This past week has been a very stressful time for me out here. As you might imagine, driving is not one of my top five skills and it has developed a lot slower for me on the water than it has for everyone else. More specifically, as much as I understand how the throttles work, I have great difficulty docking the boat properly without potentially smacking the docks or the boat beside me. On thursday I went to work on my day off so I could get extra time to practice. All day one of my bosses kept repeating "you should know this by now" and was incredibly frustrated when it took me five attempts to dock at spirit island. After he sat me down on the bench and asked if boat driving was something that I really wanted to do, and told me that it's not for everyone. He said I'm a very smart person, get high marks on the test, but this is coming very slow to me, and basically how we all have our strengths and weaknesses in life and that doesn't make me less of anything haha. Every year there seems to be one person that he has this conversation with and they realize it's not for them and go work in the ticket office. I told him I'd quit if I was put in the ticket office (probably drastic, but I didn't move all this way to be a cashier) and that I really wanted to be a boat driver and could he please spend a few more days with me. I drove on the way back, basically trying not to burst into tears and thinking the worst that I was going to lose my job, and I have no money to actually move somewhere at this point. Going into work the following days has been highly stressful because I felt (and still do) that I have to prove that I deserve to be there. My docks are increasingly better, and yesterday I drove the boat on two cruises while one of my supervisors would sit on the boat to see that everyone went ok. I've been doing tours as well, and I'm surprised as to how easy it is for me. After breaking the ice, I'm not really nervous at all. The part I feel least comfortable with, is just walking around and making small talk with the passengers on the way back. I'd rather it be a one-way conversation with me on the microphone, ha.

So today was my day-long test with an inspector from Transport Canada. I had my doubts, but as of 4pm I have been officially certified with my Masters Limited and Small Vessel Machinery Operator certificate. My Masters Ltd basically means I am the "master of my ship" and aware of all safety operations and the 2nd one (which was RIDICULOUS to get) means I am knowledgeable of all the machinery on the vessel. It used to be called restricted engineers and was suited primarily for the boats I would be driving, but this new certificate had a test where I understood NOTHING on it because the information applied to procedures and boats I would never use. It was estimated that the test wouldn't stay, so I wasn't trained on the information. I SOMEHOW passed it by guessing the appropriate answers, even though I had no idea what a winch or a capstan was because they're not on the boats I drive. Despite my BARELY passing test score, the inspector said he was impressed with my demonstration of the pistons intake, compression, power, and exhaust procedures. Gaining my masters limited was shaky as well, and I had to drive while doing my "man overboard" procedures about six times. The guy that was rescuing the life jacket wasn't communicating with me, and my friends were laughing because I was basically yelling out the window for him to tell me if I was on line for him to grab it. I probably could have remained cooler, but I couldn't afford to miss the lifejacket. At the end the inspector said I did good job and shook my hand, so with everything said and done I finally have my certificates and no more studying!

So this was June 7th at the lake. NOT KIDDING!!!





Too bad because...
instead of shoveling snow I was walking around in 105-115 degree fahrenheit here!



More pictures to come...

Here are the long awaited boat driving pictures. I'm sorry it may not live up to your expectations since I don't own a captain's hat.



Later that day we practiced man overboard procedures. Just my luck it was raining, so walking on the gunnel was very slippery. Here is me trying to save someone (aka the life jacket)







I missed the "man overboard" twice, so here is my happy face from freezing out there



Other photos of the lake:

the beautiful colour of the water out at the island



view from the deck



view of boats from chalet

I've finally started to drive the boat! My docks are a bit wacky sometimes, but I'm confident that they will gradually get better. Here is the boat I was driving today. The Mary Schaeffer holds 38 passengers and is one of the smaller tour boats (the largest holds 56 passengers).





Here are some photos of the lake. It was cloudy and began to rain, so they obviously aren't as nice as they could be.





On Monday, my bosses had all the rookies go out onto the lake on canoes to understand what it feels like when a boat drives by at full speed. The boat drove in circles around us, while we frantically paddled our nose to the waves. It was really fun and another "I can't believe I get paid for this" moment.

Every morning all the staff take a 45 minute shuttle ride to work. This morning a moose crossed the road in front of us, and two days ago, a black bear walked behind us.

I found some pictures from last week's camping trip. Here I am looking miserable the morning after:



Also, me and Katia pretending we can actually canoe, momentarily borrowing this one before the french mine explorer went white water canoeing by himself.



I can't find my camera, so the rest are photo's from my friend Thom's camera.

Being clumsy as usual, I burned my hand against a pot ... long idiotic story... anyway, the skin burnt off in a second.



Maligne Lake is starting to melt, and we should probably be on the water for Monday. My new shifts have started so I don't officially need to work until Wednesday. I'm very wary about driving the boat so I might go in early to get extra practice. I'm being tested for my masters certificate and restricted engineer's at the end of the month, so I better get it together fast. This job is so much more challenging than I thought (not that I find that to be a bad thing), but I have to learn how the engines work, which my english lit degree did not prepare me for!

Here is a photo of Beginner's Bay at Maligne(where canoes/kayaks are allowed) on the lake. You can see that the ice is melting. Even when the ice melts, the water stays cold all summer, at about 4 degrees celcius. So definately no swimming, unless you want hypothermia in about five minutes time. In our training we have to learn how to help fallen canoers out of the water, without actually going in there. It happens a few times a season at least. How terrifying would that be.




And a close up of my favourite mountain! Mount Leah! She was a native woman married to Sampson Beaver, a native who drew a map for Mary Schaffer to find the lake and eventually put it on the map in the early 1900's. tooouuurr infooo.



Lately, we have been taken on afternoon hikes around the lake to familiarize ourselves with the trails and vegetation. I sometimes find it physically challenging, which is probably pathetic, but the more I do it the better shape I will eventually be in.



Lorraine Lake, which is only accessed by foot

Friday night all of the boat drivers went camping at a sight beside the athabasica river, I believe. My friend Katia and I borrowed a tent from someone else, and I borrowed a +2 sleeping bag from another person. I can't even begin to describe how cold I was when I went to bed. I was wearing leggings, jeans, t-shirt, long-sleeve shirt, hoodie, and fleece jacket in my sleeping bag, and I was still shivering. I was pressed against my friend for fear I would develop hypothermia during the night. The only reason I knew I eventually fell asleep is because my friend Katia told me she had her hands pressed beside her ears because I was snoring so loud.

I still haven't learned to drive a boat yet because the ice hasn't melted off the lake yet. This is because Maligne Lake is filled by the glaciers, instead of having a river running into it. It's thinning right now, and is guessed to melt by next week.

I've been asked about the weather a bit, so I thought I'd put that here too. I've learned that the weather out west is crazy, whether vancouver or jasper. We sometimes have our training inside the Ta Lana, a 43 passsenger boat. One day we were sitting inside and it started lightly snowing all around us. The next day I was sitting on the back deck in a tanktop and developed a sun burn in 20 minutes. This week it's been sweatshirt and jeans weather, except for at night when it obviously gets colder. It stays light outside until about 10pm sometimes!

Here is a better jump picture at the ice fields, considering in the other one my feet didn't leave the ground. We were literally on a glacier, so that's why there is so much snow.

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Also: I have a pull out couch in my accomodations, so if you could afford transportation here your stay would be free.

My mom didn't believe Jasper was as small as I was describing it to be, so I thought I would post a map.



Geike, Patricia, and Connaught are actually the only three streets anyone needs to know to navigate around or go to any place of importance. The most exciting thing to happen to this town is the highschool graduation which had a full page spread of all the graduates and their "most likely to" labels. The bike auction happened before I arrived in town, and there are NONE on sale for cheaper than $200 so I just end up walking everywhere. Last night I went to the movie theatre - a cinema that plays two movies at a night, the screen being a quarter of the size of regular theatres, and minimal seats inside. On the walk home the clouds looked like pink cotton candy:



Today was probably the best day of "work" that I've had in my life. We piled into the shuttle at 9am this morning and were shown another set of major tourist locations in Jasper so that we would be able to answer tourist questions about places to visit. Our first stop was "the edge of the world," a cliff obviously very high up overlooking the town and surrounding area.



In the next one the town of Jasper can be seen beyond the trees:



Next we drove to "meeting of the waters," where you guessed it, two opposing waters met:





My friend Katia and I at Athabasca Falls:





Sunwompa Falls:



Falls I cannot remember:



and the best part of the day: the icefields tour. I feel like any of these pictures do not give the places I have visited justice, considering I was completely surrounded by mountains and glaciers.

We were driven to the fields in these vehicles, with the tires taller than I am











jumping gone wrong: