Mike Pearson's Adventures on a Pale Blue Dot

From the 2012 Summer road trip to Vancouver Island.

I went on a trip to Vancouver Island's, South and Southwest coasts...looking for rusty bits of interesting metal and history. Among other things, I learned this... 1. Vancouver Island eateries really know how to slap together a great salmon burger. 2. When you go whizzing by something cool to photograph, stop and do it. Don't be thinking that you are going to remember the location, or even go back this way again. 3. Random rusty machines were hard to find in some of the areas because the scrappers had been through and cleaned up. 4. I'm bringing my own pillow next time. 5. There are many more posts to come that cover the rest of the trip. Here's a video of the 1939 D-7...narrated by someone who doesn't know a thing about Cat history ( that'd be me ) Here are a couple of videos ...one explains the multiple steps tat it takes to get one of these old Cats running...the other video actually shows one working. Thanks to those guys for taking the time t...

PAG means "potentially acid generating"....I won't go into the deep details, but some kinds of rock interact with water to produce an acid tainted environment. This isn't the stuff that might burn you hands, but it will eat at reinforcing steel over time. It is generally considered to be an environmental problem in large mines where water run-off can poison the downstream areas and oceans ( see Britannia mine site history ) On the Sea to Sky highway job, the PAG sites were identified by engineers and geo-techs and flagged for removal from the site. All of the ID'd PAG material was trucked to this site at Porteau Cove, and loaded onto this barge. I have no clue where it was shipped to, or whether it was dumped in one of the government approved ocean dumping grounds ( yes, we actually have those...there is an active one just off Point Grey) These are photos from the fly-overs and photo shoots during the construction of the new highway Metro Blasting ...