I actually only just finished work in Kitimat (finally) and moved back to Prince George.
As you may read from my (few and far between) blogs, if you have ever bothered, that I went to Kitimat to work for a year . All sorts of good and bad things happened to me. As corny as it sounds I never had to face so many personal, professional and even terrifying challenges.. I made new friends. I got my license back. I got an old truck and learned to drive standard. As well as how to repair many things on old trucks and cars. I learned how to operate machinery. That old truck blew right up and left me on the side of the Highway of Tears at the junction to god damn Alaska. I dealt with that, got it towed, got myself the rest of the way home on a greyhound. I bought a new vehicle the next day.. I fucking popped a tire 5 minutes from my Kitimat home on my first long distance drive in that new vehicle. Changed it and got it all dealt with while I was working 10 hours shifts, 7 days a week. I had good days, and bad days.. I was an excellent worker and built upon the reputation I've made already as a construction worker. I learned new things about unions, and myself and how I want to deal with the unions I'm a member of. I was charged by a mother Grizzly with a group of several others. I hit a moose and completely wrote off that vehicle I bought 6 months prior. Somehow walked away with 3 stitches on my left shoulder? I dealt with that. I bought a beautiful truck with the money from the settlement and from skyrocketing my credit by paying off a 14,000 vehicle in 6 months. I learned so many skills my Mother said I was a different man than the boy who left. I had worked jobs before.. Never quite as long and never with so many opportunities to learn and help and assist on such a gigantic project. We built an all new plant after tearing down the old one. I controlled the machine that placed 5000lb conveyor sections in place while Iron Workers tack welded and bolted them in place, Just so we could move on to the next of dozens of conveyor sections. I have never been so proud of so many things in a one year span.. I actually almost feel sad that myself and the company I prefer to work for has finished the project assigned to them on that plant site. There is always other jobs.. I will meet a lot of those guys again and just everything like that is just fine.. Sometimes the jobs just aren't the same though.. I had such a good crew. Don't get me wrong. There was disagreements and bad days.. In the end though the main 4 of us on my crew.. were there for a year (the other two 5 months longer, and one other guy 6 months less than me).. We were like a family. Always had everyones back when we were doing something that wasn't allowed. Always got each other breakfast for the morning safety meeting.. Gave one another rides to the airport.. Just everything. It's a funny thing when you're almost sick of seeing these (mostly) guys for the last YEAR almost actually every single day. For 10 hours at work and then usually you'd go hang out with someone if not a huge group of people that you met on the job.. I had millwrights living across the street from me.. and one of them became a real good friend to me. As I said.. there is always other jobs.. Sometimes they're shorter. Smaller crews. Not as many mixed trades.. All sorts of variances.. Get on a shitty crew for a long time.. There was all sorts of fucked up rules on this job and everything.. and it just made us the working man stick together more despite our unions differences. It made us work together harder to show we can overcome anything they throw at us. I will never forget this job. I was going to take a few months off after this job.. I took December off.. and I think I want to find another project to go work on. Without a family of my own I love to visit my niece and nephew. My older brother and his wife. My Mother, my Father and Step Mother. My Dad and Step Mom are moving next summer.. I just feel like.. I might as well go make some more money and pay off this truck fully and be around my family. My brothers and sisters in my unions. We will see how that goes. Thank you for reading as many sentences beginning with "I" as possible in one blog. (HAHAHA) Here are some pictures to accommodate my story line. I'll try to make them somewhat chronological. Thanks for reading.
See ya in the pit!
(uhhh it took forever to upload that many pics and they uploaded in reverse order. So they go from newest picture back at home to oldest picture when I arrived at the camp in Kitimat.)
