Saturday, January 24, 2009

Another hike...

Another hike today, this time across Pearl Lake and up the north shore to get a close-up look at the McIntyre headframe. It was surrounded by deep snow and the whole place was deathly quiet. It looks huge the closer you get and I wondered if this is how it looked back in the winter of 1927 when it was first built on top of No. 11 shaft. By the way, Stompin' Tom wrote a song about this place back in 1965. It was called Fire in the Mine... fire burned for 30 days.

More than a thousand men were laid off. Draegermen were brought in from as far away as Kirkland Lake and Sudbury to fight the fire. Only one life was lost. Interesting times those were. Anyway, I hiked along to the north side of the headframe ... the side that people rarely see. You can see my snowshoe trail in the lower left side of the photo. It was a good workout.
I didn't mind it, except that when I am really hoofin' along I sweat too much. My toque got wet with sweat and then it froze solid on my head because it was so darn cold out today (minus 34 windchill). I didn't dare take it off until I got back to the truck. It was uncomfortable, but I figured frozen hair would be worse, so I just put up with it.
And just so you know, this month marks the third year that I have been blogging. Jeez, you'd think I would run out of things to yak about by now.

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