You know, when you reach a certain age you don’t really look forward to birthdays anymore. There are no important milestones left, only ones that remind you that you are getting old. Despite all of that, it is nice to spend time with family and at least try to celebrate. Maybe you’ll even get lucky and get an unexpected gift. Boy did I get one this year!

It’s Christmas vacation kids! What a welcome break in the midst of chaos. I really needed the holiday…it was a bit of burnout city for me. The kids were pretty much finished too. By this time of the year they have no focus or attention and trying to get them to do anything is nearly impossible. One week has already flown by, but it with Christmas out of the way things are a little less hectic.

Mid-month snow, December 2018.

View from the mountain, December 2018.

View from the mountain, December 2018.

View from the mountain, December 2018.

So, I can’t not write this blog without making a comment about the weather, which surprisingly has been fairly subdued. Well, until a few days ago that is. Up until the 27^th, we didn’t have a lot of snow and it’s been mild. They predicted a major snowstorm for right after Christmas and this time they weren’t wrong; it was quite the dump! We received more than 30cm of the white stuff and of course the temperature dropped the next day. That left me the best birthday present of all time-two hours of snow blowing in the freezing cold. Happy birthday Dave…

Snowstorm, December 2018.

After the storm, December 2018.

After the storm, December 2018.

After the storm, December 2018.

After the storm, December 2018.

With the respite from work, it means that I do have some time to devote to railway work. I did manage to make to get over to the Lakehead University Library just before the break to look up a few books. After going through the information from one of them over, I had to go and get it again. This time, I made the shorter trip the Brodie Street branch of the Thunder Bay Public Library who also had a copy of the book. That then prompted an examination of some microfilm, which didn’t quite yield the results I was looking for (both of the good quality viewing machines were being used). So, I went back a few days ago and was able to find the newspaper article I was l after. That’s a lot of time in the library!

I’ve also begun writing again. As I described in my last post, there is a bit of work left to do on the book, mostly finishing the last couple chapters and tweaking a few others. There is a chapter that will have to wait until after summer, that being the one that describes the second logging camp, Camp 8/11. Hopefully I’ll have an opportunity to make a more detailed examination of the site, with some luck in the company of some experts. That means I hope to have all the writing done by next winter, which means this odyssey will have encompassed the last 6 years of my life. Do all books take this long? Well, I guess I can answer my own question by saying “yes,” since I’ve been working on the PD for the past 24 years and I’ve written only one chapter!

Anyway, I better move along. This is obviously the last post of 2018, so here’s to another great year in 2019. I’ll be back soon with the latest news and exciting developments. Until then…