Goose Bay
A couple of Goose stories..............
In the late 70's we were tasked to fly to Goose Bay and sit on the ground for 4 days - in January. The reason for the long stay has slipped my memory but we did the standard winter arrival........taxy up to the hangar, get towed straight in and close the doors behind us.
Because we were going to be there for a while, we had to do the full Cold Weather briefing. This consisted of going to a store room in the hangar to get issued with the full Extreme Weather Kit (parka, mukluks, etc) followed by a safety chat given by one of the staff - a Chief Tech.
He told us to put all the kit on then took us on a tour outside the hangar. Before we went through the door, I noticed that he licked his fingers and wet the front of his hair. Outside, in a temp of minus lots, he showed us the Emergency Hangar Entry Points, emergency phones and other places we could get assistance if we needed it. The walk-around took about 10 mins by which time we were feeling the effects of the cold. We then re-entered and the Chief Tech took off his gloves, reached up to his hair and broke off a piece of the frozen section. He said, 'Just imagine if that was your pubes'.
Point taken!
On another visit, we walked into the Sgts Mess bar around 19.30. There were a few guys in there including a large, well dressed, Canadian gentleman. He was as drunk as a lord and falling off his stool. At around 19.50 he staggered out saying he would be back in 20 mins. No-one seemed surprised by this so we asked where he was going. The barman said, 'I'll show you' and switched the TV to a news channel.
On the hour the Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC) News was shown from Toronto then we were told to 'standby for the news bulletin from your part of Canada'. A message on the screen declared 'News from Labrador' and, to our astonishment, there was our drunk reading the news. For 5 mins he was word perfect then signed off. 10 mins later he was back in the bar, struggling to get on his stool.
The local TV studio was just along the tunnel from the Sgts Mess.