I THINK MINING

The one-hour flight is old-fashioned: they serve you a full meal there and back even though there is only one class.  They even provide knives and forks that would never get through security at the airport.  You climb into the plane through the back door as the front half of the plane is equipment for the mine.  For in summer, people, supplies, and equipment are flown in.  Not that the weather is summer-like.  Sure there is sun nearly 24 hours a day, but a cold wind whips across the tundra and the lakes which are everywhere in such abundance that the eye tires trying to find patterns.  There are patterns though; the most fun to find are the the straight lines that denote very old faults.  Can you imaging the earthquake? 

Many James Bond movies center around a villain housed in an isolated, self-contained city, camp, or factory.  Bond’s job is to penetrate this fortress, rescue the beautiful maiden, antagonize the villain, and blow up the facility.  I could not shake this image burnt into my movie-befuddled brain as I was inducted to the mysteries and “delights” of our self-contained camp from which one need never emerge.  Luckily we went out all the time to do our consulting, otherwise a large-scale claustrophobia would surely have set in.  I examined with interest the equanimity of the people eating yet another large meal of bland food–they seemed perfectly normal and happy chatting in accents from all over the world about the temerity of the athelete who insisted on running around the camp for exercise.  The wonder is how he could resist the brown-painted walls of the well-stocked gym and the musty aroma of the room of stationary bikes. 

The talked of strange work schedules: four days on, three days off; twenty days on, ten days off; five-months parental leave; twelve-hour work days;  and commutes in planes and airports shorter than a trip up I405 to Los Angeles.  The focus of orientation was that which is important: no liquor; bring your own towel; bring your own fabric softener for the washing machine; put the bed clothes in the pillow case when you leave; don’t eat too much, for the record is 35 extra pounds in a month of work.   The world constricts and the location of the TV is important.

Every surface is clean and over-swept.  Every door and wall is plastered with notices exhorting you to safe and civil behavior.  We had a long lecture on the need to hold on to the hand-rail as you descend the stairs.  The only room of evil I could find was the room set aside for that most dissolute band: the smokers.  Here one could relax with people who dropped the ceramic face of goodness that prevails.  Here the fat lady put her smelly feet on an adjacent chair, pulled hard on a cigarette, and swore.  Here we laughed at the TV cop show and ogled the Wimbledon tennis player with too little clothing.   Little was said–we were, afterall engaged in sinful activities, but there was a peace and calm that comes only from cynicism and no make-up. 

I am told they are well paid.  So they should be.  It is a different way of life.  Not for me.  But in every place you find those lonely souls who flee the city and seek solace in remote places.  They are much like the French contingent I first worked with in Africa on a large dam.  They talked incessantly of France, but shuddered at the thought of going back and leaving the vast, still wilds and the task of taming a once-roaring river.