Spitting image

It's a sodding Llama.

A Llama. You know where I found this thing? In a barn in Black River Bridge, a rural community down the road from the city not far from the south shore of the bay.

A Llama! And apparently, there's a whole farm of Alpacas not far from Saint John. The mind boggles.

The guy who owns said Llama runs a little farm in the area, and has a whole lot of weird animals:

On the right is a miniature Donkey. On the left, slightly smaller than a great dane, is a miniature horse. Lords alone know where he got those.

I was down there for a "live nativity," hence the animals in this shed, subbing in for a manger. The Virgin Mary and the baby saviour actually live in my building.

Marvellous animals, truly creatures of the lord, and it was good to see the youth give them the respect they deserve:


All for now.

Beaubears Island

Well, folks, this here's Beaubears Island:


Used to be a major shipbuilding centre, back in river's heyday. Now it's just a national park, covered in forest regrowth and served by a tour operator who insists on calling himself Captain Dan.

The morning I took this it was snowing in Nelson, the part of the city facing the Island, and the river hadn't quite frozen yet, so I stopped and snapped this. Always loved snowy days, and still haven't quite got used to seeing such a large body of water just freeze over like that.

Welcome to northern NB, VANOC.

And so did the Olympics come to the Miramichi: In a veritable shitstorm of chilly rain and blasted wind.

Reporters from the Leader and the Times and the Telegraph all braved the lousy weather to grab the pics of the runners and of the cauldron lighting ceremony at the high school in Chatham.

Not me, though. No. See the pic below?



I took it from the media van.

The nice, big, shielded, toasty media van. It was pretty much just me and some guy from the Globe and Mail, along with the VANOC folks with their cameras and suchlike. Only one from the paper to draw that metaphorical straw.

When we got through Newcastle, we rushed over to Chatham, where the ceremony itself was being held at one of the high schools. Outside, in the freezing bloody rain, although the stage area was dry enough.

When we stopped there, I got out of the marvellously dry media van, and headed to the field. The guys from the Leader, Times and Telegraph were absolutely soaked to the skin, and freezing as all bloody hell. When I turned up, a faint sprinkling of cold drizzle in my hair and on my jacket, I could see the hatred burning like a frozen furnace in their eyes. I laughed. Then I went back to the media van to warm up.

My memory card was filling faster than a PEI pogey line, but not to worry! With my spectacular super powers, I had looked into the future, and foresaw that would happen, so I got meself a

brand

spanking

new

4gig card. When I ran out of room, I kept shooting and, soon, my

brand

spanking

new

card was filling with pics of Olympic drenchedness. The whir of the shutter was my constant companion, until suddenly it was no more, because, you see, my

brand

spanking

new

4 gig card decided to crash on me.

Just crash. No reason. No jostling of the camera, no extreme temperatures, no water seeping in, just your regular, run-of-the-mill, totally fucking inexplicable memory card crash.

I was pissed. Luckily, a nearby freelancer lent me one of his spares, so I could keep shooting, right up until we got to the end of the bridge. Then they politely booted me out of the media van, along with the freelancer, so I trudged through the freezing drizzle to the nearby Tim's, waiting for pickup.

Ah. The magic of the Olympics.

Couched ... on my new couch

Welp. After more than a year of struggling to get comfortable on that blasted $100-click-clack I got when I went back into exile, I figured it was high time I got myself a new couch. A real one with, like, proper cushions and everything:

Behold!

As the picture suggests, it is most comfy.

The Southwest Miramichi

I was working the weekend recently down in Derby, when it struck me it was a nice bloody day, so on the way back to town, I stopped and took a couple shots. Enjoy:

Basically, the Miramichi River is fed by the Southwest and Northwest Miramichi, both of which meet more or less where the city starts.

I figured I'd put the pictures up, but the truth is, you had to be there.

I'm sure it's not the prettiest river in Canada, but I'm pretty sure it's up there.

The bridges of Northumberland County

Maybe it's because I come from a family of engineers, or maybe because I just really loved playing with Lego growing up, but I have this odd fascination with bridges. Which is most fortuitous ... given how many of the sodding things there are in Northumberland County.


Comes with the territory, I suppose. The mighty Miramichi river bisects the city and the county all the way down to Boiestown, with Fredericton not too far beyond.

When lumber and forestry was still the backbone of the region, you needed as many rail bridges as regular bridges to keep everything going, here and there as you travel along the Southwest Miramichi. Some are just completely abandoned now, like the one below.


Others still see use.


This, the Anderson bridge, is the link across the SW Miramichi that'll get you from the city to Fredericton, passing through a whole whackload of weird villages and rural communities along the way.

On a sunny fall or spring day, the drive is always beautiful.

Aaaaand that's all I got to say about bridges for now.

The long gun registry is doomed

What a wonderful sport this is:

The nice gentleman from Chatham Head in the picture above was proud of bagging this buck upriver, so the boss sent me out for a picture. First time I'd ever seen one this close. It was magnificent.

Not seen in this picture was the large bullet hole in the thing's neck.

I think I'd like to try hunting, just once, to see how it feels. It's a fine tradition on the river, long standing. It's always amused me how so many people here have long guns, while the much reviled long-gun registry is a few minutes was from my house.

Just the one time, though, so I can know for myself how it is.

Personally, I'd much rather see 'em alive. There's less blood involved.

For sale

Psst....want a fire truck?

C'mon, it's going cheap! Only $12,000, slightly used. Still got a good few years in it for the discerning repentant arsonist.

Basically, our FD shut down a volunteer station, and it has too many vehicles, so they sold a bunch of 'em off, including this engine. We thought the pissed-off former volunteers at that station put the truck up for "sale" as a stunt, so we called the number.

Turns out it was legit. Some random used car salesman buys up stuff like fire trucks and road salters, then sells them. Apparently there's takers all over the Maritimes for this stuff.

I told him I was a reporter first thing, but it took awhile to sink in. When he finally realized it, he started freaking out. Didn't want anyone to know he was doing this, thought he might get into trouble, etc.

'Cos, you know, nobody's going to notice a for-sale sign in the windshield of a bright red fire truck parked on the side of the busiest highway in Northern New Brunswick.

I often wonder...were people always this stupid, or did the media make them this way?

An uncommon angle

Gentlemen ... behold!

Yes. It's a moose's ass.

A more charitable assessment would be: A fine, exquisitely detailed and tasteful pencil drawing of moose from an angle not commonly seen in works of art in the genre.

You may be interested to know this particular specimen is hanging in the entry hall of the local Enterprise agency - a non-profit, government-funded business development corporation of no measurable efficacy.

The ... er ... business end is about level with where the head of an average sized human would be if standing beside this objet d'art.

I want one.

The south will rise again?

I half expected some bucktoothed stereotype to emerge from this one house and shoot me with a rusty shotgun as I took a picture of the flag on his lawn.

This is about midway between the villages of Blackville and Doaktown, on the long road to Fredericton from Miramichi. In, erm, New Brunswick. Eastern Canada. You know ... not the American south.

Just the damnedest thing. I'm passing by on my way to an assignment. It's a beautiful, crisp and sunny fall day, with the wind only just picking up, so I'm driving down admiring the colours and suddenly there's a goddamned confederate flag flying on some guy's lawn.

I pulled the car over and snapped some shots. Then I zoomed in on 'em in my camera's viewfinder, and what do I see? One of those German style crosses from WWI, or WWII. I was hoping it was the former. I'd hate to think it was the latter.

Oh god, thought I. There's some crazy white supremacist from Alabama down the road from the city. I mean, should I tell someone? Should I warn the black people in town? I know three by name, and there's probably about a half dozen more, so it shouldn't take too long.

Then I got back to the newsroom, and zoomed in on the writing, which I couldn't see from the distance I took the shot and didn't dare go nearer, in case I really was dealing with some crazed racist.

Couldn't make it all out, but the second word seems to be "chopper." So probably just some guy who really, really likes some brand of motorcycle in the southern united states founded by a fine upstanding citizen of German extraction.

Or something. Bloody Miramichi.

Not the golden gate bridge

So the Centennial Bridge, the iconic structure you can see in the blog's header, has been down to one lane due to maintenance by the department of transportation.

It was opened briefly, before being shut again to one lane so the DOT guys could do a routine inspection on the Douglastown side. We didn't know that at the time the editor's wife called to say it was shut again, so when I got sent over to find out what was going on, I basically had to walk almost the whole kilometre-length of the thing before I could find someone to ask.

I've driven across it a million times, but a giant structure like this is a totally different experience when you're walking it. Looking up at the giant, sloped girders, it finally hit me just how tall the damned thing was.


Looking over the side was terrifying. There was no possible way I could have fallen over, but I still held on the rail with white knuckles. No wonder bridge jumping is such a popular form of suicide. At that height, maybe 15 stories up, it would be like falling onto concrete.

For the engineers out there, here's a shot of some of the ... whatever those are. Nuts and bolts, mayhap?

So I walked the full length, got the shots of the DOT folks doing their inspection in the next post, then started walking back.

The way they were doing it, they were letting a few cars on one side through for a few minutes, then stopping them, radioing the other side, and letting some cars on that side go through for a few minutes.

But the bridge is so insane long, between letting the last car go on one side and letting the first car proceed on the other, there's at least a minute delay. Who knew when they'd be shutting it down like this again?

So I stopped off the sidewalk, marched right into the middle of what may be the busiest highway in the north, and just stood there for a bit.

Felt wrong. I expected someone to yell at me to get out of the road, or some truck to magically appear behind me with just enough warning for me to scramble clear.

Nothing like that happened, though. So I took a shot.

If you click on the shot, you can get a better look at the left side of the shot. There's a welder there, if you want a sense of scale.

I love this bridge.

Bridge Shots

While I was on the little adventure on the bridge described in the next post, I took a few shots while I was there. I'm sorry it was cloudy...I should have liked to have seen the river from that perspective on a sunny day.

Here's Chatham.

Click on it for a bigger perspective. The marina and basilica came out clearly. It won't mean as much to you as it does to me...I can make out literally every single building and its purpose.

Maybe I ought do up a little guide...you know, a number for every little building in the shot and what it is/what it does/when I last got sloshed there/etc.

Here's the mall district in Douglastown, across the river.


If you look carefully, you can make out the shoppers drug mart, Canadian Tire and probably the Tim's and BK.

Finally, there's these guys, the reason I was out there on that bridge.

Their little inspection cut the bridge down to one lane only. Godsdamn, that played havoc with the lines. This bridge is one of two major arteries in the city, and THE gateway to Bathurst, Campbellton, Quebec and beyond, so when you close it down to one lane so some DOT guys can look at how rusted the underside is, that's a bit of a problem.

Construction guys are odd when it comes to reporters. Sometimes they'll be adamant you don't get near without a hard hat. Other times, they just shrug their shoulders and tell you anything you need to know, usually in the monosyllabic grunts of craftsmen who just want you to go away so they can get on with their work.

Pimp mah truck

I'll say one thing about the good people of the Miramichi: Some of them have a lawless sense of style. And no, that's not a typo.

Like this lad, Billy Reynolds, and his wheels.

A former garbageman by trade, Billy is a self-described packrat, and when he and his vehicle rolled into the paper the other day well, gosh, I had to go out there with a camera.


Here's the side of it. Literally every surface was covered in some way with some kind of knick knack, like this:


Those longish plastic things, one to the left of the elephant? They light up. There's a button on his dash, and a little remote attached to his key chain. The horn sounds like an ice cream man jingle.

Some of the stuff wasn't recognizable, like the many metal things welded to the hood:

Every damned surface. I didn't know what half the vehicle's ornaments were. Their function was esoteric. It would have taken, like, an hour to show me the full extent of the decades of work Billy did here. It was like Xzibit got high with Monty Python and took a joy ride to the Miramichi.

And, when Billy ran out of room on the car's body, there was always room for ... protrusions.

It think it was made of wood. I'd hate to think any of the additions were actually once real animals:


I've lived here for a year and a half. I have never, ever seen this contraption before. Never ever. He must live up river or down the bay or something.

I was impressed, and in awe.

Hm.

Maybe I should get started on that immigration application now.

You know ... the one that will let me get out here before I go mad. Or start re-decorating my car.

Missing

This one has been photoshopped to make it suitable for print, so it seems grainier than the original file.


Had to set the ISO to max, kill the flash and take 50 shots in the hope of getting one where the camera shake didn't blurry it beyond use.

Came out nice. But it's a strange thing to be proud of.

It's at a candlelight vigil for Hilary Bonnell. At the time of this writing, she's been missing for around three weeks. Went to a party on one of the local first nations (she's native, but lives in Miramichi), then never was seen again. Last anyone saw of her was a surveillance video from, like 7 am the next day, walking along the highway past a convenience store at the entrance to the reserve.

All this time, everyone on that reserve is swearing sideways they think she's alive. Cops too. But the area has been searched over and over again, and extended beyond it. She could be anywhere now.

By a conjunction of the fates, three of us had to cover this over three days. One on the Thursday, when we went down first. Then he had the day off, so another of us went Friday. Finally, I was on that weekend, so I went down, heard of the vigil, then went down again in the evenings to grab a shot. We needed something the dailies didn't have, and it's an image of hope and waiting, rather than a shot of Hilary's tearful parents and stepfather at a press conference, begging her supposed kidnapper to return her.

Had to talk to the parents. Took awhile before we were let near, and mostly I listened. It's messed up. Her mum's total wreck. They're basically living in a holiday trailer by the fisheries building on the reserve where the search is being coordinated from, just so they can be as close as possible.

At the vigil that evening I was there, amidst the firelight and honour songs and prayers in English, French and Mi'kmaq, I could see the mum, rocking back and forth and holding herself. I can't imagine what she must have been going through. Still is.

Hope they find the girl, one way or another.

The joys of rural reporting

Observe:

The gentleman below is Leon Bremner. He owns several tractor dealerships. Yes. Tractor dealerships.

This pic was taken at the grand opening of his newest one, on Route 11 a stone's throw away from the city limits. It was, of course, a big deal in a rural county like this.

I happen to like this one. But as I stood there, in a rare hot day, snapping shots of this man and his tractor, his shiny new mechanized conveyance, I came to a realization.

I was covering the opening of a tractor store. On a saturday. And it was a big deal.

Truly ... I am in exile.

That's all I have to say about that. Moving right along...

Another dispatch from the twilight zone

So last week, premier Shawn Graham skipped out on some high profile events in Freddy that evening to go to Sunny Corner, a small local service district just upriver of the city, to hand out some funds to one of the local legions.

Said he wanted to honour the legion, given his background with them when he was younger and involved in sport. More like he wanted to avoid someone in the capital, but hey, the veterans were grateful.

So I'm waiting outside for Graham to emerge ... when public safety minister John Foran comes up to me.

You have to understand: The honourable Mr. Foran is a very large man. He's past six feet. And, without being too uncharitable, he's also a bit on the big side.

So he looms over me, peers down at me with a big, boyish grin on his face and says, with the enthusiasm of an eager child, "Hey dan-YELL...me and the premier are going to an abattoir after. Wanna come?"

Sweet jesus, it was like I'd stepped into a scene from some Mafia movie.

So I followed their cars, got to the slaughterhouse, but one of the workers' brothers was hospitalised that day, so they only stayed long enough for me to grab the shot.

Left to right is premier Shawn Graham, local MLA and public safety minister John Foran and Earl Sutherland, the owner of what is possibly the only slaughterhouse in the Miramichi.

I felt awful about the pic ... Foran looks like he's thinking about eating the damned thing. But it was the best art we had that day, so onto A1 it went.

Some of the comments were awesome, though.

Still...it stands as the weirdest assignment in recent memory.

Concerning flight, part deux

Oh, btw, you can click on the aerial shots below for bigger files. Thank gods for SLRs.

Anyways, also concerning flight, we had a local real estate company branch offering free balloon rides the other day:


The kids liked it for sure.


And, being the wannabe newshound I am, I got in line too.

Rather proud of this one:


Adios!

Concerning flight

Working the weekend sucks.

In my case, I was working last weekend. And, while I did get to meet Michael Ignatieff, I had to do so in sweltering thirty-something degree weather. Outside, the entire day, too. Canada's one of those weird countries where you eagerly anticipate the summer until the exact moment it arrives. Then, in my case at least, you beg for fall.

Still, I was working, so after the shindig at the Town Square, I made a beeline for the airport, where they were having a small fly-in of private aircraft owners.

That's when I saw this thing:


There must be some proper name for it involving numbers and letters of dubious meaning, but the pilot called it a training glider. It's pulled behind a single-prop plane until it's airborne and, once it's aloft, a simple pull of a switch cuts it loose, allowing it to glide gracefully back to earth.

Irritated by the heat, mindful I'm not paid extra for working the weekend, and seeing no reason why I can't have any fun on the job, I strapped myself in.

The supervisor, standing safely with both feet on the ground, warned me to keep an eye on the cadet pilot seated behind me.


Lieutenant Hamm, he said, was a little inexperienced, so if I notice the glider tilting a bit to the side, just point it out, and he'll probably be able to level it off again.

It wasn't until the cockpit hatch was shut around me and the tow plane was about ready to roll that Lt. Hamm, of the Canadian Forces' Cadet Instructor Cadre, leaned forward and informed me, actually, he's been an instructor for four years, with seven years flight experience before that, and his boss was just being a dick.

So up we went.


That's Chatham, the downriver half of Miramichi. You can see the Centennial Bridge across the river just there. I can see it from my apartment window, and my pad is just slightly to the left of where the bridge touches down in Chatham.

Across the river is Douglastown. Basically, the mall district.

It's a shame I don't have any shots of Newcastle, the upriver half and Chatham's mortal enemy. It's nicer up close, but Chatham's got more striking landmarks, like the bridge and St. Michael's Basilica:


Check out that graveyard. Nice bit of prime real estate right in one of the hearts of the city.

Here's the exhibition grounds, where the CNE and a couple of summer concerts call home:


And, for something completely different, here's the ultramar fuel depot.


Reason I include this somewhat boring shot is to hammer home the fact this city is really spread out. With a population of maybe 17,500 (and dropping), it covers a huge area. Parts of the city which are firmly within city boundries are just completely forested, like above. Most of it, in fact. Even places like this ultramar station, in Bushville neighbourhood, are as far from the city limits as can be.

This city's got a lot of potential. Shame about the economy.

Speaking of which, here's a shot of what is probably going to be the largest structure in town ... if it's ever built:


That's going to be a giant metal fabrication facility to built steel girders for the Deh Cho Bridge over the MacKenzie River in the Northwest Territories.

It's owned by Atcon. I don't want to talk about it, so I'll move on.

Another great asset this city has is the Miramichi Airport:


It's got easily the longest runway in Atlantic Canada, and was the heart of CFB Chatham, which closed in 1994. We have the national gun registry in Miramichi because the feds needed to compensate the community for its loss.

Great airport...except the airport commission treats it like Fort Knox. Don't want to talk about that either.

Here's an aerial shot of some of the planes that made it in for the fly-in:

And so that was my day out. As far as weekend assignments go, it could have been worse.

Bigwigs

So, for a remote part of a small province, the north's been getting a lot of attention, and Miramichi in particular.

First was the Prime Minister's visit in February. Then we got a couple visits from the premier.

And, thanks to the ongoing World Acadian Congress, we got a couple more special visitors, starting with this person you may be familiar with:


Mme. Jean had a sort of simpering quality about her that I didn't know what to make of, and she was always smiling. But she's a good speaker, that's for sure. Oh, and she took the opportunity (She was in Tracadie-Sheila, up the bay from us) to reveal to all and sundry that her great-great-great-great-great Grand-dad was an Acadian deportee from way back. Boy, that went over great. They're still talking about it.

That was last Thursday. Then on Saturday, we had this guy:


Michael frikkin' Ignatieff, the leader of the opposition, here in Miramichi, waving the Acadian flag and ringing the bell for the great Tintamarre, the part of Acadian Day where everybody makes as much noise as they can, with a few instances of "vive l'Acadie!" thrown in.

He seemed okay at ease, and sounded in person remarkably like Leonard Nimoy when not playing Spock. Oddly, his PR person, talking privately with me and the guy from the Times, said he was pretty shy, it's his wife who's the massive extrovert.

We interviewed him, of course, but we didn't really use any of it, aside from some nice things he said about Acadians and anglo New Brunswickers working together.

He brought an entourage with him:

You may recognize Dominic LeBlanc on the left, in the remarkably unflattering novelty Acadian tie. The other guy is an MP from northern NB, Jean-Claude d'Amours. They seemed nice enough, although Dominic was a little baffled when a local volunteer firefighter accosted him about the city supposedly conspiring to steal his fire hall.

Ah. Small town politics.