A Few Days in Kitimat

Headed up North this morning for a few days of work at the Kitimat River Fish Hatchery. Up way too early…of course I never sleep well the night before a trip so that makes things that much worse. Kirk dropped me off at the airport and headed for work….very early…I checked my bag and found a place to sit and finish my tea. Then I walked around the corner and was confronted by a massive line of people to get through the security check! And once through the door…the line was even longer! on the flip side, according to the lady at the entrance…the rest of the people on my plane were apparently also stuck in the line…small comfort…but some. Made it through, just slow. Arrived at my gate….with plenty of time and only half the passengers. I was to be sitting in seat 1F…right up front…usually lots of leg room there in a Dash 8…just nowhere to stick my bag…which, of course didn’t fit in the microscopic overhead compartment. So, out the door it went and down to the skycheck cart….with my poorly packed camera…since I expected to have it with me…..oh well….

Sat down, once my neighbour removed his papers from my seat….it appeared to have been a rather large inconvenience for him that I was there. For the entire flight he invaded my space with his newspapers…all three of them….which he apparently had to read every word of…in great detail. It’s a bit annoying when you are quietly occupying your seat, trying to ready your book…and a paper keeps flopping over it…after about 30 minutes I wanted to shred it and dump it in his lap!

The weather was nice for the flight, the mountains showed a fresh coat of snow at the higher levels. Several receding glaciers have left grooves that are reminiscent of fingers having been dragged through wet sand…but on a global scale.

2 hours later we arrived in Terrace and collected luggage and wandered over to the rental car booth. I have an Emerald Club membership with National and I love it! I never have to wait at check in or check out. There was a line of men and the girl behind the counter looked back and saw me and very logically decided she knew which customer I was and waved me up and handed me an envelope with keys and all paperwork already completed…have a nice day! A few strange looks but I was away. My petty little victory was that when I walked outside, my newspaper friend was wandering all over the lot looking for his rental….mine was in stall number 1. I loaded my stuff, turned on my laptop for a few directions, adjusted the seat and mirrors….drove to the wrong end of the parking lot…drove back…and saw him still walking from car to car looking at license plates (tee hee).

Drove out of the airport, saw a sign that said “Terrace/Kitimat” and headed off. A few minutes later I entered Terrace downtown but Kitimat had disappeared off the direction signs…Prince Rupert, Prince George….but no Kitimat….pulled over, checked the map to discover I had (of course) turned the wrong way on exiting the airport road. Back up the hill and off in the right direction. It’s about 60 km to Kitimat (if you go the right way at first) and the cold weather has turned the leaves of the poplars that golden yellow I miss. I caught a few rays of sun that lit up the hills, nice since the forecast for the next few days is dismal. There is fresh snow on the mountains surrounding the valley….pretty low down too. I was hoping to take some pictures as I got closer to Kitimat but as it turned out, there were fewer deciduous trees and less and less to take pictures of (not that there was really much anyway). Both Kitimat and Terrace are pretty typical of Northern towns. The same types of buildings seem to be everywhere from Prince George on up. What is nice, is that the pine trees here are actually green! They aren’t that pine beetle red that I’ve come to expect. I stopped in Kitimat to grab a sub for lunch and headed off to find the hatchery…I knew it was right off the road, just over the bridge, and hadn’t bothered to bring the GPS because I wouldn’t need it…..would I??? Well, considering that first wrong turn….. I drove on and on….farther than seemed right…and arrived at the Alcan plant…and was amazed at the size of it! It went on and on…and ended at a gate through which I could not go….missing hatchery! I turned around and headed back and eventually found a sign pointing in to the hatchery. How had I missed that the other way? Since it was lunch time and I knew no one would be at the hatchery I drove along a bit farther to kill some time…and discovered that there WAS no sign from the other direction. Hey, that’s useful!

One side note….on the highway into Kitimat there was a tourist attraction sign…for tours of a taxidermy! Only in Northern BC.

Spent a few hours touring the facility and learning about things there before the day was over and it was time to try to find my hotel. The Kitimat Lodge…much grander sounding than anything I had seen on my short tour…..much grander sounding than it was when I finally located it. It was a little weird to drive up and see the office with a series of notices taped to the inside of the door, one of which had my name on it and a note that said “Paige Ackerman, you are in room 18. Your door is unlocked and the key is in the room” Definitely not in the big city! But what was stranger was the fact that the name underneath mine was Bob Devlin. I can’t imagine it’s the Bob Devlin I know….that would be too weird. I got one of the “Deluxe” rooms…I’d be scared to see what the regular rooms are like. it’s a little self contained suite with a tiny kitchen, a tiny bathroom and a bedroom with two beds and a TV. It’s 6pm. The clock on the coffee maker in the kitchen is flashing 1:15, the clock on t he wall reads 4:20. The bedroom clock is flashing 12:00 and the bedroom wall clock reads 7:10. Cool! Talk about a time warp! So went and bought some groceries, came back and had some dinner, turned on the news to watch the election unfold. Went to check my email…and discovered that the promised wireless internet needs a passcode…and of course there is no staff actually physically on the site. Eventually I managed to contact him and gained internet access…although very, very, very weak access…. About every 15 minutes there is a strange noise like someone i opening the door…comforting thought.

Sadly, it appears that Canada will be subjected to another four years of Stephen Harper…a man who seems bent on turning us into Americans. Awesome!

And so ends Day 1.