 |
Horseshoe Nails & Bowhead Whales
with Bill Gawor
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
The roar of the chopper's turbine warming up begins at exactly 6:30 a.m. each morning.
That's the signal for the day-shift drillers to get on board.
I've already had breakfast and I'm resting on top of my bunk waiting for the third return of the chopper.
That's when my work day starts, with the arrival of the core boxes from the drills.
It seems too soon but the Lone Star is coming back, slinging the night shift's tally of core.
As the chopper comes into view, notice is taken of the number of core boxes that are being slung in.
The more boxes the happier the drillers, as they work on a bonus system.
Easy drilling means gangue or waste rock, good for the drillers, but bad news for the company.
Fewer boxes are better for the company because that means the drills are still encountering iron ore.
Magnetite is harder to drill than waste. Should the gangue continue more than two shifts, the geologist will order the drill's bore hole pulled and have the rig moved to a new location.
Even with the helicopter's assistance, a drill move usually takes from four to eight hours, during which time the drills are down and no bonus is made.
Then there is the ever-present permafrost that's hundreds-of-metres thick.
To drill in such conditions, the bore hole has to be pumped with a solution of hot water and rock salt.
Even then, holes hundreds-of-metres deep are lost to the permafrost.
More time is lost in trying to save the hole. Yet a good driller can make more than $100,000 a season.
The same goes for the chopper pilot - very good wages, since a Lone Star hires out at $1,500 an hour plus fuel!
Chopper pilots are few and far between. Thus, we ended up with Kiwi Dave.
Everybody makes good money at a mining camp.
The lowest paid wage is for a labourer at $185 a day, plus free room and board.
The one exception is the fixed-wing pilot, since there are many more pilots than planes available.
Mining companies are compelled to have air transportation on the property in case of a medevac.
Here pilots are back-stabbing each other at minimum wage in order to get hours in their logbooks.
It's that or rent a plane.
As one rookie pilot put it, "to get hours in a Beaver at $7 an hour is gold, since it would otherwise cost me $600 an hour to charter in order to get certified."
The pilots do very hard labour for the most part, like manhandling full 45-gallon drums of fuel, bundles of drill rod or heavy bags of rock salt all day long.
But the payoff comes when there is an emergency flight to Iqaluit to get a part for a downed drill, or a grocery run down to Repulse Bay.
Slowly their hours add up as they pay their dues, but it's certainly not a job for a family man.
In the meantime, the chopper whines down and the day shift is over. The stereos blare, the Internet is accessed by laptop and the smell of the barbecue is in the air.
Steak night with giant shrimps! It must be Thursday already!