Winter's Arrival in NE BC

[Dick Mitten]

Got 3-4cm snow today. Leaves are off the poplars, larches have turned from yellow to brown and are losing their needles. Moose and caribou are moving around. Beavers bringing in their last load of lumber. Got out the "horse blankets" and heaters and bundled up the ship. -7C and the evening's just begun.

Anyone else out there getting winter?

[GLSNightPilot]

Yes, the temp has dropped below +70F tonight down here on the Gulf coast. I may have to put on a long-sleeved shirt sometime this month. I wish I were further south.

[SASless]

Indeed....if you can see the Northern Lights....you are too far north! Sorry GLS....I don't mean the westbound headlights on Interstate 10 !;)

[rightpedalRIGHTPEDAL]

I moved to Canada and got my first flying job in February, in Northwest Alberta. Coming from the Caribbean, I must say it was quite a novel experience on my first day at work to go out and bag choppers in a blowing blizzard. As I went out the hangar door I saw through the horizontally blowing snow the thermometer reading -38C! Help! Where's my face?!?
Needless to say after a wonderful spring and summer in the oil patch and fires, when the cooling breezes of Fall started nipping at my backside, I thought it might be best to return to my little tropical place of birth, where winter means rainy season is over, the mercury drops all the way to 26C, and get your boards waxed up cause the waves are starting to roll.
Canadian bush flying is great, but I am convinced you guys are half Polar bears. Maybe see ya in the Spring!:)

[Dick Mitten]

But in the late evening (around 7pm!) the sky was clear and the Northern Lights were an awesome sight!

Can't stand how hot the cockpit gets when OAT > 25C! Do you guys 'n gals down south drive around in shorts 'n tank tops, or what? And where do you go skiing? Ice fishing? Sledding, dog or otherwise?

On the downside: It's hunting season, and lots of lasses and laddies are out with their muskets and their big bottles of CC, blasting away at anything that moves. Fortunately I'm working in a roadless area. Just wait though, someone on the nearest road will want me to sling their moose across some swamp into the back of their pickup.

Finally, come mid-December, when legal day begins at 9:25am and ends at 4:40pm, the ground'll be froze enough that the trucks'll roll across the muskeg, and I'll be out of work for a few months? Going to the Caribbean, Gulf Coast, truck driving with SASless? No way! I'm going skiing!!

Good morning from NE BC,

[SASless]

Yesssss...it is great up North in the Winter....yeah right! If you are not partnered up by October....those winter nights....21 hours long ...get awfully cold. When a gal says she will spend the night....that could be months. Snow up to your butt.....snot frozen to your mustache....fingers numb up to your elbows.....jet fuel like jelly....taking the battery and engine oil into the hut each night.....gosh...I do miss it all! Waking up in the morning....kerosun heater on full blast....temp hovering around minus 35F in the tent....no bath for six weeks....cranking the aircraft every fifteen minutes ......oh...yes...I do miss it so! What was I thinking when I took a job in a temperate climate.....;)

[GLSNightPilot]

SASless, if you can see the westbound headlights OR taillights on I10, you're way too far north. I've seen snow and ice covering the ramp at Galveston, TX, & it was way, way too far north. A little hurricane now & then is nothing, at least it doesn't last 9 months. :eek:

But in the late evening (around 7pm!) the sky was clear and the Northern Lights were an awesome sight!

Dick, how does the poem go - "Oh the northern lights have seen queer sights, but the strangest they ever did see..."

Well, I don't want to see any of them, queer or not. The only light I want to see at night is a full moon. Call me any name you want, but I ain't never going north of the Red River again, & I only go there in the summer. :cool:

[Q max]

... when does the sea freeze on the North coast?