Kyle Thomas

The Website of Kyle Thomas (KyleWith)

A Winters Afternoon in Yellowknife

This past Saturday was what I would consider a good productive winters day in Yellowknife. It was an equal mix of pleasure and chores.

Like a typical Saturday the day started at the Yellowknife Dump. For those that doesn’t know; the Yellowknife Dump is one of the last dumps in Canada that you can still salvage at. The reason being is because Yellowknifers like there dump and the treasures.

My find this week at the dump was a big one. One that I’m sure you’ll probably question. It is a couch. A nice couch though. On a side note this is not the first time I have brought home furniture from the dump. The office chair I use in my home office was a dump find 6 years ago… it still works. The key to getting furniture at the dump is to: 1) make sure it is semi clean, 2) Leave it outside in the freezing cold and kill anything that might be alive and 3) clean it with a big combination of upholstery cleaner and Frebreeze.

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After the dump, friends and I wandered the highway in search for some wildlife. In finding what looked to be an animal trail, turned out to be a trapline of sort. It was a well packed trail done by snowshoes. The area was really beautiful despite seeing no animals.

Adventures in the Bush    Adventures in the Bush

Adventures in the Bush

Adventures in the Bush    Adventures in the Bush

Adventures in the Bush    Adventures in the Bush

After getting home from the hike and tending to the bread that was rising in my kitchen I ventured back out to do some yard work. Mainly digging out my trailer. I hadn’t moved it since the fall and I needed to put new, bigger, tires on it. Ones that would allow me to pull it through the bush better when getting firewood. It was a lot of shovelling.

I then took it to my parent house where I put the new tires on.

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At about 10pm last night we went out looking for the Auror but thanks to the snow we didn’t see any.

What did you do?

Baking Bread for the Homeless

Well it is about time I do something with this bread I like making. I have been playing with this idea for a while but I have finally put in motion the project of baking bread for the homeless of Yellowknife.

It wont be big and fancy like I have seen in other cities. I’m simply going to make a bunch of bread and drop it off at the Salvation Army’s bread racks.

They get bread dropped off on Monday and Thursday, so my plan is to drop off a bunch of loaves on Wednesdays.

The nice thing about this project is that I will be getting the flour and sugar for the bread from Yellowknife’s Food Rescue program.

Bread making

Stay tuned for an update.

No TV for February

'Photo_051405_009' photo (c) 2005, Vinnie Lauria - license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/I’m giving myself a challenge for February and that is to not watch any TV or movies at home. I don’t have cable so I’m already halfway there but I do stream a lot. A lot of Netflix.

The reason for this sudden ambition to stop watching TV – especially in the dead of winter – is because I want to read and write more. There are endless amounts of projects I want to accomplish but when sometimes the mind-numbing drone of a TV is relaxing I feel horribly unproductive, as if I’m not giving 100% or even 90% to the task I’m trying to work on.

One of the areas I want to indulge more on is reading the pile of cookbooks I have no acquired. Look them over and inspire myself to cook fuller, healthier meals, not just bread all the time.

I missed one day, Feb 1, but I’m still determined to accomplish this. And if all goes well, continue down this path of no TV.

No excuse me I’m going to the Theatre to see a movie.

Inspiring a story

My hobbies can jump quite a bit these days. One day I’m all about food, while the next I’m obsessed with writing and Yellowknife. Today it was writing. It is Friday evening, I have a headache and Netflix.

When I get in these inspiration modes I generally go looking for a movie to watch, this evenings was Finding Forester. Surprisingly I haven’t seen the movie before and in someways I’m really glad I hadn’t seen it up until now. It was released in 2000, I would have been 10 years old. Now, 12 years later, and I have a much bigger appreciation for people and writing I am able to connect with the characters better.

Watching this movie and reflecting on the weeks past solidifies for me what I mentioned in my last deep and thoughtful post, I’m a storyteller. Whether with video, audio and written word.

My take on telling the stories of others.

Bob Heath

By now most people know that a plane is missing in Antarctica. On that plane is northern pilot Bob Heath. Who I met Bob back in July 2012, I wrote a story about him here on this blog. The guy made a lasting impression on me, and so I wanted to share it with everyone.

I had no idea that he would go missing. And I only hope that he is all right and that he returns to the north safely.

As news broke that he was the pilot of the plane that was missing I started to get more calls from media outlets about my brief encounter with Bob. And while I didn’t feel like I was in the place to speak about Bob, only having met him once, I did speak with several media outlets.

It occurred to me that the reason I was doing it was because I like to tell stories of the people that I meet. The world is filled with extraordinary people but we often don’t meet them or even hear about them.

Bob was one of those people that I thought everyone should know about. His passion for not only flying but also a north combined with his witty humour and his happy-go-lucky mentality is something that is rarely found in people anymore and so because of that I felt the need to share that. Today especially.

So my hope by talking about Bob and telling the nation about the one day that I spent with Bob in July was because I’m very proud of him and I think people should know about how great a man he is.

these hidden heroes are all around us, and every day I’m wondering who on one of the next and that’s partly why I blog about who I meet because everybody has a story and I will provide everybody with a platform to share that story because you never know who’s can read that story.

I don’t quite know if this post makes any sense. The bottom line however is there that there is a lot of people whose stories should be told and I’m glad that I got to tell Bob’s even if the story was just from one day.