The Sandy Bridges Program Center (and beginning of training)

It has been ridiculously busy the last couple of days. On Sunday, we moved into the new Sandy Bridges Program Center. The dining hall is HUGE compared to the old building. It takes up pretty much the entire ground floor. The second floor houses the new trading post (probably three times the size of the older trading post), 2 conference rooms, a coffee station, a beautiful porch, and most important to scouts coming off the water, a snack bar. The snack bar still isn’t open, but it will supposedly have scoop ice cream, slushies, and naturally Dorthy Molter rootbeer. It’s a little extravagant in my opinion, but at least the trading post will be less crowded with Scouts getting a fix for their candy addiction. Hopefully it all works out, but I certainly wouldn’t want to work there.

            The porch on the new building is great. The last two days I’ve woken up at 5:30, taken a shower, gotten some coffee, and read a book on the porch for about an hour before breakfast. It’s been a little cold and windy, but it’s still been really nice. I can see hordes of scout masters sitting up there sipping their coffee.

Canoes behind the Bay Post

View from the Sandy Bridges Program Center

The Porch

The Porch

The Porch with a nice Adirondack Chair

            There has been a huge influx of new staff members the last couple of days. I’ve been assigned to a brigade with Roni, a highly sarcastic guy from Israel, and Mat, another brigade leader. I’ve also met a lot of cool people. One of the history staff that I met, Ann, is quite possibly an even bigger Doctor Who fan than I am! In addition, she also loves Merlin and speaks a little German! There have also been a couple of other neat people.

            Training has been pretty much going nonstop. Yesterday (Monday) was a lot of bureaucratic training (and CPR). Today we spent all day on Wilderness First Aid certification. We have more of the same tomorrow, followed by our swim tests. In some ways, it is nice to actually be working toward my actually job, but I kinda miss the rote simplicity of working in the Bay Post. Speaking of my working the Bay Post, today Kevin awarded me the first “General Manager’s Award of Excellence” of the year at lunch. I’m not really sure how big of a deal it actually is, but hey, it’s an indication that someone thinks I’m doing something good.

            Lots of small, interesting things too. Today I spoke with Fred Marks for a while about Germany. He’s was based in Munich for a while. Apparently you could see the Northern Lights up here one night too, but I missed it. Anyways, I’m doing well up here and am looking forward to our swamper (brigade training trip), for which we leave on Saturday morning.

-Andrew

A Day in Virginia

        Today was a base-wide day off, and several of the staff decided to take advantage of the time and run drive down to Virginia, do some errands, and watch some movies. The guys I drove down with ended up watching Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, The Hangover II, and Kung Fu Panda II. After Pirates, Leah, Booby and I decided we didn’t really want to sit through the other movies, grabbed Jared’s car and explored downtown Virginia. We stopped by a park on a small lake and a Goodwill store. The store was an interesting experience: I ended up getting a hat and some other things – and was jokingly asked by a 60-ish year old lady if I wanted to go out that night. Before going back to base, Bobby, a couple of other guys and I stopped by Pizza Hut for some dinner. All in all, a pretty good day.

Welcome to the Northern Experience!

             Welcome to The Northern Experience! My name is Andrew Patterson. I have previously made four trips into the Quetico Provincial Park and Boundary Waters Canoe Area (B.W.C.A). This year, I am an interpreter at the Charles Summers Canoe Base in Ely, Minnesota. As an interpreter, I guide groups of Boy Scouts into the B.W.C.A. and Quetico.

             I arrived on base about two weeks ago, when Bryan, my brother, needed to be up here. My job however, doesn’t officially begin until Sunday the 29^th, so I’ve been helping around base in various functions.  I’ve helped maintenance move mattresses and fix lockers. Then I got involved in helping in the Bay Post (outfitting center). There is a lot of new gear this year – packs, tents, radios, cooking gear – the works. But now the Bay Post is all set to send out crews and training is set to start Sunday night. Most of the interpreters and a fair bit of base staff are arriving Sunday (between 80 and 95). It’s going to get absolutely crazy on base with all the new faces.

            The base has changed a lot in the last couple of years. In the last week, I’ve been helping move stuff into the new Sandy Bridges Program Center, which is the new home of the dining hall and trading post. We have our first meal there on Sunday morning. The new center has the displaced the old parking lot and historical area, so both of those have had to move. The historical area was easily relocated, but a new parking lot is being built. In the short term, it’s actually really annoying, as there are big dirt trucks running through base ALL day. However, I’ve heard that there will be a nice trail directly from the parking lot directly to the Off Road Cabins, which will be really nice (previously campers have had to drag their gear up a fairly big hill to get the cabins. Anyways, the construction should be really nice when it’s done – which should be soon.

            Anyways, thanking for reading! As the summer progresses, I’ll get some nice posts up on my trips into the parks!