Sudbury – Hello again, this week we discuss changes. I start this entry with two days until I get to Terrace Bay; by the end of it I will have spent an entire week in the wilds. In geology, as you may or may not be aware, there are three types of rock: igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary. The area where I am going to be living has mostly igneous rocks, or rocks that come from below the Earth’s crust. However, these rocks are all incredibly old – in fact, they’re Precambrian Archaean rocks and the passing billenia have changed the rocks continuously. Deciphering the rock despite its metamorphosis is something that I can tell you right now I perceive as a wicked challenge.
In the spare time before heading to the field and, I presume, even after getting out there, my field team have been playing an aptly titled rock-identifying game called “Stump the Chump.” I can assure you that I am the chump in every occasion. I am always the one who says the wrong thing or waits silently without offering an opinion as my field crew members decipher the rock type given to us by my supervisor. It is my personal goal to overcome my incapability and to learn to identify a tourmaline from an amphibole from an olivine.
You may be asking what is metamorphic rock? It’s the result of high temperature and pressure exerted on original rock deep below the Earth’s crust. The process of metamorphosis usually causes minerals to “melt” and recrystallize more visibly in the resulting rock. The longer a rock is subjected to these high temperatures and pressures, the greater the changes in the look and texture of a resulting rock. More fine-grained rocks have usually experienced less metamorphism than coarse-grained and foliated rocks.
I know my crew sees me as a weak link, the member to be pitied for her lack of prior education in the ways and means of rocks and minerals. This perception is in fact warranted as I haven’t done anything thus far to counteract their opinion. In the same way that temperature and pressure act on rocks to metamorphose them into slates, schists, marbles and gneisses, I await the transformative powers of the summer’s heat, and the pressures to perform which I will face in the field, to turn me into a competent team member. For now I wait excitedly to get into the field.
Jackfish Lake – The drive up took approximately 10 hours due to construction, heavy rain, and intense fog but when we crested the last hill and saw the way clear below us I sensed we were coming home; at the bottom of that hill lies our cabins tucked off the road and next to a section of bed-shaking road construction.
Our cabins themselves are straight from the 80s – no internet or cell service included. As a means of entertainment, I luckily brought my trusty transistor radio and managed to find the single station in the entire area. That is not a joke – they don’t even have CBC here. This station “CFNO Your Home Town Radio Station” has everything you need, from music and weather to how the beer league sports teams are doing. It’s an actual way to time travel for the low, low price of a drive north of the “Big Lake” as CFNO calls Superior.
Every day has started out so foggy you’d think the world ends at the side of the highway. Some days it rains all day, but a few times it has blossomed into the kind of perfect summer day that’s not too hot to move, but not as cold as I was afraid it might be way up here.
The chilly mornings have the advantage at least of preventing severely buggy weather but I sense the hordes are coming. If I don’t look like a pock-marked medieval peasant by the end of the summer I’ve clearly been lying about where I’ve been spending my time.
The view from here is, however, completely priceless. I spend my afternoons cradling a cool drink or an ice cream on the porch of our cabin reading and looking across the road to the lake and forest of fragrant pines. We face west and the sunsets rival even Waterloo’s; every morning I wake with the sun pouring into our east-facing windows. It’s difficult, especially when I sit outside typing this and soaking up the last rays of a dying day, not to feel how extremely lucky I am to experience this place. It could be the influence of the blessing from the Pic River Ojibwe Elders this morning who have me thinking about our place on the planet, but I’m grateful just to be here as I pass through my life.
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