Fuzzy bear bums and big machines



Bear eating clovers

 We have had a few bears around our work site and around our camp.  Here is a picture of a young black bear eating clovers.  I think that must be a particularly delicious patch of clovers because this bear is around the area all the time.  He's pretty cute and doesn't seem to be causing any trouble.  We had another bear on site today (maybe his mum?) who was much bigger and was getting in to all our garbage cans.  I think she (I'm only guessing that this bear was a she) has been around for a while because even though we didn't have any food in our garbage cans, she still recognized the cans and went rooting through.  I caught her this morning with her head and front paws buried in our recycling can, fuzzy round bum sticking out.  She's adorable.  She's been hanging around our site all day today, and she even left us a little "gift" (well it was rather large, actually) in our tool crib. 



Bucketwheel

 Yesterday we had the day off and a few of us decided to visit the Oil Sands Discovery Centre.  It's a sort of museum dedicated to the evolution of technology, as well as some more recent research topics in the oil sands industry. They've got some stuff for kids (training the little ones to one day become oil sands workers, I assume) and lots of stuff that's educational.  They also have an outdoor "garden" of some old equipment like this one you see above.  This is an old bucketwheel.  It basically rolls that wheel and scoops up dirt (or whatever you want it to scoop), then dumps it onto a conveyor belt which goes wherever you want it to go.  Bucketwheels are still used today, but today they are of course a more refined (less wooden) technology. 

 

Bucketwheel detail

 Here is a closer view of the bucketwheel from the other side.  You can see a bit of human scale here with a few of my coworkers (they're rock truck drivers, by the way).

I bought some terribly tacky souvenirs (tacky in the best way possible), such as a fleece vest with an embroidered Cat 797 truck on it, as well as some other things that will be gifts and will not be discussed here as to avoid ruining the surprise!


 

Me next to a Cat 797 tire

 If you're wondering what a Cat 797 is, I believe it's the biggest rock truck in the world.  It can hold up to about 400 tons and are seriously impressive machines.  Just to put that in perspective, the rock trucks we drive on site hold about 25-30 tons, though we've had as big as 40-ton trucks.  Here is an idea of what ours look like:



A Linkbelt 350 excavator and 25-ton rock truck