Sunday, June 03, 2007

Red Lake, Ontario


Red Lake's "Mascot" and namesake of my hotel - The Norseman Plane



Well, I'm in Red Lake! It's quite beautiful here, a little different from home. Less topography, more muskeg, and VERY different rocks. Lots of volcanics and fewer granites. It's extremely wet here right now, due to the continued deluge they experienced for about 3 weeks before we got here. It's very livable and even a bit enjoyable, but the dirt churned up by the drillers and skidders makes more mud that slops up past your ankles.

Claude Resources, and especially my boss Judy, rock so far. Claude pays for our rooms, all food (and anything we want to use to make lunches, pretty well), flies us in and out (and we're paid for those days), buys things we need to be more comfortable (fans, comforters), and also lets us keep our handlenses and things. Judy is awesome at explaining things, is very understanding, and has a great sense of humour.

We're working at Madsen Mine, picture below:



We're basically doing everything it says on that page, and looking for new and historically known gold locations. My job will rotate between field mapping and rock/soil sampling, scanning old maps of the area (most are gorgeously artistic from the 1920's), and logging drill core. We get to work using ATV's, and doing some lakeshore geology from the motorboat as well.

Today we went out to look at outcrop examples of the local rock types. We saw mafics, ultramafics, talc schist, quartz "tuff", and a few other things. We also ran into the following NOT rock things:


Wild Columbine



Vetch



Canadian Bunchberry



Marsh Skullcap



Spring Azure



Canadian Tiger Swallowtail


I love my new hiking boots so far, and we'll see how they work out tomorrow. Hopefully well!

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