======================================================================
While I was still trying to absorb the information thrown at me during my so called orientation, I was driven to an acreage about 15 kilometers outside Grande Prairie. I was given a quick tour of the “Crew House”, told where the trucks were kept, as well as the keys, and told to read the bulletin board for my day's assignment.
A large bulletin board greeted me as I walked in the door of the house. Attached to the board was a sheet of paper with my name on it. It detailed the time I needed to be at the site, the directions and my unit number. I grabbed the sheet and wandered in to meet the rest of the people staying there. They seemed friendly enough, sitting on the couches in the television room, they showed me to an empty bedroom and I made myself at home for the night.
Early the next morning I hurried to get my truck and get supplies for the following day. I bought some snacks to keep me going through the day and I headed off to a place called Elmwood. I had a map, directions and a healthy dose of divine guidance as started out on the highway. By some strange miracle, I didn't manage to get myself lost en route.
Although I had been developing quite a keen sense of direction, there was always the distinct possibility of becoming hopelessly lost through the thousands of kilometers of forestry roads and goat trails that seemed to pass for roads.
The oilfield isn't built on its own land. Where I was working, the land belonged to the federal and provincial governments, and had been leased to forestry operations for harvest. The forestry operations took a healthy sum of money from the Oilfield to allow them to use thier roads, clear patches of land known as Leases and drill for whatever petroleum product is buried deep within the earth.
This particular lease I arrived at was nestled 30 kilometers from the nearest stretch of pavement, deep in a wooded area. It was a fairly large piece of land, a few hundred feet by a few hundred feet, just dirt and a few pieces of pipe sticking out of the ground. I found a nice looking piece of dirt to park on top of, and I prepared for my first day of work with a new company.
Being the inexperienced medic I was, I was expecting a rig of some form or another, as the call sheet didn't outline exactly what I was to be supervising. It turns out they were finishing a pipeline and attaching the pipeline to the well. At the time, it was the most boring thing I had ever done. I was parked on a piece of dirt, watching a bunch of heavy equipment push dirt around for 12 hours.
As I tried to kill time, I played with my computer, occasionally wandered out to see what was going on. I had never been as depressed as I was when I looked at the clock and realized that I had successfully killed 45 minutes. Only 11 hours and 15 minutes to go.
Nothing happened while I was there. Nothing continued to happen for the next 4 days either. It was an exercise in the maintenence of some form of sanity. I sat and watched dirt get pushed around, 12 hours a day. I became somewhat of an expert in the pushing of dirt. I could tell if the dirt was wet or dry, if it had twigs or rocks in it, if it was hard or soft. I never wanted to know that about dirt. I'm happy as long as dirt is either outside on the ground or in a plant pot somewhere. When I was told that they had finally finished pushing the dirt, I was ecstatic to see what other wonders awaited me.
Another day brought another call sheet. It was raining when I woke up, I knew it wasn't going to be a good day. I had learned a lot about dirt in my previous posting, the most important thing I learned was that dirt and water should not be combined. Most roads in the oilfield are made of dirt, some contain small amounts of gravel, but never enough to prevent the inevitable mud that seems to form.
The directions pointed me to an unfamiliar road, and once again with divine guidance, I managed to find it. As I continued down the road, I realized that the conditions were less then good. The road itself was a giant mud puddle. Even with four wheel drive, the road was treacherous, made moreso by the semi trucks that seemed to carelessly fly by, splattering my already dirty windshield with yet more mud. 75 Kilometers down the road, I saw my turnoff. I proceeded down the road, watching my odometer as I had to make a left 16 kilometers after the turnoff. As I was making my way down the roads, they were getting narrower and narrower, barely wide enough for my truck. As the roads narrowed, they also worsened.
I was up to my hubcaps in mud, and sinking. Pressing onward I came to a realization. There is nothing down this road, I'm in the wrong place. So I carefully turned around and went back up the road. My knuckles were white on the wheel, driving up the narrow mud trail. I drove back to the main road, and realized that I had made a wrong turn altogether. I turned a half kilometer early, which sent me off on a wild goose chase up an unfamiliar trail.
When I finally got onto the right road, my trip became more fruitful, but, alas, I was late. When I was only ten minutes from my site, I saw a truck coming towards me. I tried to be courteous and pull off to the side of the road, which ended in near disaster. I had gotten myself stuck in the mud. When the other truck came up to me, I asked for help, and was informed that not only was he pulling me out of the ditch, he was also my client.
I had never been so embarrassed, however he was good about the whole thing. He understood that I was a rookie, and I make mistakes. He happily pulled me out, revised the directions to the site and told me he'd be back in a couple of hours. I drove quite carefully to the site, and introduced myself to the site supervisor. I was told that I would be supervising, once again, the pushing of dirt. Well, I guess this time it would be the manipulation of large amounts of mud.
I couldn't think of a better way to spend a saturday, watching mud get pushed around. They would dig it up, then put it back in the hole, and sometimes dig it up again. I didn't know what exactly was going on, all I knew was I had a very long day ahead of me, a longer drive and worst of all, I was going to have to wash the truck.
I was happy to get back to the crew house. The truck was cleaned, I was getting ready for bed when there was an invitation to go to town for strippers and beer. I didn't care much about the strippers, I was just happy that there would be alcohol involved. While the others were watching naked women waggle thier breasts, I decided I needed a walk, and not to pay ten bucks for a beer. There was only one store open at that time of the evening, a strange book and hemp store.
