WHITE OUTS
The barrens in the winter is one enormous white wilderness with a few rocks sticking up. On a good day it is easy enough to get lost but wjhen the wind picks up it starts moving snow and you find yourself in a white out where you can literally only see a few feet in blinding snow and strong winds.
It can make going a short distance a perilous adventure and several people have got lost in whiteouts over the years and froze to death even though some were only a few hundred feet from safety. Once you loose your bearings in a white out, chances are your history. the windstorm white out can last for days.
You could be in a place where the drill is in sight of the camp, on a normal day but when a white out blows up getting from one to the other would be impossible. You just hunger down where you are and wait it out. Plus you have drifting snow. Ive seen equipement left on surface end up buryied under six feet of snow overnight.
If someone gets lost it is almost impossible to find them because everyone searching is risking their lives, you cannt get planes in or out etc et al.
Obviously it is impossible to do most jobs under these conditions. you sit in camp and hope your camp doesnt blow down or end up scattered over the tundra, which has happened. Going outside to fill up your fuel barrels etc just moving around or trying to repair a generator under these conditions is a real challenge.
When a grew on the barrens says they lost time due to weather trust me they arent kidding.
If you think whiteouts due to blizzards are bad some foggy or low overcast days you run into a problem called lack of ground distinction. Its really weird you may be able to see a fair way, even miles, but the grey sky melds in with the grey snow and you just cannt tell where the ground is. People have literally walked or driven off of cliffs. Ive see people unable to drive a snowmobil because they cannt tell when they are on a slope. Planes and helicopters are grounded.
Then you have the cold. Imagine getting stuck in a snow bank waiting out a storm. No food, no chancge of clothes, praying that when you nod off from exaustion you will wake up with your nose, ears, all your fingers and toes.
Obviously I get a little hot under the coller when someone says a grew or company is using the weather or breakdowns as an excuse (unless they have some evidence for it) because Ive been there done that and it aint easy, mistakes or bosses who push there grews risk lives. Even those with years of experience get caught occasionally.
The barrens can be a great place when the weathers nice but she can get awfully mean awfully fast for days on end. The people who work out there earn their pay and when the weather is to bad to work and you are stuck in camp, it can be pretty miserable as well. getting up in the middle of the night to try to put a tent back up, fuel a stove or get a generator unburied, is not a whole lot of fun.
Thats my piece on extreme weather, sometimes it is important to have an apreciation for where these mining exploration projects take place.
More then once I have sat in the wilds and marveled that we scoure the world for minerals so that people living in civilization can enjoy the comforts of civilization and either hord them, or use them and then throw them away. In one regard it makes no sense but on the other hand it extends the frontiers.
regards Walt |
