I've had several comments recently along the lines of: "I think I
know what ManCamp is....but, what is it?" and "What do these Men do at
ManCamp?" I've been so immersed in it for a year now that I forget
that some of you may have no idea what my updates are referencing and
perchance even envision me at some sort of retreat where Men come to get
in touch with their feelings, wear white pajamas around a zen garden,
eat organic food, and practice vinyasas near an eternal flame. This
image mixed with the actual Men I work with brings me to my knees with
laughter and amusement. So, now, I will do my best to present an
accurate portrayal...albeit incredibly skewed by a female
perspective...of ManCamp.
Before I dive in to what ManCamp is let me tell you how I ended up here. My entire adult life has been spent working seasonal jobs in Alaska. When I first came here in the summers of 1995/96 I endured the slime lines of cannery work in Seward. In 1997 I moved to the Interior of the state and began working in Denali National Park as a Backcountry Ranger. After 5 summers spent with the NPS and establishing my year-round home in the Denali area, I knew that government work was not for me but I wanted to support local business and friends of mine who are business owners. The next 8 summers were spent making sandwiches, driving shuttle vans, and serving fine food and wine for tourists in Denali Park. My job descriptions for the park service were more dreamy, but I was treated better, had more fun, and didn't take my job home with me working to support local businesses. Plus, my schedule was ideal: 4 months of work per year (mid-May to mid-September) and 4 days of work per week (10 hour days or restaurant gigs). I had my winters to ski, travel, hunker, and build a cabin. WeeBeeEconomics will be another story but it's based on the no debt principle: spend only money you have. But I digress.... this lifestyle suited me just fine until about 2 years ago.
Two years ago I ended a relationship with a boyfriend, with a boss, and with a city I'd been wintering in for 3 years. It was time for change and I just didn't know which direction I wanted to go. Some people feel like they have no options whereas I felt like "the world is my oyster" was a bit of a daunting recourse. Long story short, I deviated from my normal work schedule, such as it was, and was happily unemployed for 14 glorious months. I traveled in the Lower 48, reconnected with winter in Alaska, spent 6 weeks in India becoming a yoga instructor, did my first backpacking trip in the Arctic, toured with a band, and was generally up to my neck with LIFE. In the back of my mind I kept thinking, "I should start working." But that is just when Opportunity would tickle me with her feather boa and smile that seductive smile and I would find myself dancing in Louisiana, a daiquiri in one hand and a Cajun boy in the other. I'm just that easy.
Toward the end of those 14 months of footloose and fancy free, I felt it was time to restock the coffers and get a little bit of a schedule in my life. I think it's good for me in spurts...schedule or routine, that is, particularly heading into an Alaskan winter where going for a ski and hitting the box of wine at 3 pm is not uncommon during these long nights. The problem was was that it was October in Alaska and I'd only ever worked during the summer [read: tourist] season. There are no jobs available in the area where I live during the winter. I would be hard pressed to even get on a construction crew and they work *outside* in *Alaska* all *winter*. So I began thinking outside the box and turned to the internet for options.
I had the idea to find a job in the oil industry mainly out of curiosity and what I consider to be a pretty great schedule: 2 weeks on, 2 weeks off. Of course drilling is a huge industry in Alaska and employs scores of us, but living in the rural Interior region that I do, we all just happen to work in the tourist industry (by and large). My curiosity stems from my study of anthropology. I love seeing how people live, where they live, hear what they talk about, compare what we have in common and what is completely different, and generally immersing myself in a place/people. I experimented with city life in Austin. I've been to Cajun country of Louisiana about 9 times in the last 4 years. I've spent a year and a half in New Zealand. I spent 6 weeks in the same town in India and went nowhere else barring airports. I thought that immersing myself in the drilling culture of Alaska, a culture within a culture if you will, would be so interesting at the same time that it could be profitable. Such a very large employer of Alaskans and yet I knew nothing about it. So I perused the internet for job opportunities.
Long story short, again, I answered an ad on Anchorage craigslist that simply read: Remote Camp needs Housekeeper (West Side of Cook Inlet). I'd been looking at all sorts of sites from generic "find work in the oil field" sites to catering companies specializing with jobs in the field. This ad particularly caught my eye because it was on craigslist and was brief and to the point. Contact was made, job was secured, I went to Blackpot, and then I began work.... totally open to and not knowing what I was getting myself in to.
ManCamp is a place where Men working in the drilling industry (I've learned that even if you're drilling for natural gas, which is what goes on here, it is generally still referred to as the oil fields) live while they are at work. The Men live at camp on varying schedules: 20 days on, 10 days off. 3 weeks on, 1 week off. 2 weeks on, 2 weeks off. 103 days straight. You never know. They have job titles like roustabout, driller, operator, rigger, Company Man, tool pusher, and the like. Depending on what company is leasing our camp the Men are either from Alaska and specifically from the Kenai Peninsula for the most part, or are just working here from the Lower 48. There are drastic differences in the two types and that I will leave to my anthropological dissertation. The Camp I work at is converted ATCO units put together and is called Cottonwood. By all accounts it is a nice, clean facility. There are 8 rooms in the main Camp; two cabins with 2 bunk beds in each; plus one ATCO unit about 2 miles down the road which can hold 12 Men (three rooms with 2 bunks in each room). On top of that, the small company I work for has a house where 3 our our employees live. I drive 4 hours from Cantwell to Anchorage and then fly 25 minutes from Anchorage to Beluga to get here. I live in a place that is on a bluff overlooking the Cook Inlet and the entire Chugach Mountain range. I live in a place where helicopters take off and land in the yard. Groceries come by plane. Graders, plows, dozers, and all manner of large truck and equipment signal their backing up procedure with loud beep beep beeps. The sunrises are out of this world. I fall to bed every night knowing I've worked hard, done my best, and am appreciated by those I serve.
My job is to take care of everything and everybody at Camp.
I am housekeeper and kitchen assistant and innkeeper. My creative outlet is being in charge of the salad bar which has become legendary among Camps. I make beds, launder sheets and towels, make reservations, keep track of comings and goings and bed assignments (oh the power..!), do dishes, clean bathrooms (using my anthropology degree as a squeegee), stock pretty much everything, pick up groceries at the airport, unload hundreds of pounds of supplies, clean every inch of all of Camp all while being funny and sassy and smart and thoughtful and welcoming and intentionally dumb and saying things that make the MenFolk blush. I try to make this Camp feel like a home. Because let's face it: I spend half of my life here right now. It might as well be as fun as possible.
When I took the job I had my defenses up: I was going to be the only Woman in a Camp with 40 or so Men. I worked hard, was friendly, but mainly kept to myself. I was suspicious and wary. But the more I learned the ways of Camp and the Men here, I owned it. This was my territory. I'm a strong, confident woman; something all Men fear or at least do not understand. The sassiness invaded and no one questioned me. It's been a roller coaster ride since then... I've laughed far more than I've cried, but it hasn't all been a bed of roses.
I've been working with another woman, the cook, for about 7 months now and we are a force to be reckoned with. We create a homey atmosphere (as much as a ManCamp can provide one...) by learning Men's names, finding out a little about them, joking with them at meal time. Sometimes we get laughing/cackling in the kitchen and the Men go quiet, wondering what we could be laughing about. I can feel the power we have around here at moments like those....
Depending on schedules I work from 12 to 16 hours per day. Some days I want to put a knitting needle in my eye just to do something different. Other days just fly by. Last summer was totally crazy: 15.5 hour days where I was lucky to have 15 minutes to go in my room and sit. I go for 2 weeks at a time without sitting down for a meal. I'm always doing 3 to 7 things at a time. People always need something from me. Want me to show them how to do something. Get something for them. Honestly, sometimes I feel like I'm like a den mother.
The rewards have been 3-fold: financially I've set myself up for a good long dose of unemployment in the year 2012. I made and banked real money, got my first ever health insurance, and have been able to replace gear and work on my cabin at the same time. Anthropologically I hit the jackpot. I lived among my study group. I infiltrated their world. I became one of them. One morning I made a crude joke in front of two Men and I apologized saying, "Oops..sorry, I'm kind of awkward like that." One of the Men didn't even look up from his breakfast and said, "Nah...you're just oil field." Biggest compliment ever. And thirdly, I've come to tolerate, understand, like, and even become friends with people I never thought I'd meet let alone like. Namely, Ronald Reagan worshiping, FOX news watching, Bible thumping (even if just on principle), Obama hating, pro life Republicans. I know, I know. But living among them, and not being here to be on a pedestal or change anyone's mind.... just to be here to see what life is like at a ManCamp, to fit in... made it possible to focus on what we all have in common: the day to day challenges of long work hours, the simple joy of a delicious home-style meal, a joke, being exhausted beyond belief, having time to play horseshoes, playing practical jokes on each other.... just living together. On the whole, as a Group, I can't fathom the ideology. But when it came to just being people together...well, let's just say that maybe Congress should live in a ManCamp-style situation (including the intense manual labor!) for a few months and see if they can't come together on some things. We are all just people trying to live a good life, provide for the ones we need to take care of, and be happy. Yes, our ideas of how this happens are vastly different, but there is always the option of focusing on what we have in common rather than what is so extremely incompatible about our lives. That was an eye opener for me...
Sooo, that's ManCamp in a nutshell. An Austin Powers-sized nutshell. I could go on, but I think this is the gist of how I got here, what I do, and what the MenFolk do here.... it's a crazy world.
WeeBee with actual Man.
Before I dive in to what ManCamp is let me tell you how I ended up here. My entire adult life has been spent working seasonal jobs in Alaska. When I first came here in the summers of 1995/96 I endured the slime lines of cannery work in Seward. In 1997 I moved to the Interior of the state and began working in Denali National Park as a Backcountry Ranger. After 5 summers spent with the NPS and establishing my year-round home in the Denali area, I knew that government work was not for me but I wanted to support local business and friends of mine who are business owners. The next 8 summers were spent making sandwiches, driving shuttle vans, and serving fine food and wine for tourists in Denali Park. My job descriptions for the park service were more dreamy, but I was treated better, had more fun, and didn't take my job home with me working to support local businesses. Plus, my schedule was ideal: 4 months of work per year (mid-May to mid-September) and 4 days of work per week (10 hour days or restaurant gigs). I had my winters to ski, travel, hunker, and build a cabin. WeeBeeEconomics will be another story but it's based on the no debt principle: spend only money you have. But I digress.... this lifestyle suited me just fine until about 2 years ago.
Two years ago I ended a relationship with a boyfriend, with a boss, and with a city I'd been wintering in for 3 years. It was time for change and I just didn't know which direction I wanted to go. Some people feel like they have no options whereas I felt like "the world is my oyster" was a bit of a daunting recourse. Long story short, I deviated from my normal work schedule, such as it was, and was happily unemployed for 14 glorious months. I traveled in the Lower 48, reconnected with winter in Alaska, spent 6 weeks in India becoming a yoga instructor, did my first backpacking trip in the Arctic, toured with a band, and was generally up to my neck with LIFE. In the back of my mind I kept thinking, "I should start working." But that is just when Opportunity would tickle me with her feather boa and smile that seductive smile and I would find myself dancing in Louisiana, a daiquiri in one hand and a Cajun boy in the other. I'm just that easy.
Toward the end of those 14 months of footloose and fancy free, I felt it was time to restock the coffers and get a little bit of a schedule in my life. I think it's good for me in spurts...schedule or routine, that is, particularly heading into an Alaskan winter where going for a ski and hitting the box of wine at 3 pm is not uncommon during these long nights. The problem was was that it was October in Alaska and I'd only ever worked during the summer [read: tourist] season. There are no jobs available in the area where I live during the winter. I would be hard pressed to even get on a construction crew and they work *outside* in *Alaska* all *winter*. So I began thinking outside the box and turned to the internet for options.
I had the idea to find a job in the oil industry mainly out of curiosity and what I consider to be a pretty great schedule: 2 weeks on, 2 weeks off. Of course drilling is a huge industry in Alaska and employs scores of us, but living in the rural Interior region that I do, we all just happen to work in the tourist industry (by and large). My curiosity stems from my study of anthropology. I love seeing how people live, where they live, hear what they talk about, compare what we have in common and what is completely different, and generally immersing myself in a place/people. I experimented with city life in Austin. I've been to Cajun country of Louisiana about 9 times in the last 4 years. I've spent a year and a half in New Zealand. I spent 6 weeks in the same town in India and went nowhere else barring airports. I thought that immersing myself in the drilling culture of Alaska, a culture within a culture if you will, would be so interesting at the same time that it could be profitable. Such a very large employer of Alaskans and yet I knew nothing about it. So I perused the internet for job opportunities.
Long story short, again, I answered an ad on Anchorage craigslist that simply read: Remote Camp needs Housekeeper (West Side of Cook Inlet). I'd been looking at all sorts of sites from generic "find work in the oil field" sites to catering companies specializing with jobs in the field. This ad particularly caught my eye because it was on craigslist and was brief and to the point. Contact was made, job was secured, I went to Blackpot, and then I began work.... totally open to and not knowing what I was getting myself in to.
ManCamp is a place where Men working in the drilling industry (I've learned that even if you're drilling for natural gas, which is what goes on here, it is generally still referred to as the oil fields) live while they are at work. The Men live at camp on varying schedules: 20 days on, 10 days off. 3 weeks on, 1 week off. 2 weeks on, 2 weeks off. 103 days straight. You never know. They have job titles like roustabout, driller, operator, rigger, Company Man, tool pusher, and the like. Depending on what company is leasing our camp the Men are either from Alaska and specifically from the Kenai Peninsula for the most part, or are just working here from the Lower 48. There are drastic differences in the two types and that I will leave to my anthropological dissertation. The Camp I work at is converted ATCO units put together and is called Cottonwood. By all accounts it is a nice, clean facility. There are 8 rooms in the main Camp; two cabins with 2 bunk beds in each; plus one ATCO unit about 2 miles down the road which can hold 12 Men (three rooms with 2 bunks in each room). On top of that, the small company I work for has a house where 3 our our employees live. I drive 4 hours from Cantwell to Anchorage and then fly 25 minutes from Anchorage to Beluga to get here. I live in a place that is on a bluff overlooking the Cook Inlet and the entire Chugach Mountain range. I live in a place where helicopters take off and land in the yard. Groceries come by plane. Graders, plows, dozers, and all manner of large truck and equipment signal their backing up procedure with loud beep beep beeps. The sunrises are out of this world. I fall to bed every night knowing I've worked hard, done my best, and am appreciated by those I serve.
My job is to take care of everything and everybody at Camp.
I am housekeeper and kitchen assistant and innkeeper. My creative outlet is being in charge of the salad bar which has become legendary among Camps. I make beds, launder sheets and towels, make reservations, keep track of comings and goings and bed assignments (oh the power..!), do dishes, clean bathrooms (using my anthropology degree as a squeegee), stock pretty much everything, pick up groceries at the airport, unload hundreds of pounds of supplies, clean every inch of all of Camp all while being funny and sassy and smart and thoughtful and welcoming and intentionally dumb and saying things that make the MenFolk blush. I try to make this Camp feel like a home. Because let's face it: I spend half of my life here right now. It might as well be as fun as possible.
When I took the job I had my defenses up: I was going to be the only Woman in a Camp with 40 or so Men. I worked hard, was friendly, but mainly kept to myself. I was suspicious and wary. But the more I learned the ways of Camp and the Men here, I owned it. This was my territory. I'm a strong, confident woman; something all Men fear or at least do not understand. The sassiness invaded and no one questioned me. It's been a roller coaster ride since then... I've laughed far more than I've cried, but it hasn't all been a bed of roses.
I've been working with another woman, the cook, for about 7 months now and we are a force to be reckoned with. We create a homey atmosphere (as much as a ManCamp can provide one...) by learning Men's names, finding out a little about them, joking with them at meal time. Sometimes we get laughing/cackling in the kitchen and the Men go quiet, wondering what we could be laughing about. I can feel the power we have around here at moments like those....
Depending on schedules I work from 12 to 16 hours per day. Some days I want to put a knitting needle in my eye just to do something different. Other days just fly by. Last summer was totally crazy: 15.5 hour days where I was lucky to have 15 minutes to go in my room and sit. I go for 2 weeks at a time without sitting down for a meal. I'm always doing 3 to 7 things at a time. People always need something from me. Want me to show them how to do something. Get something for them. Honestly, sometimes I feel like I'm like a den mother.
The rewards have been 3-fold: financially I've set myself up for a good long dose of unemployment in the year 2012. I made and banked real money, got my first ever health insurance, and have been able to replace gear and work on my cabin at the same time. Anthropologically I hit the jackpot. I lived among my study group. I infiltrated their world. I became one of them. One morning I made a crude joke in front of two Men and I apologized saying, "Oops..sorry, I'm kind of awkward like that." One of the Men didn't even look up from his breakfast and said, "Nah...you're just oil field." Biggest compliment ever. And thirdly, I've come to tolerate, understand, like, and even become friends with people I never thought I'd meet let alone like. Namely, Ronald Reagan worshiping, FOX news watching, Bible thumping (even if just on principle), Obama hating, pro life Republicans. I know, I know. But living among them, and not being here to be on a pedestal or change anyone's mind.... just to be here to see what life is like at a ManCamp, to fit in... made it possible to focus on what we all have in common: the day to day challenges of long work hours, the simple joy of a delicious home-style meal, a joke, being exhausted beyond belief, having time to play horseshoes, playing practical jokes on each other.... just living together. On the whole, as a Group, I can't fathom the ideology. But when it came to just being people together...well, let's just say that maybe Congress should live in a ManCamp-style situation (including the intense manual labor!) for a few months and see if they can't come together on some things. We are all just people trying to live a good life, provide for the ones we need to take care of, and be happy. Yes, our ideas of how this happens are vastly different, but there is always the option of focusing on what we have in common rather than what is so extremely incompatible about our lives. That was an eye opener for me...
Sooo, that's ManCamp in a nutshell. An Austin Powers-sized nutshell. I could go on, but I think this is the gist of how I got here, what I do, and what the MenFolk do here.... it's a crazy world.
WeeBee with actual Man.
this post rules, becky
ReplyDeleteThanks for reading it Eve!
DeleteThanks for the background! I know about bits of this, but I am glad to read it all in one Man-sized chunk.
ReplyDelete"Man-sized chunk".....oh yes.
DeleteWow! Your straight forward and honest approach to writing is refreshing. I am looking forward to hearing about your upcoming adventures and will be rooting for you all the way!
ReplyDeleteThanks Christine! I'm excited to hit the trail knowing that I'll have cheerleaders at home!
DeleteExcellent post! I thoroughly enjoyed learning about just one of your many adventures. I'm also thrilled to finally discover a use for my English degree: squeegee!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Katy! I think on my next adventure my degree will be used as a bandana....
Delete