Monday 20 July 2015

Fort Nelson: "I don't like it..."

I love it. I so far have loved my time up in Fort Nelson so far. 
Some of you may be wondering why. Even people here have wondered why I came up here in the first place and that I am ok with staying! 

But I have made friends, explored, gone fishing, made lots of four legged friends, worked, picked up shifts, hung out by the river, in the river, more fishing. Today has been the first day in last month since i've been here where I have thought to myself, "Hmm, what should I do today?" It was raining, which made it harder to think of things to do. So I crashed at my friends house and showed them their newborn pictures I took the other day. Stole some of their internet because my house doesn't have any yet. Watched the Calgary Stampede, played with their dog. Went for a run, made dinner for me and my roommate. 

SO what have I been doing? Well, work has taken up at least a few days a week. It can be a crazy busy hospital which can be a little tiring. Always with the interesting cases that come through the ER, loss of fingers, arterial bleeds, "infected" bug bites (oh goodness), motorbike crashes, and so much more. 

Before I moved up here, since I was little I have always wanted two things in life if and when I moved to a northern community: learn how to dog sled and own a pair of moccasins, real ones. So I decided to do something about it, since I have officially moved to a northern community. First, moccasins will be purchased one day in the future, when I feel like i have money to do so. Second, there is a world class dog sledder in town named Buddy Streeper. If you know dog sledding, you will know this name. He has won multiple world class races and travels all over northern Canada and throughout the states during the winter. 
 So about two weeks ago I decided to send him an email telling him that I was new to town, an RN and have always wanted to learn how to dog sled. So I asked if I could volunteer in exchange to learn how to dog sled. He replied quickly and said he was very interested. So I decided to drop by his kennels and introduce myself. So I showed up and he toured me around the grounds and showed me hte male and female kennels, the puppy kennels and told me that most of the jobs have been taken care of there. However the one job that wasn't really taken care of was someone to play with the puppies. Puppies need lots of socializing when they are little to human contact. So he said that I could come by anytime for as long as I wanted to play and socialize with the puppies. It is seriously as awesome as it sounds. There are probably at least 25-30 puppies that need love and attention. 


So between work, hanging out at home, going on adventures either alone or with my friends and their dogs and playing with puppies I am doing alright. So far I have really enjoyed being up here!