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Apparently history can be kind of interesting after all!
Have been off harassing people in The Pas, MB all week, for entirely work-related reasons! They've got me working on Phase I Environmental Assessments, which basically requires gathering and summarizing All The Information Ever for whatever site we're investigating.
Reminder: I work in environmental consulting - unfortunately in oil and gas and NOT in mining like I'd prefer, but I digress.
Anyways, this is my very first report, so of course they tossed the hardest possible site in my lap. I'm not even exaggerating; everyone in the office that I've mentioned it to winces and then makes some comment along the lines of 'trial by fire, eh?'. Most of the time, we're dealing with a vacant lot that once contained a gas station or bulk fuel plant. These reports can get pretty boring unless something interesting like an epic spill or an explosion happened (hey! You try wading through scads of dull site reports and see how quickly you start hoping for giant fireballs). But it can be pretty interesting as a lot of the sites are in rural communities, and you often get a lot of town history (and town gossip) while digging.
The site I'm working on is NOT one small lot that used to contain a bulk fuel plant, but rather THE ENTIRE AIRPORT PROPERTY at The Pas. This wouldn't be so difficult if it hasn't had nearly 70 years of SO MANY CHANGES.
This place was constructed during WWII by the United States Air Force (USAF) as part of a series of airports that made up the Crimson Route, an Great Circle route that went from California to England as a means of transporting short range bombers and injured soldiers back and forth. The route was shorter distance-wise, and also included much shorter hops as it passed through the Canadian Arctic, Greenland, and Iceland. Sadly, after constructing all of these sites, the States decided that they didn't want to use this route after all (and thus justifying Canada's skepticism about the entire affair), and sold the infrastructure back to Canada after the war. But hey, many northern communities eventually got airports out of the deal, and the one at The Pas was also used for meteoric information, staging ground for aerial photography surveys, and construction of the DEW Line in the 50's.
Guys, this site has so much history, with things being built, things being moved to different places for different uses, things being torn down, new things being built, and never mind the fuel tanks. There's a part of me that desperately wants to tear out my hair at the entire thing.
But then there's another part of me that's thoroughly enjoying the research. It's not geochemistry, and while I'm very much missing my chosen career path, this is a bit fun. I've never been all that interested in history before, but this is different. This isn't some huge over-reaching epic that's shoved down out throats in school. This is local history, and it's part in some of those epics. I love my country, love being a Canadian. But I love being a Manitoban even more, and learning about some of the very small scale local history in different parts of my province, and how they relate to the over-reaching history of Manitoba and sometimes even Canada or other countries is surprisingly interesting and fun.
I may have missed my calling, or I may just be missing my real calling. But for now, I'm going to get as much enjoyment out of this aspect of my job as I can. Because what other job is out there where you get sent to remote rural towns to wander about, interviewing locals and spending time learning about local history in their libraries and museums? :D
And besides that, The Pas is a lovely little town with extremely friendly people, and a restaurant that served me what may arguably be the best breakfast I've ever had in my life. Me thinks I need to start planning a road trip up there this summer!
*sigh* I keep telling myself to write just a short blurb, but these always wind up tl;dr. Sorry guys. *hangs head*
Reminder: I work in environmental consulting - unfortunately in oil and gas and NOT in mining like I'd prefer, but I digress.
Anyways, this is my very first report, so of course they tossed the hardest possible site in my lap. I'm not even exaggerating; everyone in the office that I've mentioned it to winces and then makes some comment along the lines of 'trial by fire, eh?'. Most of the time, we're dealing with a vacant lot that once contained a gas station or bulk fuel plant. These reports can get pretty boring unless something interesting like an epic spill or an explosion happened (hey! You try wading through scads of dull site reports and see how quickly you start hoping for giant fireballs). But it can be pretty interesting as a lot of the sites are in rural communities, and you often get a lot of town history (and town gossip) while digging.
The site I'm working on is NOT one small lot that used to contain a bulk fuel plant, but rather THE ENTIRE AIRPORT PROPERTY at The Pas. This wouldn't be so difficult if it hasn't had nearly 70 years of SO MANY CHANGES.
This place was constructed during WWII by the United States Air Force (USAF) as part of a series of airports that made up the Crimson Route, an Great Circle route that went from California to England as a means of transporting short range bombers and injured soldiers back and forth. The route was shorter distance-wise, and also included much shorter hops as it passed through the Canadian Arctic, Greenland, and Iceland. Sadly, after constructing all of these sites, the States decided that they didn't want to use this route after all (and thus justifying Canada's skepticism about the entire affair), and sold the infrastructure back to Canada after the war. But hey, many northern communities eventually got airports out of the deal, and the one at The Pas was also used for meteoric information, staging ground for aerial photography surveys, and construction of the DEW Line in the 50's.
Guys, this site has so much history, with things being built, things being moved to different places for different uses, things being torn down, new things being built, and never mind the fuel tanks. There's a part of me that desperately wants to tear out my hair at the entire thing.
But then there's another part of me that's thoroughly enjoying the research. It's not geochemistry, and while I'm very much missing my chosen career path, this is a bit fun. I've never been all that interested in history before, but this is different. This isn't some huge over-reaching epic that's shoved down out throats in school. This is local history, and it's part in some of those epics. I love my country, love being a Canadian. But I love being a Manitoban even more, and learning about some of the very small scale local history in different parts of my province, and how they relate to the over-reaching history of Manitoba and sometimes even Canada or other countries is surprisingly interesting and fun.
I may have missed my calling, or I may just be missing my real calling. But for now, I'm going to get as much enjoyment out of this aspect of my job as I can. Because what other job is out there where you get sent to remote rural towns to wander about, interviewing locals and spending time learning about local history in their libraries and museums? :D
And besides that, The Pas is a lovely little town with extremely friendly people, and a restaurant that served me what may arguably be the best breakfast I've ever had in my life. Me thinks I need to start planning a road trip up there this summer!
*sigh* I keep telling myself to write just a short blurb, but these always wind up tl;dr. Sorry guys. *hangs head*