Stolen Pumpkin baby and a flight to the middle of nowhere

For those of you who don't care about my job, I apologize for the rest of this blog entry. Here are the things you have been looking for.......

So I made my first ever pumpkin for Halloween with a baby theme. We gave out candy and then the next morning went out for a run. The pumpkin had been stolen.. some people would steal anything!!

Not a bad first attempt

This is all that was left the next morning!!

Hannah also wanted to be a pumpkin.....

Th rest of this blog is a story of work....Busy busy busy. I finished this entry about a week after starting.....so I hope you like it...

I  went on an adventure.............

I sit here, in an upstairs office of one of our phone buying customers, waiting for a call back from a technician from Sudbury. My job today was to install a new wifi router under control of the Sudburyian stranger. But having done my part - moved the cables, performed a couple of power cycles (Turn it off and on again), I am now in limbo. Waiting for the magical communication device lying on the table to light up and play the beautiful haunting tones of Elgars 'Pomp and Circumstance - number 1', (Commonly known as land of hope and glory) which is my current music of choice for my work ring tone. I have been waiting a while now. I wonder what is going on in Sudbury? Maybe the stranger has gone for lunch, slipped on a banana or accidentally stabbed himself in the eye with some Internet. Anything is possible nowadays. Hopefully, soon, he will call me back. I will take an extra second to listen to the music before answering and then I will be instructed to tidy up the wibbly wobbly cabling, back into its tiny black house and depart for my lunch, safe in the knowledge that the tiny beings that reside within the fibres, wires and plugs of the internet are once again free to travel verfy quickly from Sudbury to Winnipeg, delivering their messages in the form of videos, music, interesting facts and fake news.

My workplace for the day  - complete with wibbly wobbly cabling and tiny house for electronic eqpt

I had a very different job to complete a couple of weeks ago. Instead of a simple drive across town to sit in an office and crawl under a switch every now and then, myself an Corey - one of the dudes who also works at Telexperts -  had to travel about 500km north of Winnipeg to a place called Wasagamack.

It was an interesting job for a number of reasons. Firstly, to get there you take a flight from Winnipeg directly north - until you are far far away from anywhere. Then you land on a tiny airstrip, where after a quick change of passengers, you take off again an take the shortest flight ever - Under 3 minutes from Runway to Runway, to land at an even more remote airfield. This is followed by a short trek to a dock, where a boat is taken for 6 miles across what was at the time a very cold near frozen lake - To arrive at the First Nations Reserve of Wasagamack, population of about 1400 people and no roads in or out  - until the lakes freeze and the Ice Road Truckers (Yes, this place is that remote) bring in any big supplies that are needed. There are no stores, no real roads, and limited potable water - But the 1500 people that live there are friendly, welcoming and fun. Which is just as well because we had just over 30 hours to put in 3 separate phone systems in 3 separate areas. It was a tight schedule!!


Here is the entire flight - all 3 minutes of it

The job all started a few weeks before with phone calls and emails back and forth between myself and the staff on site. However, due to the relaxed nature of the people and the fact that the old phone system didn't really work, we ended up guessing a lot of the settings and making multiple versions of key maps and route plans. We would normally spend a day on site beforehand and check all the cabling, test the incoming lines, check out phones and basically get ready for the install. But due to the distance involved this was not possible. Also we would normally pack everything in a car and take it with us, but for this job we sent 3 systems, over 50 phones, UPS, cables and even food and water up 10 days in advance. Over 400lb in weight of cargo was sent up to wait for us on site.

The journey started at 6am with Corey picking me up and after the flights, the boat taxi that we were supposed to have - with a cover to protect us from the freezing wind and splashing lake, was broken down, so we ended up in an open tin boat and an absolutely freezing 30 minute ride across a lake which was frozen around the edge as we finally arrived in Wasagamack itself.

Nobody lives near here - no human has been to some of these places!

Freezing cold boat trip

With the plane on the airstrip

The boat we should have had - broken down

Our tin boat - leaving and breaking the ice

So, once we arrived we hit the ground running. Time was already running out. A normal installation requires at least one site visit beforehand - normally between 1 and 5 hours depending on how many phones and how good a state things are in. Then a full day programming, printing and testing how things work, before the install day. This is then followed by the install - a 4 hour minimum - cables need tracing, desks moving, new phones, equipment power and switches need installing and testing, then a switchover and training of staff. It all takes time. Then a tidy up and paperwork needs completing so that future techs know what we did. An average install, on the site, takes 8-10 hours. We had 30 hours for 3, including sleeping, eating, and travel between sites (which meant basically hitching lifts of locals, who were lovely but have their own tie system) Add to all this the fact that we were only half prepared and had never been on site and you can see we were short of time.

We found the band office - the First Nations HQ building - and within 30 rescinds were lying prone on the floor under a desk - checking out cables - I didn't even take my coat off - unbeknown to me, Corey got a photo of it...

Been there 30 seconds!

The day continued from there. We unpacked the kit, re-packed what we needed and headed off out in the back of a truck to the school...a 20 minute ride away (2 minutes according to Justin!) The school had terrible cabling and an even worse subnet for Internet and computers, so it randomly jumped from subnet to subnet - But having arrived just before lunch, we had 8 phones working and remote access to our office in Winnipeg set up by just after 4pm. The cabling wasn't the neatest, but it worked, it was out of the way and we had one system done. It was also a lot of fun saying hi to some of the 500 kids at the school as they paraded past the room saying hello and telling us their names!!!

We then waited for our lift back to the band office and our evening task - get 38 phones, 2 switches and the system set up there. Our lift arrived too late as a local bloke saw us and offered us an early lift - LOVELY.

The next 9 hours were a blur - Me and Corey work well together - we kind of know what needs doing and while one of us is working with the switch or cabling, the other is unpacking phones or tracing wires. We were left alone in the building overnight, with a master key for locked doors- a large screwdriver which we were shown was used to prise open doors that had been left locked. Secure as fook!

At one point we were joining the two switches together and the cables that had been left didn't work, so we found the crawl space under the floor, found some cable and in under 5 minutes we laid 2 new cables 100 metres from one end of the building to the other. This would normally take 20 minutes at least, but we were on a mission! By 1am we had the phones in and working and were heading off to bed. Sorry, I meant heading off to cardboard box on the floor, as there were no beds and we were sleeping homeless style!!

The band office main room

school done

crawl space

welcome the crawl space

Corey having fun

Bedtime!

We did take a quick break for dinner (dehydrated bag meal - delicious!) and a bit of fresh air watching a helicopter drop a fresh supply of pampers and toilet paper! But it was a full on day and we were actually a little ahead of where we needed to be. I love it when a plan comes together.

Nice sunset

Dinner

Beautiful - the sunset not Corey

Dropping supplies for the locals

The 2nd day continued in the same vein.... Up just after 7 from a lovely comfortable cardboard box, we had another bag meal for breakfast, did some tidying up from last night work and then grabbed a lift to the Education Office. The snow from yesterday had begun to melt and the roads were just a mess. Potholes and mud everywhere. It was impossible not to get dirt in the vehicles and buildings unless you took your shoes off!

The education office phones were a mess. Only 2 of the current 8 phones worked, so with a lot of work to do we went mental again. Making holes for cables and running even more CAT5 in yet another dank dark crawlspace as well as re heading old cables and clearing dirt and grime from connectors and ports. After about 2 hours we had 8 phones working but no Internet. Somehow,  in the movement of wiring I had disconnected something, somewhere that meant the DSL Internet line was down. The receptionist assured us that the office manager would know which cable had got disconnected as it apparently happened often. So once we finished she told us not to worry and to leave.

We had a couple for hours before our boat home, so got ready packing up boxes and making sire everyone knew what they were doing with the new phones. But as per usual we had some last minute trauma. The police station (a room with a cell) didn't have a phone and so we quickly laid yet another cable in double quick time to sort that out. Then the office manager from the Education Office turned up and drove us back there. He knew where one end of the disconnected Internet cable was, but not the other! So we drove back and with his help got the Internet back up and working just in time to get back to the Band Office for our boat taxi. (Another open top tin boat)

Needs a vacuum!

A friendly lift

A little wander around

Wasagamack parking

The old school bus.

We had completed the jobs, got a little sleep and now we were on our way home. The trip home  was weird as there were no tickets issues for the flight! You just got on the plane! This meant that after takeoff, the steward counted the passengers and discovered we had two extra people who just got on without being checked! Weird. Anyway, we made it to Winnipeg as did the stowaways and  got home just about 10pm that night.

It was a good trip. The local Wasagamack people were great, but we couldn't help but feel some empathy for them. We had spent just one night there, but for them it is their whole lives. With the lack of roads, shops and real support from the government they live a hell of a life. The place itself is stunningly beautiful, but is slightly spoilt by wrecked cars in every yard and houses that are falling apart. There is construction happening though - A hotel is being built for when the ice roads are open and sewage pipes are being laid. A new school is expected to be complete in a couple of years too, so there is hope for the future. I would love to go back again sometime in the future and see how its improved.
For now though we are back at home and working normal, but less fun jobs!