An Interpreter Life

So what do interpreters do when they are not on water? Contrary to popular belief, we unfortunately don't get trip after trip after trip. So what do we do? Well, firstly there are Daily Duties. Daily Duties are just a way to help out around base when we don't have a crew. These include cleaning the Sandy Bridges Program Center, bathrooms, and the cabins, but also can helping maintenance fix things, commissary pack food for people, outfitting outfit people and history staff entertain and teach participants. Some of the Dailies can be fun, or at least interesting, but others, such as the cleaning, are just annoying (at least to me). Fortunately, once the season gets really up and going, interpreters won't be stuck on them for two long.

An interpreter's schedule might look like this:

Day I: get a crew
     -find out information about your crew, pack food packs, gear packs, plan your route with your crew, and do a shakedown with your crew
Day II: get on water as soon as possible after breakfast
Day III-Day ?: the trek
     -treks can last anywhere from 5-10 days
Day ?: get off water
      -get off water after 2:00 PM, shower, clean up, go to rendezvous (voyageur campfire)
Day ?+1: see your crew off
Day ?+2: Work day!
       -When you don't have a crew, you do you do Daily Duties!
Day ?+?: Day off
       -One or two days between crews, you get a day off

The cycle repeats, although occasionally a wrench gets thrown in: a crew shows up a day early, a voyageur brigade (no interpreter) comes, or there was a planning fluke and they need to send you right back on water. Or you might just have one day off and and then you get another crew.

Sadly, things don't always work this way at the beginning of the seasons. With all the new staff getting out of training, there are more interpreters on base than can be quickly sent out on water, even with large days (our first day of the season was 16 crews). There wasn't enough cabins free for us, so we had to move to a tent town. I counted 25 tents and 2 hammocks in the area around me, but I know there were more.

Tent city

Fortunately, this shouldn't happen too often during the season, although it's no big deal if it does. I'm just a little bit antsy sleeping in a tent but not yet being out on the water yet. 

But tomorrow I get a crew!