I've been lurking around DKos for a little over a year. It took me until just before the Canadian elections in May to sign up for an account. I haven't authored a diary until now. I just don't have that much to say that would be relevant or uncovered territory around here.
Instead, I figured I would tell a story inspired by one of the frequent lightning storms we get here in the Canadian prairies.
Six years ago I started working for an engineering company as a surveyors assistant (rodman to everyone but the execs) on a project on Northern Saskatchewan. We were building a haul road out of a mine site and worked fifteen eleven hour days in a row before we flew out for six days off.
The weather up there during my stay was something different from my usual experience. I have spent my life in a province that puts “Land of the Living Skies” on its licence plates. And still the weather was freaky to me. Low level clouds would race by. It would be 35C and sunny at 7am and still manage to rain and hail for 5-10 minutes a couple times a day. Then it would rain for 3 weeks straight. All the while sandflies would make life hell. The weather patterns were alien to me, and I had spent my whole life living in the same province.
One day when I was having a smoke on the fire escape/balcony of our low rent contractor camp I happened to run into one of the native guys that predominantly work in the North (by law they are guaranteed a certain percentage of the jobs). He wasn’t that old, maybe 35 or 40 tops. We got to talking a bit, as one does when there are two people on a 15sq foot balcony., and I commented on the weather. His response to me was “the walker on the winds is out today”. That kinda caught me off guard. I had nothing sensible to say to that. So I tried to change the subject a bit by asking if he’d heard what working conditions would be like the next day. He continued to look out over the balcony and told me that it would rain again tomorrow.
After checking the forecast that night and seeing sunny for the week to come I just assumed he was fucking with me. Then it rained on and off for the whole next week. I met that guy about eight or so more times during my stay up there that summer (different shifts and rotating accommodations) and he was always right about the weather. Forecast be damned, ho got it right every time.
The point of this story, inspired by a prairie lightning storm, is that every time I hear of resistance to environmental and local consultations for new projects, I think back to that fellow. I don’t remember his name but I remember distinctly the crazy ass weather up there and his ability to know what was going to happen. I know my job depended on building that mine, but I’ve since paid attention to what the locals have to say about any project.