Big Beaver Diaries

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Tagged: Alberta

Canada / Live Transcripts

Live Transcript: McDonald’s Experience of a Lifetime

  The McDonald’s Experience of a Lifetime. -Live transcript of Not Larry during the 2023 Arctic Winter Games in Fort McMurray, Wood Buffalo. [su_dropcap]W[/su_dropcap]hen I was coming out of Mac Island I saw three people walking. One of them was wearing a jacket from Nunavut. I was going to turn towards home, but the people I saw were walking past the Morrison Center. I started thinking to myself, ‘Why are they walking? I have an empty car right now.’ It’s...

Canoe Conundrum in Canada

Big Beaver Diaries / Canada / Canadian Adventure 2019

Canoe Conundrum in Canada

At 09:08 Not Larry and I unloaded a 16’ canoe into the Clearwater River at Waterways. I was the paddle in the front and Not Larry was the paddle/rudder in the back. We rode the Clearwater to the Athabasca River and headed north. We would tackle a 50 km journey on the day. A storm would come and find us…

Driving from the Northwest Territories to Alberta.

Big Beaver Diaries / Canada

Canada Driving from the Northwest Territories to Alberta.

Canada Driving from the Northwest Territories to Alberta. Fort Smith, Northwest Territories, Canada.  14 January 2018. I had an alarm set for 10:00. Alarms are terrible on vacation. It took some time, but Julie and I eventually got out of bed.  Showers. Pack the car. Dead battery. Great… It was Arctic cold again, -34° Celsius, so it was hard to blame the car for not wanting to fire-up. Had it not been for our morning fire-up in the room, I may...

Entering the Northwest Territories: Fort Chipewyan to Fort Smith.

Big Beaver Diaries / Canada

Entering the Northwest Territories of Canada: Fort Chipewyan to Fort Smith.

Entering the Northwest Territories: Fort Chipewyan to Fort Smith. 13 January 2018 (continued. Click here for dog sledding first part). Fort Chipewyan, Alberta, Canada.  At 13:00, after some convincing from everyone in the community, Julie and I left Barbara and Robert Grandjambe’s house, gassed up the car up in Fort Chipewayn for $1.60/liter, and drove north. It would be a 3.5 hour trip from Fort Chipewyan, Alberta to Fort Smith, Northwest Territories. Neither Julie nor I had been to any...

Dog Sledding in Fort Chipewyan, Alberta, Canada.

Big Beaver Diaries / Canada

Dog Sledding in Canada: Fort Chipewyan, Alberta

Dog Sledding in Fort Chipewyan. Fort Chipewyan, Alberta, Canada.  13 January 2018.  I had an alarm set for 08:05. Neither Julie nor I wanted to get up but time was of the essence in Fort Chipewyan. Of course, there is time to be used wisely when you are on holidays. And even when you have a massive day, it is important to take partake in vacation horizontal bed dancing. The world can wait! Julie and I packed up, showered up, and headed...

Traveling Canadian Ice Roads: Fort McMurray to Fort Chipewyan

Big Beaver Diaries / Canada

Traveling Canadian Ice Roads: Fort McMurray to Fort Chipewyan

Traveling Canadian Ice Roads: Fort McMurray to Fort Chipewyan. 12 January 2018. I was nearly pacing the floor waiting for Julie to finish her course in the morning to come and collect me. It is hard to know what a person is going to need in northern Canada. I was already far north in Fort McMurray, Alberta, but we were going to be heading much further north than that on an ice-road…further north than most Canadian minds think of, to...

Learning to Butcher a Deer and Make Sausages

Canada

Learning to Butcher a Deer and Make Sausages

Learning to Butcher a Deer and Make Sausages. 15 November 2017. Dusty, Stryker and I went for a drive in the afternoon to see if we could find any deer as hunting season is underway. Shortly into our drive, a buck jumped out of a patch of trees! Dusty took three shots at him but missed the buck that ran into another massive grove of trees. The buck was in quite a hurry by that point, understandably. Dusty went into...

Roger Waters Us + Them

Big Beaver Diaries / Rock and Roll!

Roger Waters Us + Them

Roger Waters.   Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.   24 October 2017.   For $167, my friend Christian and I found tickets 16 rows back of the stage for the Roger Waters Us + Them show at Rogers Place in Edmonton.  It is about as close as a person can get to seeing a Pink Floyd show that includes Roger Waters post-1981.  There were nosebleed tickets available for about half of the price so we went all in.  The top four concerts...

Guns 'N Roses Concert - Edmonton, Alberta.

Big Beaver Diaries / Rock and Roll!

Guns ‘N Roses Concert – Edmonton, Alberta.

Guns ‘N Roses Concert – Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.  30 August 2017. I was up at 09:00 and my 17-year-old cousin Trevor was up and at it by 10:00 so that we could get on the road.  He and I got into his car and headed 5.5 hours north to Edmonton, Alberta… …Guns ‘N Roses. On the drive on the way there, I bought tickets on Stubhub for $145 ($183 CDN) for seats on the bottom of the Commonwealth Stadium, 36...

The Crotch Rocket at 212 km/h.

Big Beaver Diaries / Extreme Adventure

The Crotch Rocket at 212 km/h.

The Crotch Rocket at 212 km/h. 28 August 2017. I met up with Trevor, my 17 year old cousin, after lunch. Trevor asked if I wanted to go biking. “Heck Yeah!” That sounded like a blast! Trevor has a 2012 KTM SX-7, 250cc, four stroke dirt motorcycle with a lot of bottom end power. He also has a 2004 Suzuki GSXR, 600cc, crotch rocket. I would soon learn how accurate the nickname crotch rocket is for one of those motorcycles…not...

Rock and Roll! / Writing

Fleetwood Mac Review

Fleetwood Mac – Rexall Place, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada – 15 November 2014 Ironically, as I was trying to think of a way to scheme a way out of work for the night my boss sent me a text that said we would be taking this nightshift off.  Unreal luck!  I have had this date on my radar for a couple of months. Fleetwood Mac was in town…  So, I scrounged up a floor ticket on stubhub, twenty rows from the...

Edmonton Oilers 1984 Stanley Cup Reunion

Canada / Sports / Writing

A Night With Our Heroes – Edmonton Oilers 1984 Stanley Cup Reunion

A Night With Our Heroes Edmonton Oilers 1984 Stanley Cup Reunion Sometimes the stars align just right.  My childhood hero hockey team decided to have a 30 year anniversary of their 1984 Stanley Cup Championship when I was in the area, and beyond that, my best friend and I who grew up bonding over the team were able to attend the reunion together.  As I said to him, “If I was in Auckland, New Zealand right now, and I knew...

The Postcard

Canada / Ecuador 2014 / Life is Crazy / Writing

The Postcard Barrel

The Postcard Barrel 18 September An amazingly cool thing happened today.  Well, it all goes back a couple of months.  Today ties to a day in late June when I was on Isla Floreana in the Galapagos.  I wrote this from that time….   “The post office ‘barrel’ has existed since the 1800’s and it is where ships used to leave mail they wanted delivered.  If you stopped at the beach where Bahia Post Office was located on your way...

Waskatenau – Finding a Job But Wanting a Statue

Big Beaver Diaries / Canada

Waskatenau – Finding a Job But Wanting a Statue

Waskatenau – Finding a Job But Wanting a Statue. September 17. I awoke this morning to a man calling me to give me job.  That is bittersweet.  I need to job as I need to make money and have enough to get out of the Canadian Freezer before the cold swallows up my will to go on, but jobs just do not really suit me….  They say that a man should never do what he is good at for free,...

A Fantastically Strange Message

Big Beaver Diaries / Canada

Waskatenau – A Fantastically Strange Message and My Mental Difficency

September 16. A Fantastically Strange Message. I received a message in my Big Beaver Diaries inbox today that threw me for a mental loop.  My mother is one of 8 brothers and sisters from a mix-matched family of parents who divorced in the ultra conservative 1950’s.  I often wonder how society viewed divorcees at that time…  My grandparents were undoubtedly seen as despicable sinners by that society.  Both of those grandparents remarried and had more children.  That made it so...

15 September – Sylvan Lake to Waskatenau – Time Warp

Big Beaver Diaries / Canada

Sylvan Lake to Waskatenau – Time Warp

Sylvan Lake to Waskatenau – Time Warp. 15 September. I was awake at 2:45am.  My alarm was set for 4:45am.  I wanted those two hours of a coma sleep, but my body would not agree to such a plan.  I think it is because I have been partying until 4am nearly every day since about December and my body was truly confused about how I put it to rest at 10pm.  I think it thought the rest was just a...

Sylvan Lake: Domesticity, Child Caring and Bearing

Big Beaver Diaries / Canada

Sylvan Lake: Domesticity, Child Caring and Bearing

Sylvan Lake: Domesticity, Child Caring and Bearing. September 14.  I got this message from my friend Jan today.  This entertained me very much; “Anyway I thought you might get a kick out of this… on my Mac my favourites board contains 12 websites. I don’t know if you are familiar with the favourites board but as soon as I click on the internet my homepage consists of my 12 favourite pages in smaller view. But you can still see what’s...

Penhold, Bentley, and Sylvan Lake

Big Beaver Diaries / Canada

Penhold, Bentley, and Sylvan Lake

Penhold, Bentley, and Sylvan Lake. September 13. Penhold parade took place today.  I spent most of the parade racing Kellen for candy that was thrown from cars.  The parade was more about politics than anything else.  It disappointed me.  Where are the cool cars?  Where are the floats?  Here is the Liberal Party representative.  Here is the NDP party representative.  Here is the PC party representative.  Here is the town secretary…  Good thing there was candy to buy the children’s...

Penhold: Pepperoni Hamburgers in a Haunted House

Big Beaver Diaries / Canada

Penhold: Pepperoni Hamburgers in a Haunted House

Penhold: Pepperoni Hamburgers in a Haunted House. September 11.   After a late start because of a little lady’s illness last night, Travis and I left Penhold and went to Red Deer to buy diapers and beer.  That is quite a combination.  I tried carrying the diapers and felt that it was bad luck so I had Travis carry them instead.  Some things just do not look right on me.  Perhaps one day I will have to buy diapers.  Maybe...

Sundre to Penhold: A Cool Trifecta

Big Beaver Diaries / Canada

Sundre to Penhold: A Cool Trifecta

Sundre to Penhold: A Cool Trifecta. September 10.  Maybe I am not supposed to be a writer and maybe my path in life is to bring old friends together…people who have not seen each other in many years.  Today was a trifecta of awesome. Priscilla cooked bacon and hash-brown cuisine for breakfast and we started out day.  A snowy day. This is an absurd amount of snow outside.  It is like January out there and it is just out of...

Sundre: What the Cowgirls Do

Big Beaver Diaries / Canada

Sundre: What the Cowgirls Do

Sundre: What the Cowgirls Do. September 9.   You can really dig through your past when you spend time with someone you grew up with that you have really seen in about 25 years.  It takes a little while for conversations and characters to flow naturally as you show each other who you are today.  Then you just feel so proud of what the other has become with their life. Priscilla and I spent the morning looking at pictures of...

Regina to Sundre: A Gal I Grew Up With

Big Beaver Diaries / Canada

Regina to Sundre: A Gal I Grew Up With

Regina to Sundre: A Gal I Grew Up With. September 8. Coincidences are cool.  A couple of days ago when Bean, Fiona, her parents and I were in Montana’s Cookhouse, I ran into a friend from home named Lynette.  She told me she had been visiting our friend Priscilla Tames who was down.  I grew up with Priscilla.  When they sold their farm my brother bought it.  We were like family as kids. I called Priscilla and jumped in her...

A Goat for a Wedding Present

Canada / Life is Crazy / Writing

A Goat for a Wedding Present

A Goat for a Wedding Present It was a Friday afternoon when Fatty called me and asked if I want to go 50/50 in buying a goat with him for our friend Luke’s wedding present.  Fatty had originally asked Luke if he wanted a raccoon or a badger for the nuptial tribute.  Luke jokingly said, “A badger.”  But, short of time to try to catch one of those, Fatty came up with this other fantastic idea.  Gifting Luke and Kimberlee...