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Banff Champion

Work Continues. I'm still feeling my way around a bit, but I have found my place at the construction site. I'm learning cool new things: learned to use a fork lift, but I need to get a license for it before I get to use it more. Generally day to day is brooms, shovels, gloves, power tools, hand tools, gray garbage bins, yellow dumpsters, hard hats, orange spray paint, pipes, steel, dry wall, wet dry wall...

I've figured out Banff is a dangerous place. Last weekend Steve, his friends Xavier, and work buddy Josh went to go kayaking on the Bow River. Josh and I went first, while the others went to Canmore to pick us up. With all my gear on, Xavier said I looked like a 'Champion'. Nice. Anyway, Josh'd never gone kayaking before, and the river sure was fast. Fast. And cold. Real cold. I was having some difficulty staying straight. So we went off a to an easier section of the river that forked off, but it was still fast, and cold. Unfortunately, since this branch of the river was narrower, there was a tree fallen across it. I had no time to tell Josh to get to shore before he ran into the middle of it. Did I forget to mention that grabbing onto a tree is really really dangerous? Yeah, it forces a boat to tip. I've sank - sank - a tank of a canoe doing that before. I guess tanks don't swim well, but anyway... Josh grabs the tree, the back end of his kayak goes into the river, soon the rest of the kayak does too. Josh tries rolling the kayak like I showed him, and almost get over! Almost. He felt like he was under for an hour, and after fifteen seconds he comes up, convulsing because of the water he swallowed trying to do the roll I showed him, and the extremely cold melt water. His boat was half full of water and upside down. I yelled at him to let it go, for no-one could hold onto it. I was now stuck with a dilema: leave Josh and get the now very heavy water filled boat that's barreling down the river and risk giving Josh hypothermia, or leave to boat and help Josh and be out $1000. Well, figuring Josh could help himself, I futilely tried to get to boat to shore. What seemed like a mile, I got to an eddy and was able to bull the boat out. I but my sandals on and ran to where Josh went in. At this point I was regretting not brining a lighter for fire. Or warm cloths. Or leaving a cell phone with Steve and Xavier. I ran into some people we saw on the shore just before the tree, and they said they hadn't seen Josh. Bad news. So I ran to where he went in, and he wasn't there!
I went back and finally ran into him. I gave him my sweater and we got ready again. He was really shook up, but OK. He had a hard time getting back into the water, but eventually we got going. Funny thing was was I got a window cleaning appointment over my cell phone while we were out of the water! So Josh risked his life so I could get a client! The rest of the trip was beautiful, with mountains slowly passing, and train coming by the river and blowing its horn for us, and (now) having fun playing in the river. Three hours later we got to Canmore, cold, exhausted, and happy. We drove downstream to meet Steve and X at Exshaw, and Josh and I fished, threw railway hooks at power lines in hopes of one catching, played with my slingshot, and basically had a lazy, sunny Sunday afternoon.

Josh took the Monday off, and I took Tuesday off, due to exhaustion. I did go on a really really good bike ride that day though!

Thursday my good friend from Lakehead Kim was in town. We hung out after work, and got some beer, and sat on a highway embankment watching wonderful dry lightning go off on the east side of the city for a few hours, shooting the shit. Though it was a strange place to be, it was somehow perfectly fitting.

This long weekend I went to the Hifi club on disco night on Friday with Tracy, hung out with her again on Saturday at the Development Studies Club BBQ in a nice riverside park in the southwest side of the city. But on Canada day Steve and I met up with some work buddies in Banff. We camped out at Two Jack campground, and went to town to watch the fire works and go the bars. We met up with my old roommate Rose and had a blast: somewhere between the beers, the (mostly unsuccessful) hitting on girls, the wandering, the pre-drinking, the lost wander home, the hangover, and realizing the weight of being in Canada's first national park, we had on of the best Canada Days ever.

Steve and I picked up three hitch-hikers on the way to Calgary. One was Icelanding, the other two Danish, and we squeezed into my already packed car. Turns out they like Sea Kayaking, and promised to take me out if I ever go to Iceland or Denmark.

But right now Im on my room with my roomates watching the sunset and getting eatin alive by miquitoes, so I will go now.



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