"What was that?" I asked, peering through the windshield at the blinding snow.
"A chip truck," DAVE SAUNDERS answered, steadying his vehicle on the icy highway then relaxing again behind the wheel. "They carry wood chips from the saw mills to the pulp and paper mills. They're characteristic vehicles of Northern Alberta. You have to watch out for them though, they can be really dangerous on winter roads."
I was on my way to Fairview to attend the Fairview College Professional Development Days, an annual event which draws together all the members of the Fairview College staff who work in Fairview and at regional centres and campuses in High Level, Ft. Vermilion, La Crete, Buffalo Head Prairie, Assumption, Manning, Peace River and Grande Prairie.
Dave is the Director of Academic Upgrading at Fairview College. He picked me up at the airport in Peace River and during the cold and snowy hour and a half drive to Fairview, talked warmly of his work at the College and his life in the North. Originally from Ontario, Dave came to the Peace Country after doing some graduate work at the University of Alberta. He accepted a position as an adult upgrading instructor at Fairview College in Peace River 14 years ago. His classroom was the Masonic Hall and his students were local townspeople. Dave and his wife came to love the area and decided to stay. My introduction to the North had so far been a bleak one; I quietly hoped that the next few days would help to explain why people often talk about being "drawn in" by the North.
When I got up the next morning it was very dark and very cold. At 9:00 a.m., a huge moon was still working its way to the west providing a gentle light for me as I walked from the hotel to the College.
I attended a morning workshop then joined GRACE LUCK for lunch in the College cafeteria. We carried our lunch trays across the room and found a quiet table by the windows. Grace is the coordinator of the Read/Write Tutor Project at the Peace River Campus of Fairview College and has been involved with the project for the past 5 years. She is a petite and unassuming woman who is, I discovered, a pillar of strength.
When Grace first started her job she had to use whatever space she could find at the local high school for tutoring and/or working with students."I had to take senior adults and English as a Second Language adults through the hallways with all the teenagers sitting on the floor with their legs stretched out. We literally had to step and jump over legs all the way down the hallway to our room. It was terribly awkward for all of us."
Grace's office space is in one of the portable trailers that make up the North Peace Adult Education Consortium. Unlike the trailer in Medicine Hat, adult upgrading classes are actually held in the trailer buildings bur similar to Medicine Hat, the trailers are in desperate need of repair. "When it started to thaw last spring," Grace remembered, "I had 19 buckets in my room to catch the water from the leaks in the ceiling. The upgrading students picketed the Provincial Building downtown to try and get some local attention because it was so bad. They carried signs that said, 'B.Y.O.B.- BRING YOUR OWN BUCKETS'!"