James' asthma attack

Last Friday, April 20, James had a severe asthma attack. It was so severe he had to be medevaced to Goose Bay. It's an awful thing for any parent to have to see their children sick but even more so for James because he can't communicate like other children. He was walking around with a 'pain in his belly' and crying. So his Nan(I was working) brought him over to the clinic at 11:30 am. He never got back home till 5:00 pm April 23. He had a total of 8 masks. Three were equivalent to about 125 shots of his puffer. His heart rate was almost double for his age and his oxygen saturation was down to 80 when it should have been 98 to 100. He had a sleepless night on Friday and didn't get any rest till Saturday which is when he finally started to improve. And the drama didn't even end when we flew home. Upon final approach to Makkovik we had to abort our landing because another plane was already landing on the runway. The pilot applied full power and pulled up and away. I didn't know what was going on till I looked down at the runway and saw the plane landing. But thankfully James is doing well now. He now has a Flovent puffer to help with his bronchitis, has finished his medication to take down the inflamation in his lungs, and has a referral to see a pediatrician in Goose Bay.

Very Warm Spring day

Yesterday and today was VERY warm even for this time of year. Max temperature yesterday was thirteen degrees and today was even warmer, around fifteen I think. The snow is melting fast. The brooks and ponds are flooded after only a day. I would expect temperatures around this time of year to get up to five or maybe even ten degrees but no more.

Spring in Labrador

Two signs of Spring in Labrador: Snowbirds and really bad roads.

Temperatures have stabilized again somewhat compared to plus nine degrees last week, which is way above normal. Traveling on snowmobile has been really good. You can go just about anywhere and have a firm footing. James spent some time out at Hare Harbour  with his Nan and Pop last week. He had a wonderful time sliding and playing with the other kids. We went fishing yesterday at Table Bay Pond. The weather was not the greatest but we got some smelts (66 and one trout) anyway. After trying many times over the winter, we finally got lucky. We've got a nice bit of snow again now. I guess Winter isn't over yet.

Operation Noramex

Operation Noramex was a joint Canadian US Navy amphibious landing exercise meant to test "amphibious cold weather doctrine and equipment". However I found two sources of information giving two entirely different dates. The first source says it took place 21 October, 1949 at Cape Porcupine. A Batallion of Marines, around 2000 men were set ashore. This was a significant force considering the current population of Cartwright is only four or five hundred people. The objective was to capture an enemy meteorological station and airstrip. A special underwater demolition team swam ashore to make a beach recon before the main landing force came ashore. Another team went ashore in rubber boats from the troop submarine 'Sea Lion'. The second source says it took place 1 November 1954 at the mouth of Hamilton Inlet.

The physical evidence supports the information I have found. I found the remains of some kind of aerial and many bomb fragments at Cape Porcupine. In the summer of 2010, I think, a friend of mine and his girlfriend found dunnite at Cape Porcupine having at first mistaking it for some unusual rocks. Dunnite is an explosive used in naval artillery shells. There is also the remains of an amphibious landing craft near Woody Point, Porcupine Strand. About a mile inside Woody Point is where they carved out a landing strip. I guess this is the airstrip they supposedly captured. Again there is physical evidence there. There is also evidence of activity around Woody Point and at at least two other places on the North side of Cape Porcupine including wires strung in the trees for communications.

There is a lot of evidence of military activity at Upper and Lower Sandy Cove, which is at the mouth of Hamilton Inlet. There is a road carved out of the sand starting from the beach and going inland. This is easy to find. There are artifacts everywhere at this location including spent rifle casings, ammunition cannisters, cleats from the tracks of some kind of tank or amphibious vehicle, and remains of mess kits just to name a few.

One thing is certain, and that is Operation Noramex involved a lot of men and equipment including several major war ships. And the evidence supports it.

The Burton Winters tragedy

I have decided to write about this story now despite it having occurred about two months ago. Burton Winters was a 14 year old boy from the community of Makkovik, Labrador. He had gotten lost in bad weather after visiting his Grandmother and perished on sea ice 11 km from Makkovik. He was first reported missing Jan 29, 2012 and was found three days later Feb. 01. There are two things that really stand out in this story. One is Burton's sheer determination to make it back home and his apparent will to survive. He had gotten stuck and abandoned his snowmobile. Apparently he walked 19 km before he succumbed to hypothermia. The other thing that really stands out in this story is SAR's response to the incident. They failed to show up in time to save the boys life. Their assistance was requested but by the time they arrived it was too late. Admiral Gardam of DND's response was that the two CH-146 Griffon's(secondary search assets) in Goose Bay were out of service, it was not their responsibility to call back to confirm if military search and rescue assets were needed or requested(it is interesting to note here that this so called "time tested call back protocol" was never even heard of by search and rescue officials) and that their primary search and rescue asset the CH-149 Cormorant could not be used in case a major event occurred at sea. The third reason was particularly cruel given the fact that a CH-149 Cormorant picked up the Minister of National Defence from a fishing lodge and flew him to the Gander Airport. CBC's The Fifth Estate did a story on Burton Winters and turned up more questions than answers. http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/2011-2012/lostontheice/

Just got hit with a major storm

Everyone is digging out after our first big storm of the winter, winter being almost over. It started Monday March 26 and we didn't see the sun again until yesterday, Friday March 30. I figured we had around 100 cm of snow from start to finish and I wasn't far off. We had more than 90 cm I think. Snow is almost up to the eaves of our house. Some peoples houses are almost buried over. Dad went to Goose Bay for medical appointments on Monday and never got back till Friday afternoon. There were quite a few people waiting for the road to open to get back from Goose Bay. James was quite happy to try out his new snow shoes as you can see.

This and That

The summer will soon be over, the nights are getting shorter and kids will be heading off to school again. So far it has been very busy for me with the new addition to our family, very little time for anything. Other than that this summer has been like other summers. There are lots of people visiting some just passing through some moving back for the summer to get their fish or bakeapples etc. This summer it seems like there are more people coming through even though there are fewer people travelling on the Sir Robert Bond. Phase III of the TLH is completed or almost complete and there is a lot of traffic coming through, some of the people have not been back here in a long time. We came back from Goose Bay on the Bond after Jazmin was born and it was possibly our last trip on her ever again as there are rumours that she will stop running at the end of August with the completion of Phase III of the TLH. And it was a good trip. Unlike years previous we had no trouble getting a room at all. There was hardly a soul on board compared to other summers when she would be packed. I counted just 8 vehicles when we got on in Goose Bay.
There are a lot of people coming and going in boat this summer. Mostly people visiting their summer places like Packs Harbour, Dumpling or Hare Harbour. You would have a hard time finding any bakeapples if you didn't get at them early because there were so many people out picking them. There were lots of whales and icebergs this summer. There were very few icebergs down on the Island portion of the province. A company that harvests ice from icebergs to make iceberg vodka had to come to Northern Labrador to find ice this year.
The Canadian Coast Guard Ship Mathew was here for several days doing underwater survey work I think. I heard about a fast boat travelling from St. John's in 12 hours. I heard she had three 300 horsepower engines and could do 70 knots and that she burned 9 drums of fuel by the time she arrived in Cartwright. The crew is supposed to go North to the Arctic, through the North West Passage and on to Vancouver.
Another bit of local news; Dr. Lisa Rankin and her crew finished up their second summer at Indian Island and had an open house invitation to the general public to come out and see what they are doing. Dr. Lisa Rankin is an archaeologist for M.U.N. and just completed the Porcupine Strand Archaeological Project a few years ago.
There was a Come Home Reunion at Indian Tickle last week.