A FEW SHORT STORIES

People here are different. They react diffrently to certain things. Take hunting for example; when I posted pictures of us gutting an elk that we killed I immediatly received a pretty digusted reaction from people back home. Whereas people here don't think much of it. It's an animal that tastes good on the barbeque, why wouldn't you hunt it and eat it? Elk are abundant in the Kootneys, and their population isnt under any immediate threat. When I mentioned peoples reactions to the locals working here, they would just shake their heads saying "Silly city kids.."

Another thing that is different here is drinking and driving. On many occassions i've noticed people driving after more than just a few. Because Fairmont Hot Springs doesnt have a police department, they rely on the police force of the nearest town which is Invermere. This means that most of the time, the nearest cops are 30km away. So getting caught for drinking and driving doesn't happen here unless you've been in an accident. With that being said, I make sure to pick my rides carefully, or walk.

Last night we went to a restaurant that was having a special on wings. Its a weekly thing we do here. I had been drinking before we got there and just ordered a pitcher of water. After effectively rehydrating myself it was time to urinate. I went to the bathroom, did my business, and just as I was about to leave I noticed an extra door in the bathroom. It wasn't a stall door, or an exit door. Being curiously intoxicated I try opening it. It opened. It was a steep staircase that lead to an office in the attic. At the time I thought it was the Bat Cave. I did some snooping around trying to find cool Batman gadgets and was upset when my search turned up with nothing. I decided that the next appropriate thing to do was to leave my mark in the cave. Did I throw his papers around the office? Did I pee on the floor? Did I steal his computer? No. I would be so upset if someone did any of those things to me. Instead I went on his computer and left this message on whatever he was working on:

LIFEGUARD INITIATION

I went on my first successful hunt yesterday. As we were driving back to Fairmont from Invermere I spotted a bull elk from the highway and pointed it out to the guy driving. Being native the driver doesnt have any restrictions on shooting elk as long as its still light outside and he isnt within 300ft of a road. We went back to his place and got a rifle as well as a few friends to help carry the carcass back to the truck.

It had snowed the day before so tracks were easy to spot. We followed the elk for about a kilometer until we spotted him down the hill on a frozen lake. Two shots brought the animal down.

After it's dead, the organs have to be removed quickly because they spoil the meat if left in for too long. It was pretty similar to gutting a fish. Slice the belly lengthwise, pull out all the organs, and skin it. The one difference is that this was at least 1000 times bigger than the biggest minow I have ever gut. Once that was over and done with, we had to cut the legs and head off to make dragging the carcass back up to the truck easier. Having never decapitated a large animal before, I was pretty eager to give it a try. I sliced away all the meat first, then went on to aimlessly hacking away at the spine. After realizing my decapitating method was going nowhere a guy named "Murder-Mark" stepped in and started twisting the head round in circles until it snapped off. He was pretty good at it, as if he had done it many times before.

The next part sucked, we had to drag it uphill to the nearest road which was about a half kilometer away. Having slippery street shoes the drag was hard as hell and I couldn't contribute much. Once we got up there, the truck came and we loaded the elk in the back. We brought the elk back to one guy's house where we began skinning it. I got a knife and went to help skin the elk when Murder-Mark approached me and asked if I had ever shot a gun. I told him I hadnt and he was pretty eager to show me how. We set up an empty beer can on a stump and he gave a quick run-down on how to shoot a rifle. I took my first shaky shot standing up and missed. The next one i took down on one knee and hit the can a little off center. On my second shot I focused more on aiming than I did on holding the gun firmly in place, and so it recoiled and the scope wacked me in the eyebrow. It was pretty cool.

Once it was completely skinned we loaded it back into the truck so it could be taken to the butcher the following day. We kept the heart and tenderloins to cook up for dinner. Dinner was amazing by the way, we had elk heart and elk tenderloins, with this sweet bread called bannock and home made plum jam. Satisfied is the only word I can think of to describe how I felt. It was very similar to the feeling of the first beer after your last final before the summer. Satisfied and content.

First Day

Have you ever walked in half way through a movie? Stuff doesnt really make sense, a plot has already been established and your forced to simoultaneously spend the rest of the movie trying to figure out what happened before you got there and whats happening as the movie continues?

This was pretty much my first day at the resort here. I had my first soak in the hotsprings today, and we went to the hoodoos which were only a 5 minute drive away, followed by a short 15min hike. Although it was a fun day and all, I noticed an uneasy vibe amongst a few of the people that have been here for a while. I was told they went through something tough before I got here. With the plot already established, Im trying to focus more on what happens from now onward and how I can have as much fun as possible with the people here. By the way have I mentioned the people here are awesome? Everybody is friendly and very welcoming. Im stoked.

At the hoodoos I took my first photo for my new selfies album. Ive decided that the best way to cope with my insecurities as a 20 year old male was to post self taken photographs on facebook. I'll keep you all up to date on my progress, heres my first shot:

A Change in Lifestyle

For the last 6 months my life has mainly revolved around working. I would wake up at 5am and carpool my way to a lumber mill where I would repeat the same task over and over again for 8 straight hours. As much fun as that was, I was starting to get tired of it. Plus the idea of telling people 10 years from now that all I did at 20 was work at a lumber mill wasnt very appealing.

I realized early on when I started working at the mill that I didn't want to stay there for long, so I searched the internet for all the cool jobs I could think of. I applied for various jobs on the local mountains, a few oil rig jobs in Alberta and I also sent my resume to several treeplanting companies. No luck. I gave up after a while and started to focus on University applications for next September.

Life become pretty dull and repetative in last month and a half, until I received an email from a lady looking to hire me as a lifeguard for hotsprings in the rockies.

Long story short I took the job and im hoping onto a bus in an hour that will take me to Fairmont Hotsprings. So begins my change in lifestyle, and the revival of this blog...