Willie: Muskeg

One of the few tales that my father would tell is how they dealt with Muskeg in building the Alcan Highway in 1942. He told of how bulldozers (they used hundreds or maybe thousands of bulldozers) would push trees over the Muskeg and then build the road surface on top of the downed trees. With trees subject to rot, I imagine that was a fairly short term solution of 10-15 years before reworking/repair was required.

Until recently, I had little idea of what Muskeg is and where it is found. I had the impression that Muskeg was associated with permafrost and that it would be found farther north. Today, I chatted with a fellow patron of the Tetsa River Lodge who was wearing a T shirt that mentioned Muskeg. He informed that Muskeg is soft marshy ground that can swallow both people and vehicles. Once swallowed, neither is likely to be extracted. This guy works oil projects. He said that Muskeg is not much of a risk if trees growing on top are large; small trees are likely to be found growing in Muskeg. He said that there is a lot of Muskeg around Fort Nelson which is near the beginning of the Alcan. The guy also said that Muskeg might catch fire in a forest fire. If so, it can smolder through out a winter and burn again the next season.

I'll stick in some electric power comments here. I noticed what might have been some wood power generation plants in the vicinity of Edson. Here in northern British Columbia many areas are supplied from diesel engine generators, both utility owned to supply entire communities and small private off grid diesels. I was greatly surprised with the dearth of PV. I talked a bit with the owner of Tetsa River Lodge who operates his own diesel powered micro grid. In order to provide for some diesel down time, he has a small battery setup. He was using 12 large single cell sealed lead acid configured in two banks of six in parallel. I guessed that each cell was about 300 amp-hours but he informed me that they are about 800 ah. He charges the battery while the diesel is running rather than from PV panels. That got me to thinking about how PV panels might be used in the far north. Even though summer is their primary season, I heard several comments that the problem with PV is low winter production. My current thinking is that panels should be near vertical, perhaps 10-20 deg off vertical and pointing several directions. They could not rest on the ground as mine do because of snow ground cover. I've heard it said that they have knee deep snow coverage for around 7 months. Near vertical would likely allow snow to slough off. The ground mount would have to hold the panels several feet off the ground and allow snow removal equipment to operate.

Another aside. While passing through burned areas, I was thinking what a good opportunity for some carbon sequestration that would be. Neighbor Ray has long experimented making charcoal for soil amendment and sequestration. But, he is not oriented to low cost and efficiency. I offer the idea of, in burned areas, bulldozing trenches and pushing fire debris into the trenches. Then, making charcoal in place and leaving it. Details are left to the reader. Maybe I should do another blog post on charcoal.

With less than 100 miles in my battery, I leave Toad River Lodge for expected better charging 40 miles down the road at Northern Rockies Lodge. If I get a good charge rate there, I will make Watson Lake later today. I look forward to seeing the Northern Lights facility that is there. Watson Lake is supposed to be the end of a string of Flo 50kw chademos that go toward Alaska. This "charge for 10-15 hours in order to drive less than 100 miles" sucks.

Here I am at Northern Rocky Lodge charging at 5 kilowatts I think. Paying dearly for both charge and Wi-Fi access. I think around $70 Canadian. Their silly web-based Wi-Fi access prevents the Tesla from hooking up. So I have cell phone access but not car access nobody knows where the car is. To kill some time I just loaded up blogger on this cell phone on their Wi-Fi and an experimenting. That is expanding on this post with voice to text. Seems to be working very well.

To reach Watson Lake where there is supposedly Chademo charging, I will need four or five hours of charging. Watson lake is abouOne attraction to Watson Lake is the Northern lights facility they have there; I'm eager to learn more about the Northern lights.

Let's see if I can insert photos directly from phone.