Open Writing

I had to spend the month of January as relief agent in freezing cold Uranium City 500 miles north of Edmonton on Lake Athabasca. The temperature often went down 60 degrees below zero Fahrenheit. It would take me twenty minutes each day to dress before crossing the road to the office.

Despite the extreme weather conditions Uranium City reminded me of fairyland. There were ice crystals on top of ice crystals covering the trees along the frozen lake, refracting the sunlight like cut diamonds. All the people moved slowly. If you moved quickly, you could easily freeze your lungs. Tears froze, and if you opened your mouth your saliva froze on your tongue. As the moisture froze in your nose, you had to do most of your breathing through your mouth.

Every Sunday morning a group of us went for a walk across the lake. Although the ice was feet thick, an incident had once occurred after a ski plane landed on the lake and taxied to the shoreline to deposit its passengers. It unknowingly came to a stop over a spring, causing the plane to sink through the ice. Its soaked passengers were quickly pulled out, stripped, wrapped up in woollen blankets and taken inside to gradually thaw out. To thaw them out quickly could have proved fatal. Fortunately we were spared this although it did take us a couple of painful hours to thaw out our feet each time.

Being a mining town some of the characters, male and female, were pretty rough individuals. Sleepy Jim, a long time resident bought a return plane ticket every year for Edmonton. However each time he was just too terrified of civilization to board the aircraft.

Not being allowed to prepare my own meals in my room, as I usually did, I had to eat in the local hotel dining room. I kidded the waitress along by telling her to mix and match all the dishes being offered on the menu. The same menu was used for every meal, be it breakfast, lunch or dinner. The food was so bland that no matter what I was served I would have to use my personal supply of Indian pickles to ginger it up. The waitress had never experienced anyone order the bizarre combinations that I did and we both enjoyed seeing how extreme the selections could be.

I shared my accommodation with another young airline employee in one of the rooms over the local CBC Bank. At night you could not see across the street from the window because of the ice crystals in the air.

One of the bank’s tenants decided to throw a party one night. Not being a drinker, I declined his invitation. My roommate went along.

I was lying in bed reading when I heard someone banging on my locked door. It was my waitress friend. She had found out from my roommate that I was in there and wanted to come in. I did not open the door. I realized that she was quite drunk. Then men came banging on my door telling me to get dressed and help them to go and find the waitress. In a rage at being 'spurned' by me she had run out of the building wearing only a blouse and slacks. If she was not found quickly she could easily freeze to death. Fortunately she was soon found. Unfortunately though, our happy relationship in the dining room was over.

One other unfortunate factor about that hotel for me was the popularity of country and western music with the Inuit population. I swore that when I eventually reached civilization I was going to buy a record of "There's a chapel in the valley" which was played at every meal, and smash it. I never did.
I did find some young men whose interest in classical music was akin to mine and I spent many very pleasant musical evenings with them. I do not know how I would have survived the month had I not found those kindred spirits.

© Clement 2006