Another sad but happy experience for me was when an equipment oilier came by to refuel the generators and trucks he fell off the top of a generator onto a pile of frozen pipe and broke his back. I organized a group and we put him in a stretcher basket and brought him inside a building to warm up as he was under dressed and he would have frozen to death if we left him there. I received a letter of commendation from the company and thanks from the family. In my safety training for being a supervisor I learned how to move and pick someone up with a broken back. The doctors said we saved his life and did no damage in how we lifted him, a job very well done. I also had this one old Indian man that loved to drink every night, one morning he came in still drunk and I told him not to run the chain saws that day till he sobered up. He was one of the best men I had to run a chain saw, he was a master. But on that day he picked it up as soon as I left and it kicked back and cut his ear off and dug deep into his shoulder beside his neck. He was sent home and never allowed back again. I never did hear how he made out or what happened to him. There was also one other incident that happened near the end. An electrician whom I didn't know slipped and ran his screwdriver into an electric panel and it burned him so bad they cut both arms off below the elbow, he was only 20 something, with 2 small kids at home. The only bad thing that happened to me was one morning after a whiteout. I was digging out my pickup truck to go check out the off site jobs. I got over heated and lifted my facemask to breath a little and the moisture on my nose and checks frozen instantly I was not thinking. I was rushed to the doctors with frostbite. It was very sore for a few days but it was not a bad case but bad enough to make me blister. Stupidity was the cause of my cases of frostbite up there. I was lucky they did not send me home that day as they did in a lot of cases, for once you frostbite your cells are much more susceptible to be frozen again, and I was not healed that well for a long time.

     My memories from this time are things that I will take to the grave with me. It was an experience I will always cherish, and it was where I grew up as a craftsperson and a person. The friends I made I may not see anymore and a lot have passed away to another world. Their memories will be with me forever and the smiles of them are mine forever. (This was the final result of where the oil was going looking south just outside pump station 1)

Crossing the Arctic Circle on the 13th day of November 1975 on my way to ACI job at GC 1. We ended up about 350 miles north of the Arctic Circle right on the Arctic Ocean.