt from jolly ol England, but because of this storey he told me.

CHC had a winter contract in Greenland, for the US Military, and I had thought it might be good for a hoot, and mentioned to this fellow that I might volunteer. He told me his story about Greenland, and I,ll pass it along.

Because of what they were doing, it involved camping on the sea ice, in two man winter tents. This fellow was billetted with a Military guy, who was built like the proverbial brick sh-t house. Apparently, every night this guy had to get up, and go pee, and just hated it, because it was so cold out.

One night, this big guy shows my friend his bright idea, a coffee can, with the top cut off, and the bright idea to use it as a chamber pot. So, after a few nights of getting up and peeing into the coffee can, and then crawling back into bed, it appeared that the guy was happy.

Well, one night my friend is woken up, and feels a wet mist spraying all over his face, jumps out of bed and looks over at his roomate.

Apparently, the guy figured that the floor was too cold, and thought if he just rolled onto his side, he could pee into the coffeee can without getting out of bed. I guess spray and splatter didn,t cross his mind!

Needless to say, I kept quiet about wanting to go to Greenland, and happily spent the following winters heli-skiing, and thinking about camps, and camp mates.

[kjw57]

It was around week 4 of the traditional 6 week rotation sharing La Chateua Easy Bake by Atco with my engineer, when a couple of Oilmans trailers appear in camp with the proclamation they're not for you guy's they are reserved for the incoming O team. I figured as they had been delivered along with a command trailer that meant they were to be used for accomodations only...my bag was laying on the floor of one while my engineer watched the blades spin down, muttering something about being "glad to be rid of me." When the overhead guy's got in (I knew most of them) there was a knock on the door of my newest abode followed by an inquiry as to just "what was I doing" and "didn't you know these are for us?" To which I politely replied "not anymore your place is right over there by that ATCO sign." Somehow it worked I stayed but poor Dan my engineer was none too impressed to be sharing a room with the now displaced Air-Ops.

 

I kinda figured that with them only coming to stay for 10 days versus my 42 it only made sense. I did get alot of visitors but that probably had more to do with the air conditioner (and refridgerator) then anyones desire to see me.

 

PS

 

The satelitte TV, washer dryer and shower were all hooked up and working too... sweet!!!

 

Moral of the story; take it when you can get it, because as someone pointed out in an earlier post you never know what kind of S*%t hole you'll be lodging in next.