Working Man

I've now been in Victoria for two weeks and I have just completed my first week as a working man. I'm working for Island Precision Manufacturing, a cabinetry shop that makes high end products for big projects. Right now we're building all the cabinets for the Ritz Carlton in Lake Tahoe. The work is pretty good, I enjoy it and the people are very freindly and good to be around. Oh I also commute 17km each way and I have to be there at 7 am to start which means my mornings are early waking up at 5 am but then I am off work at 3:30 which gives me the whole evening to ride and go for runs. I like it.
Anyways I am off to eat some breakfast now and go for a morning run.

made it to Victoria

I made it to Victoria and everything went well. The flight was good and the bus ride over and the ferry all went smoothly.
My place in Victoria is nice. It's a 4 bedroom basement suite that I share with 2 other guys. Both of them ride bikes so its pretty good. We also live part way up Mount Tolmie so at the end of every ride a get to do a little climbing to make it home. Tonight I did the Aviawest group ride which was good and it wasn't super quick so it was a nice way to start riding a road bike again since I haven't really ridden one since June.
I also bought myself a bike for commuting on today! It's a Norco LRT 2 and it came with fenders and a rear rack which I also bought a basket for to carry my groceries in. Should be pretty good and I am not worried about leaving it locked up in a bike rack.
Now I just have to find a job.
Oh I am also going to do the Bear MTN hill climb on Thursday, it's not a huge climb about 7.5min and then after there's a buffet dinner so it's probably one of the best races for value since it's a $10 entry fee.

Moose Hunting

I went moose hunting with Martin Owen this past week. The plan was for me to arrive in Dawson City and meet him there on the monday the 1st of September and then we would head out early in the morning of the 3rd and be there until the afternoon of the 7th. So early Wednesday morning we headed out before light and just as it was getting light we saw a couple of grouse so we stopped and got those for our lunch later on. We then stopped at one location but never saw any fresh signs and tried calling a bit but continued on towards where we were planning on hunting. About 30min drive away still we saw a Cow moose with a calf so we stopped and looked at them for awhile before continuing on our way. As we came around the corner and were able to look out over the valley we planned to hunt we spotted two moose about 1km away and we could see that one was a bull! We then started our hike into the valley and slowly getting closer and about 300m when we could see them again we realized they were actually two bulls and they were fighting! Just the one bull only had small antlers and we couldn't see them from far off. We were able to get to 150m with a large grassy opening in between so I shot from there. Then it was time to find a way across the river to them and we figured we would be able to drive an old road up the other side of the river fairly close so we hiked back out drove to the other side and realized the moose was actually on an island! The area around there was super muddy as well otherwise we would have driven through the river to get to it but with all the silt and quick mud we would probably lose the truck before we were half way across.

Once we had it all quartered and piled by the river we then drove back into Dawson (90km) and borrowed a canoe from Malcolm who also agreed to come along with us and help pull it out, Which was super nice of him! We had to paddle up stream for about 1.5-2km before we got there then load everything into the canoe and Malcolm agreed to paddle it back down the river since he had the most experience canoeing and Martin and I would hike back out. Anyways it all worked out and 22hrs after setting out on our hunting trip we were back in Dawson, very tired but also happy.