What I say

A big shoutout to all the good people who went by social conventions
and bought us a wedding present of some kind. You will be receiving
an official thank you card that will, no doubt, be very cute and/or
heartfelt.

The day after the wedding, Ang and I just lazed around at her place
and didn't do much of anything. Getting married is tiring. Ang
opened all the presents while I made a list of who gave us what. We
then cross referenced the value of the gift with the household income
of the giver(s) to determine the 'friend level quotient'. The friend
level quotient was used to determine who made it onto the speed dial
on our phone.

We packed up all our stuff that evening in preparation for an early
departure from Radium. At 6, that's right, 6, we woke up and packed
up Angie's dad's truck with all of our stuff and bounty of wedding
presents. It was obvious that either we had too much stuff or the
truck was too small. We still had to buy a tv and get lots of food
from Costco and the truck looked full to me.

We hit the road at 6:30 bound for Edmonton. If you will take a moment
to consult a map, you will see that it is a very long way to Edmonton
from Radium. Oh, wait, you're saying 'that's not so far, we drove
much farther than that just to be at your wedding you ingrate.' Ah, I
said 'bound' not 'headed for to sleep at'. Please pay attention. We
got to Edmonton around 1. Ang was supposed to pick up some shower
gifts from her friend Sharla's place. Sharla wasn't home. We
considered the possibility of life without a spice rack and shuddered.
I appraised the TVs for sale in Costco. To make a long story short,
Ang's mom and dad gave us money enough to get a huge tv that is
probably the single heaviest thing in existence. The instruction book
includes the subheading "adjusting the event horizon for maximum
enjoyment". After Costco, Sharla still wasn't home and we had to face
the very real possibility that we were going to Fox Lake without a
colander. I hope none of you ever face such an ordeal. Note: some of
you are under the mistaken impression that we are living in High Level
AB. Well, High Level is a sprawling metropolis rich in culture and
with numerous outlets for passing days with whimsy and joy compared to
Fox Lake. This will become more clear as you read on, so read on
already. End of Note. We bought tons and tons of groceries at Costco.
There was a fun awkward time when Angie's dad and I had to make small
talk while Ang and her mom discussed how many of what kind of tampons
to buy. Don't ever get married. So now we have $500 worth of Costco
purchases and the behemoth that is our TV to add to the already full
truck. Luckily, Angie's pa was used to just such extreme adventures
in packing and took care of business. I was impressed. We were ready
to leave Edmonton and still no answer at Sharla's. We were forced to
give up hope and pray we could survive the winter without a good set
of casserole dishes. Next time you dig into a tuna noodle, think of
us, the less fortunate. We pressed on northwest and arrived in Peace
River at 9pm.

Peace River was a place I'd only ever heard of on the BCTV news when
Norm Grohman would do his weather report. It was a far off place all
the way across the TV from where I lived, and it was always cold. I'd
laugh and laugh at the 20 degree difference and be thankful that I
lived in such a warm place. Well now I was in Peace River and going
way farther north. Poetic justice for mocking the Peace River
residents and their climate.

We stayed at a Motor Lodge Inn or something. We ate dinner at the
restaurant and it had a smoking section. We're not in BC anymore.

Again up at 6 for a 6:30 blast off. Angie slept in the car for most
of the morning as she had the previous morning. I don't sleep in
cars. Northern Alberta has two things (well, three if you count bare
knuckle boxing bars where a mutant can make a few bucks) poplar trees
and farms. So that's what I looked at for the rest of the drive. At
this point groceries and other large purchases hogged one of the three
back seats and encroached on the second squishing sleeping Angie into
me and me into the side of the truck. Occasionally, she would kick
me, it was fun. I just wanted to get to Fox Lake and go to sleep. It
wasn't too much to ask or expect. We calculated that we could be
there by 2. Sweet. I could make it till then. We drove to and
through High Level so we could get Angie's car from the airport.
(don't try to understand the complex ballet of cars and airports that
lies ahead, just know that it had to be done.) We got Ang's car and
drove back to high level for breakfast at A&W. From there, on to Fort
Vermillion to drop off Angie's car at a different airport. Then part
of the way back to High Level to turn on to the gravel road that would
take us to John D'or. I was told it was a 'good' gravel road but I
didn't have a lot to compare it to, being from civilization and all.

Let me back track a bit. High Level was a hole. Nothing there,
everyone sucked, etc. A hole. It had a home hardware and an Extra
Foods and a number of fast and slow food options. John D'or was a
hole^2. One store, gravel roads all the way through, garbage all
over. quite lame. HOWEVER. They were accessible holes, one could
just up and drive there pretty much any day of the year. But when it
comes to Fox Lake...

The road to Fox Lake is not marked. You have to know where it is. If
you don't know where it is, you hope someone will tell you. Luckily
the first guy we asked in John D'or lead us there in his truck. I
couldn't shake the suspicion that he was leading us into the
wilderness to be killed but I was too tired to stress much. And I
took some comfort knowing he'd probably end up crushed to death if he
tried to take our TV. "The road to Fox Lake exists" is a false
preposition. Road - An open, generally public way for the passage of
vehicles, people, and animals. Exist - To have actual being. See,
now at times, that preposition would be true, but overall, it is
false. For example, in the wintertime, no one uses it because the ice
bridge is an easier drive. That aside though, the road doesn't exist
a lot of the time due to rain. Any rain at all renders this 'road'
impassable. We were lucky in that it hadn't rained for 4 days before
we tried our luck. The road from John D'or to Fox Lake is
approximately 30 km (depending what route you take across the various
bogs). We started down the road at 1:00PM. We got to our place in
Fox Lake at 8:15PM. Now, in fairness the road, that may or may not
exist, was not to blame. We were in a 4wd truck with high clearance
and a very competent driver. Mr. Wiens spent a great deal of time in
Africa and claimed that this road "would have been a 4 lane highway in
Tanzania". To get to Fox Lake, one has to cross the Peace River.
There is a barge that takes one car at a time for a fee of $60 ($375
if you don't live there and are going in to work). The barge only
operates in daylight hours and it is not uncommon for people to get
stuck on the non Fox Lake side of the river overnight. Sounds fun. We
traversed the road without incident. It was dry and Mr. Wiens drove
like a pro. We got to the river at about 1:45 and saw two trucks
waiting in front of us. "Crap", said Ang, "we'll have to wait for
these two guys to go before we can go, that'll take over an hour".
Angie's dad got out and talked to the guy in the first truck. Turns
out, the barge wasn't running because it was too windy, he'd been
there since 11:00. Crap.

We sat there until 7:30. There was nothing to do. Everyone slept but
me. I looked at a Glamour magazine for much longer than anyone ever
has before (I don't know what George sees in them). Time dragged and
the barge didn't move.

The wind, which may or may not have existed, died down to dead still
at about 5 but no one was on the other side to pilot the barge over.
There were 8 people waiting at that point. It was great. The story
end happily with one of the two guys in front of us letting us go
ahead of him. We got to our place a little after 8. Mr. Wiens and I
unloaded the truck while Ang and her mom set up the kitchen with all
our appliances and groceries. That seemed fair because lifting stuff
sucks while deciding which cupboard the tea should go in is stupidly
easy. The TV was the last thing to move in. Up until then, Ang's dad
and I had only had to lift the TV down onto a big Costco cart and then
up from that onto his truck. Neither of us said anything but we were
both scared. Angie's dad, Ed, is a serious guy. He kills things,
that's his thing. He's killed bears and buffalo and deer and moose
and mountain lions and gryphons and esquilax. Some with his bare
hands. He's a man's man. Well the TV almost defeated him. We
managed to move it the 5 feet to the stairs, up the 6 stairs to the
door but no further, we slid it across the floor to where it currently
sits and, for all I care, could be it's final resting place. We both
took a long sit down and didn't say anything for a while after that.

So now I'm in Fox Lake. I'm sure you've all heard me tell tales of
Bella Bella. Well this is way crazier than that. Not 20 minutes
after we got here, a group of Angie's co-workers, all lady teachers,
came to welcome her back and told the following stories, I kid you
not.

"oh my god, so much has happened since you left! It seems like
forever! Ok, Jamieson's (computer teacher) place got broken into and
they trashed the place and took his digital camera and his portable
phone but not the base of the phone so he's been calling his own
number hoping whoever has the phone will walk close enough to his
place to set off the ringer and a nurse got raped at gun point in her
home but they caught the guy so that's ok (wha?) and there's been no
school for the last 4 days because there as a death in the community a
woman's trailer blew up, her propane tank went (we live in a trailer
with a propane tank) but not like yours she lived in an old one, and
no one knew it had happened until she didn't show up for her doctor's
appointment. Her name was Bubbles."

Try to reel that off in under 30 seconds and you'll get an idea of
what my official welcome to Fox Lake was like.

Since then I've heard stories of kids chewing tobacco in class. Big
deal right? oh wait, they were in grade THREE. Kids in grade 3 and 4
who can't even print a circle let alone spell or write their own
names. Also, some parents don't enroll their kids in school for years
and years so you end up with Grade 1 students that are 12. One kid
was supposed to graduate last year, it was very exciting, but he
didn't show up for any of his final exams. We used the candles that
were purchased for the grad celebration in a dinner in the gym the
other night. People think it might be a while before anyone uses them
for graduation purposes.

So here we are in Fox Lake, a hole^2^5, hoping our place doesn't blow
up, or get broken into and that nothing ever happens to us at
gunpoint. There is nothing here. One store, the Northern. A 4L of
milk costs $15 and a box of corn pops costs $12. And it's going to
get cold. Scary, evil cold that I've only ever read about is on its
way here.