Jasper Alberta fire devastation.

[Mordred]

My sympathies for those suffering the loss of their homes and livelyhood in Jasper Alberta. 30 to 50 % loss due to wild fires.

https://edmontonjournal.com/news/politics/jasper-townsite-damaged-by-two-wildfires

Edited July 26 by Mordred

[exchemist]

3 hours ago, Mordred said:

My sympathies for those suffering the loss of their homes and livelyhood in Jasper BC. 30 to 50 % loss due to wild fires.

https://edmontonjournal.com/news/politics/jasper-townsite-damaged-by-two-wildfires

Are the dry conditions in that region something to do with El Niño?

[Mordred]

We do tend to get drier Summers due to El Nino. Though they were predicting a drought season as well. 

[TheVat]

Jasper is located in Alberta, not BC.

My sympathies as well.  We live on the edge of wildfire country. (an area where nights are cool enough that many don't have AC - more smoke drifting in the past few years has led some to rethink the cooling system of just opening windows 9pm-9am.)

Climatologists have some models that show the North American West getting drier in the coming decades.  Could mean that some woodlands will give way to scrubland or savannah or even just grasslands.  It won't be fun getting through such a transition.

[exchemist]

4 minutes ago, TheVat said:

Jasper is located in Alberta, not BC.

My sympathies as well.  We live on the edge of wildfire country. (an area where nights are cool enough that many don't have AC - more smoke drifting in the past few years has led some to rethink the cooling system of just opening windows 9pm-9am.)

Climatologists have some models that show the North American West getting drier in the coming decades.  Could mean that some woodlands will give way to scrubland or savannah or even just grasslands.  It won't be fun getting through such a transition.

I think I once visited Jasper  - car trip from Banff, on a road that passed the foot of the Athabasca glacier, as I recall - and climbed a mountain there that has a cable car to the top, which I rode down, as I tend to suffer from what is known in the family as DKF (Downhill Knee F---),  when descending mountains. Any idea what that mountain is called, if my memory of this makes sense? Seem to recall being told to make plenty of noise on the way up, to alert any bears to my presence, which was interesting, for a Brit like me, used mainly to Scottish mountains.   

[TheVat]

15 minutes ago, exchemist said:

I think I once visited Jasper  - car trip from Banff, on a road that passed the foot of the Athabasca glacier, as I recall - and climbed a mountain there that has a cable car to the top, which I rode down, as I tend to suffer from what is known in the family as DKF (Downhill Knee F---),  when descending mountains. Any idea what that mountain is called, if my memory of this makes sense? Seem to recall being told to make plenty of noise on the way up, to alert any bears to my presence, which was interesting, for a Brit like me, used mainly to Scottish mountains.  

Probably not Mt Athabasca, which is off limits to tourists.  Maybe Pyramid Peak.  DKF is nearly universal in those with trick knees, AFAICT.  The biomechanics of descent are hard on even fairly healthy knees, I've heard (and experienced myself).  As a hiker, I've found the best way to mitigate DKF is taking short steps and stopping to "bicycle" your legs every few hundred feet.

[exchemist]

Just now, TheVat said:

Probably not Mt Athabasca, which is off limits to tourists.  Maybe Pyramid Peak.  DKF is nearly universal in those with trick knees, AFAICT.  The biomechanics of descent are hard on even fairly healthy knees, I've heard (and experienced myself).  As a hiker, I've found the best way to mitigate DKF is taking short steps and stopping to "bicycle" your legs every few hundred feet.

I resort to going down backwards, for 100m or so, every so often. It makes me look a bit of a fool but at my age who cares? It seems to redistribute the synovial fluid, or in some other way destress the joint or allow the moving parts to shift a bit. I was amused to find, descending Ben Arthur (The Cobbler) in Argyll a few years ago, a 25yr old girl doing exactly the same thing, for the same reason. We compared notes on our dodgy knees, which is how I found out she was 25.  

Pyramid Peak doesn't ring a bell, but looking it up I see there is in fact a cable car to near the top of The Whistlers, which certainly does ring a bell. So I think that was the one.   

 

[TheVat]

5 minutes ago, exchemist said:

I resort to going down backwards, for 100m or so, every so often. It makes me look a bit of a fool but at my age who cares?

Yes I've done that on very steep pitches, too.  The delicate art of not not tripping up on a root or rock as you try to maintain a clear backwards view of the path.  Walking sticks (or trekking poles, as they call them here, these days) also help to get some of the load off the knee joint, but I don't much like them.  Not for the looking like a fool aspect, but just having to carry one more thing.

[geordief]

37 minutes ago, TheVat said:

Yes I've done that on very steep pitches, too.  The delicate art of not not tripping up on a root or rock as you try to maintain a clear backwards view of the path.  Walking sticks (or trekking poles, as they call them here, these days) also help to get some of the load off the knee joint, but I don't much like them.  Not for the looking like a fool aspect, but just having to carry one more thing.

I had a downslope ankle f'up a couple of years ago .The very day I was to drive a neighbour into the doctor with a sprained ankle from twisting hers  in  a pothole.

  I walked down to the garden in slippery wellies the  very next morning  and my foot slid  away from  me in the slippery ,slightly inclined  wet muddy surface .

I slid a couple of yards  and came down with the  right foot squeezed directly under  my right buttock and pointing backwards.

A loud snapping sound  but nothing broken.    Still, quite a bit of recuperation involved (they don't always heal properly  if you don't give them time)

@exchemist I just got a  preliminary letter from the hospital , some 40 days since I saw the optometrist from the ophthalmology dept to have a look at the Weiss ring .I wonder should I bother as I  have had nothing  untoward in my vision since**.(there have been long waiting lists  in the hospital but I assumed this would have been classed as  fairly urgent for them to refer me at all) 

 

(the optometrist told me at the time  that she saw a paler part of the floater that she  couldn't tell if it was still attached to the retina.That is why she referred me to the ophthalmologist  at the hospital)

 

**of course the Weiss ring is always  there.

             

Edited July 26 by geordief

[MigL]

An Indian engineer I used to work with, moved out West to Edmonton, last year to work for one of the oil companies. We had become good friends so we still keep in touch. He brought his brother over on a visa, and found him a job in Jasper ( where he has cousins ) to guarantee his application for landed immigrant status.
I spoke to my friend Parth last night and he told me his brother's workplace and apartment, along with almost half the town, had been burned down by a wall of flames driven by 100km/hr winds.
All evacuees were sent BC way, not further inland Alberta,

[Mordred]

2 hours ago, TheVat said:

Jasper is located in Alberta, 

Thanks changed the above

[TheVat]

1 hour ago, geordief said:

had a downslope ankle f'up a couple of years ago .The very day I was to drive a neighbour into the doctor with a sprained ankle from twisting hers  in  a pothole.

  I walked down to the garden in slippery wellies the  very next morning  and my foot slid  away from  me in the slippery ,slightly inclined  wet muddy surface .

Illustrates the way accidents are more common on home turf or comfortable situations.  When you hike, you expect a certain hazard and the caution reflexes are activated and you choose where you place your feet.   Those reflexes are dampened (so to speak) at home.  Nastiest tumble I had was off a stepstool in the garage.  

Here comes the topic relevance officer, slapping his baton in his hand....

[iNow]

14 minutes ago, TheVat said:

Illustrates the way accidents are more common on home turf or comfortable situations. 

Similar trends are seen based on where in a project one is. Bigger riskier projects, building something most commonly, teams start out super cautious and focused on every single minute detail, but by the end have desensitized to the risks and mental processing has returned more to the background. It’s the last days where we see spikes in injury and error. 

1 hour ago, MigL said:

his brother's workplace and apartment, along with almost half the town, had been burned down by a wall of flames driven by 100km/hr winds.

I’m sorry to hear that. I hope their immigration and living status isn’t also effected as a result 

[geordief]

20 minutes ago, TheVat said:

Illustrates the way accidents are more common on home turf or comfortable situations.  When you hike, you expect a certain hazard and the caution reflexes are activated and you choose where you place your feet.   Those reflexes are dampened (so to speak) at home.  Nastiest tumble I had was off a stepstool in the garage.  

Here comes the topic relevance officer, slapping his baton in his hand....

Hope that is not a euphemism.Let the good times roll

 

On topic I hope @Janus is not too close to the fires.

[Mordred]

Thankfully I'm in Southern Alberta we get the smoke which affects my wife's asmtha but thankfully my area isn't at risk though I have relatives that my father is putting up in his home from Jasper.

[Janus]

21 hours ago, geordief said:

Hope that is not a euphemism.Let the good times roll

 

On topic I hope @Janus is not too close to the fires.

Thanks for the concern, But I'm a good 500 mi from Jasper, and on the other side of the continental divide.

[MigL]

22 hours ago, iNow said:

I’m sorry to hear that. I hope their immigration and living status isn’t also effected as a result 

My friend Parth's won't be; he's already landed immigrant status.
His brother's might well be, if he can't return to that particular job.

Only 'refugees' have an easy time of immigrating to Canada; every one else has to jump through hoops and wait years on the bureaucracy.
Almost as effed-up as your system.

[TheVat]

2 hours ago, MigL said:

Only 'refugees' have an easy time of immigrating to Canada; every one else has to jump through hoops and wait years on the bureaucracy.
Almost as effed-up as your system.

This is not a criticism, I am just curious why the quotation marks.  A couple of my ancestors were refugees, so I'm fairly aware of that condition as being a real thing.  

[MigL]

2 hours ago, TheVat said:

This is not a criticism, I am just curious why the quotation marks. 

A lot of 'refugees' are not refugees.
They land at our airports, claim refugee status, and have no paperworks.
Begs the question ... How did they board the plane without paperwork ??

Also there is no such thing as an economic refugee; all immigrants are seeking a better way of life, but that doesn't make them refugees.
An immigrant who seeks a better way of life is required to have a job waiting for him/her that has to be worked at for a period of time, or take college/university courses without a source of income.
Or you claim refugee status and the Government puts you and about 300 others in hotel rooms in Niagara Falls, with free health care, dental benefits and welfare benefits.
Most of the Indian young men I work with had to wait, on average, two years for the bureaucracy to allow their wives to join them here.

Canada has plenty of land area, and little population. We want ( actually, need ) immigrants; why not make it easier for all who wish to come here legally ?

Edited July 27 by MigL

[Endy0816]

2 hours ago, MigL said:

A lot of 'refugees' are not refugees.
They land at our airports, claim refugee status, and have no paperworks.
Begs the question ... How did they board the plane without paperwork ??

Also there is no such thing as an economic refugee; all immigrants are seeking a better way of life, but that doesn't make them refugees.
An immigrant who seeks a better way of life is required to have a job waiting for him/her that has to be worked at for a period of time, or take college/university courses without a source of income.
Or you claim refugee status and the Government puts you and about 300 others in hotel rooms in Niagara Falls, with free health care, dental benefits and welfare benefits.
Most of the Indian young men I work with had to wait, on average, two years for the bureaucracy to allow their wives to join them here.

Canada has plenty of land area, and little population. We want ( actually, need ) immigrants; why not make it easier for all who wish to come here legally ?

Could perhaps expand upon Canada's existing program for biometrics collection.

Am guessing having the same problem as everyone of processing asylum requests. Will end up with an obvious problem if fewer are being processed than are arriving.

Really be better to restrict initial benefits than for governments to interfere with free market labor flows. Invisible Hand will always act to counter anything they attempt.