dilettante
Well-known Member
- Location
- Michigan
Rotated 11 degrees so North is actually at the top:
Surprised at how far north some of the States are
- Thread starter PeppermintPatty
- Start date
JBR
Senior Member
Ogopogo.
PeppermintPatty
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- Location
- Canada
The monster is called Ogopogo. While I never actually saw him we had fun looking. I have a photo of six year old me sitting on the back of his statue at Okanagan Lake.
Debrah N.
Senior Member
- Location
- Alberta, Canada
Oh my gosh! -40C!!! I can't even imagine what that would feel like! How many layers would you need to step out the door and not freeze to death?
Debrah N.
Senior Member
- Location
- Alberta, Canada
PeppermintPatty
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- Location
- Canada
Iād still go out to feed the birds and take my dogs for a walk. They werenāt too impressed either but itās routine for us. It only went down that low about 3 times in 27 years. I doubled up on dog coats and wore my warmest winter wear. Iād wear something for my face but my eyeglasses would get all fogged up.
Debrah N.
Senior Member
- Location
- Alberta, Canada
Well, those would be days when my dog got shown where his puppy pads are! I think you're hardier than I am. That's one thing I found out during covid! My covid mask kept my face sooo much warmer when I had to venture out in the winter. A good accessory for winter wear.
I have watched so so so many yankie movies and seen quite a few docos and did once go to San Francisco with the kids and wifie and the Walt Dysney place for the kids and SanFrancisco back in '81 - that would love to go to all those memorable places - deep south in the blues country - sis lives in Canada so been there briefly for hols but you never have the time or money to see it all do you?
PeppermintPatty
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- Location
- Canada
Dogs are creatures of habit and they ARE my everything.
I miss quoted the date we went to California. It was in 1972 not 1992. I was just a teenager then. Since we drove there, we saw a lot of things. We camped all the way down and even saw the Grand Canyon. Its memories to last a life time. We saw the northern lights twice. Walt Disney world in Florida and Disney land in California. Living in Ontario I saw hundreds of concerts, the CNE, Ontario place and wonderland. Niagara Falls. Iāve seen a lot of things and have no complaints. Thereās always something else to see but Iām ok with just looking out our window and seeing the ocean.
Every once in a while I see an eagle
fly by. What places in Canada did you see? What places would you have liked to have seen if you could?
JBR
Senior Member
Hi Deborah. Our winter temperatures go down as low as -22 or -23C and summer temps sometimes as high as +27C. This winter low figure is actually more common than that highest summer temp.
StarSong
Awkward is my Superpower
- Location
- Los Angeles Suburbs
Nearly all of Canada is north of the US (Alaska excepted). Remember to look at the latitude lines.
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jimintoronto
Well-known Member
In Canada if a river is navigable by CANOE, it can be used by anyone. You may own the land, but you don't own the water in the river. On the other hand, land locked lakes CAN be private property, in Canada provided that all of the land surrounding the lake is owned by the same person or corporation. About 60 percent of all the land in Canada is Crown Land, owned either by the Government of Canada, or by a Provincial or Territorial Government. The rest are privately owned lands. JimB In Toronto.
jimintoronto
Well-known Member
The most northerly inhabited place in Canada is Canadian Forces Station ALERT which is located on the north east tip of Ellesmere Island, 817 kilometers from the Geographic North Pole. ALERT is the place where Canada listens to the communications traffic of the world, especially that of the Chinese, the Russians , and the North Koreans 24 hours a day. ALERT has one of the largest arrays of antennas of all types, in the world. The base was first stood up in 1958, and it continues its intelligence gathering missions today.
The onsite staff numbers around 55 people who are a mix of Canadian Forces members and civilian employees. They spend 6 months there, and they get a special "isolation and hardship " pay bonus. Twice a year, in the spring and fall, for 3 weeks, the RCAF flies in the needed supplies and fuel using the C5 massive transport aircraft during Operation Corn Flakes. The flights originate in Trenton Ontario. go to Thule in Greenland, refuel then go on to ALERT.
Why have such a base up there ? It is the very best place on earth to listen to our possible military attackers, talking to themselves and each other . Much of the current electronic intelligence operations are now automated, but the humans still need to be there to manage problems that may come up. The main Canadian electronic intelligence operation is in a suburban part of our Capital City Ottawa.
Before any one gets in my face, everything that I have written here is from open sources, no secrets have been exposed. JImB.
The onsite staff numbers around 55 people who are a mix of Canadian Forces members and civilian employees. They spend 6 months there, and they get a special "isolation and hardship " pay bonus. Twice a year, in the spring and fall, for 3 weeks, the RCAF flies in the needed supplies and fuel using the C5 massive transport aircraft during Operation Corn Flakes. The flights originate in Trenton Ontario. go to Thule in Greenland, refuel then go on to ALERT.
Why have such a base up there ? It is the very best place on earth to listen to our possible military attackers, talking to themselves and each other . Much of the current electronic intelligence operations are now automated, but the humans still need to be there to manage problems that may come up. The main Canadian electronic intelligence operation is in a suburban part of our Capital City Ottawa.
Before any one gets in my face, everything that I have written here is from open sources, no secrets have been exposed. JImB.
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PeppermintPatty
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- Location
- Canada
Two of my husbands military bosses came from ALERT. One woman was a master corporal. One of the cooks that my husband trained with went to Alert. They used to call them rubber heads due to studying morse code. ( sp?) Six months of darkness, six month's of daylight. It takes a certain type of personality to live up there.
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jimintoronto
Well-known Member
Its Morse code, named after the man who invented it. ALERT is a big step up from Morse code, for sure. Your Husband was trained as a cook, in the Canadian Forces ? Or as a civilian DND employee ? In any case the food at such an isolated place has to be beyond the hot dogs and french fries level or the morale will be bad. Some of the very best meals I have ever eaten were served in Canadian Forces mess halls. The best one was aboard HMCS Ottawa in Halifax harbor, on a Remembrance Day back in 2005. JimB.
PeppermintPatty
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- Location
- Canada
I didnāt think I had the right spelling hence the ( sp )
No ! My husband was a communication radar systems technician. He looked after all the communications and radar systems on the Seaking helicopter . He had nothing to do with ALERT! He just knows about it. Two military personnel that he worked with came directly from alert. One was a cook and the other , Francine was a master corporal and her husband were the same trade. They became his bosses when they moved. The cook is just another personal he knew who came from ALERT. In total 3 people.
I agree.
The military definitely fed their employees well. We used to live right next to a military camp.
I remember when I first met my husband one of the first things I offered him was stuffed pork chops. I was so proud of myself . I wonāt share what he said. lol
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Debrah N.
Senior Member
- Location
- Alberta, Canada
That's not too bad then! So in that year when BC had that horrible heat wave that went up to about 45 degrees, did you folks experience that too?
We were actually over on Vancouver Island camping that weekend and while the lower mainland was having their killer heat wave, we were absolutely freezing! Our campsite was right on the ocean and caught a wind the entire time. I was wearing so many layers and snuggled under a blanket to try and stay warm! It was awful and yet, people were literally dying from the heat wave at home!
JBR
Senior Member
It was hot here, but not nearly that hot. The Lytton/Lillooet region gets BC's hottest temps. But here, it got hot and there were forest wildfires not too far from us, but as long as residents weren't near the path of a fire, it was just uncomfortable. We were hearing the reports from up around Lytton, and seeing some coverage on TV. I've known some people who live up around there.
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Jules
SF VIP
2021 was literally the summer from *ell. Birds were falling out of the trees and dying. The rivers and creeks were dry. Folks who had kiddie pools filled them with water; birds were leery of going into places with people. And there were fires and smoke filled the air. It was *ell!
Then the atmospheric river came through in the late fall. Major highways were washed away. After all the fires, the soil couldnāt hold the water. Much of our transportation infrastructure was destroyed. Farmland was flooded out.
Debrah N.
Senior Member
- Location
- Alberta, Canada
That was one heck of a year wasn't it? Smoked out for most of the summer. Then the flooding! We lived in Chilliwack at the time of the atmospheric river and one of our friends got stranded in his car for three days on the highway. Had to be helicoptered out. That was the same time we were moving from Chilliwack to Alberta and weren't sure the RCMP would allow us to drive through on the highway. Certainly a memorable year wasn't it?
JBR
Senior Member
I have a good friend, lives in Victoria. By temperament and aptitude, he's a musician, a luthier, and a fixer of antiques. But he was a Coast Guard radio operator in the '80s up in Bull Harbour and then transferred up to Inuvik. In mid-winter the indoor situations in Inuvik (his station, the grocery stores, pubs, etc) provided light for certain hours, because it just wasn't there at all.
His impression was that residents generally walked around during the"daytime" sort of dazed, due to there being no natural daytime... that, and I suppose, so much of the artificial light being provided, in those days, by fluorescents.
And it was cold outside!