close encounter of the furry kind

Looks like we have had our first kitchen ‘close encounter of the furry kind’. Now we are not new to the furry wild life coming by the camp for a quick look see and all. For instance, in Windy we had Harry and Sammy the sicsic that kept coming by for a quick visit. I still can’t fathom how Harry would run in through the back kitchen door and know the exact route to take that would take him through the kitchen, dining room, down the hall and apparently out his escape hole back outside the camp so that he could walk around the camp to the kitchen door and try it again. We had dear old Cheeko in Tahera. That funky little fox that would come up to the door and wait for people to come out with the look on his face like “so, you gonna feed me or what?”. We have even had ravens dive bomb out of the blue sky and take steaks right off the BBQ, possibly burning their face and feet as they did it. There was even a time in another camp when Ron went to the back loading dock to get something and he saw a furry animal (he swears it was a wolverine but could have been a fox or possibly a small wolf) inside the camp in the loading dock. It was only after he hit the table with an oven mitt that the furry creature disappeared outside again. Then of course there was my first encounter of furry creatures of George the wolverine that was scratching outside the camp on the wall just by my bed and when I scratched back to see if I could startle him he felt that there was food on the other side of the wall and started to scratch faster. However, I think they all take a back seat to this close encounter.

It seems that the other night our night janitor/breakfast cook/dishwasher (we are a little short handed at the moment) went out to the back entrance for a smoke. It seems that during the spring/summer/autumn months it is more enjoyable to have a smoke outside than it is to walk down to the smoke room and sit in there and smoke. He was on his way out and had just opened the door and had one foot outside when he stopped and sensed something was wrong. He looked down and to the right and that is when he saw it.
Now, picture this. A door to the camp and that opens out to a landing deck. The deck is about 8 feet long by maybe 4 feet or so wide and runs alongside of the wall of the camp. Right outside the door attached to the deck is a set of stairs leading down to the ground. So, basically it forms an ‘L’ shape where the vertical part of the L is the deck and the horizontal part of the L is the steps leading down and the door is at the point where the two meet.

Now, he is standing at the door point and right at the end of the deck, standing on the ground with one paw on the deck and standing somewhat up is a bear. The way he tells the story is that he stood there for a few seconds with the look of “oh my god, is that a bear? Never been this close to one before” on his face and the bear apparently had a look of “oh my god, is that a human? Never been this close to one before” on it’s face. He then slowly stepped back inside and closed the door for a second and then got that “am I going crazy?” sort of thought so he cracked open the door and looked outside and sure enough the bear was still there. It would have been like when Tweety Bird in the cartoons goes “I taught I taw a puddy tat!” and then looks again and goes “I did, I did dee a puddy tat!”.

Of course, after that night he now goes to work with his camera and carries it out with him whenever he goes for a smoke, just in case. Though in my experience I could tell him that it won’t help. Countless times I have gone out and have seen nice sunsets/rises or furry creatures or amazing birds out on the tundra and then carried my camera around to work for weeks with no sightings, but as soon as you don’t have your camera, they all come out and almost tap dance down the tundra as a way of mocking you for not having a camera.

Other than that, life out here has been sort of dull. Well, sort of dull except we have been given a whole load of work on us. Went from dishwasher to 2nd cook on Wednesday and for some reason we were supposed to go down in numbers from 90 to 60 people on Wednesday but went up to 110. Of course, we all plan the schedule for the 60 people and have a few people in camp so now that it is 110 we are taking on extra positions. Our breakfast cook is the night janitor and morning dishwasher, I am making sandwiches and doing breakfast prep cause he is busy with his night janitor; the baker also helps out with the breakfast in the morning; one of our housekeepers is the day janitor and housekeeper while the other is just a housekeeper. I would say that the only person in camp that hasn’t taken on extra duties to help make all the work possible during the day is the 1st cook, who seems to have stuck with just his duty of preparing meals. He is also the only one in camp that seems to have the time to take his coffee break in the morning, full lunch break, coffee break in the afternoon, break in the middle of the afternoon as well as a supper break. Funny how that sort of thing happens I guess.