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In this weeks episode of the YkOnline we talk about the Earthquake/blasting mishap, several events happening. Including the St Pat’s High School Drama Production and the many craft sales happening.

Leave all you feedback below in the comment or contact me through the contact page. We’re always looking for guest to come on the show and share their opinions.

This time I was at a Francophone Arts, Culture and Education forum at Northern United Place,  a multistory concrete and steel building used as a church/apartment/college building with about 30 other folks. I thought for a moment it was snow falling off a roof… because that is what it sounded/felt like… rejected the idea because of the building type… then thought nothing of it until the Google alert from http://earthquakescanada.nrcan.gc.ca/recent_eq/2009/20091114.1808/index-eng.php came in… then I realized that it had been an earthquake!

The first one I felt in the NWT was several years ago in Inuvik late one night when I was living in a three story stick-built apartment building. More than that… it was built on telephone pole sized pilings. I was on the Internet and suddenly felt drunk… when I stood up I noticed that a pot of water on the stove (and not heating) was rippling… so I did a search and found the http://earthquakescanada.nrcan.gc.ca site and discovered that Inuvik was in an earthquake zone… That building would have been destroyed in an instant had the quake been any larger. Then i tried to find out if, as in other earthquake zones, the gas connections to all those buildings in Inuvik had automatic, quake sensitive, shut-off valves to stop gas from causing earthquake damaged buildings from blowing up… asked a guy installing the pipes.. he didn’t know anything about it. I still don’t know.

The first time I ever felt an earthquake was at my parents house in the Laurentians north of Montreal… also an earthquake zone…

Ever since the one in Inuvik I’ve been trying to get the local media to report on the state of earthquake preparedness in the Territory by sending reports to them when I see them.   (There is none that I’ve eaver heard of)  It should be interesting to see the what the local media reports on it this week as the epicentre was only a few clicks from Yellowknife.

I’d hate to hear of deaths in the territory caused by lack of planning for the aftermath of an earthquake because back when I was in Inuvik I found out that even local media did not have any plans in case of an earthquake. Hello CBC are you listening? And that’s not hard… see  EARTHQUAKE PREPAREDNESS CHECKLIST FOR MEDIA http://www.johnmartin.com/earthquakes/EQGUIDES/eqgui_4401.htm

When will we see / hear something on earthquake preparedness fron the GNWT?

Think there’s nothing to worry about?

Read this

Rock and Roll in the N.W.T.:  The 1985 Nahanni Earthquakes

“…A remarkable and unprecedented sequence of earthquakes is shaking the mountains west of Fort Simpson in the Northwest Territories. A magnitude 6.6 earthquake on October 5, 1985, and an even larger magnitude 6.9 event on December 23, 1985 disturbed the beautiful and mysterious Nahanni region of the Mackenzie Mountains. Between these earthquakes, and still continuing today, a long succession of aftershocks rumble and jolt the area.

The earthquake sequence amazed both the general public and the earth science community. People in the Northwest Territories, the Yukon, Alberta, Saskatchewan, British Columbia and southeastern Alaska were startled by the vibrations. Local radio stations, newspapers and police departments were swamped with callers asking for details of the tremor. Seismologists were astonished by the size of the events. All across Canada their seismographs recorded strong ground motions….”

Read more at http://earthquakescanada.nrcan.gc.ca/histor/20th-eme/nahanni/nahanni85-eng.php

“…

See “Before an earthquake: Home preparedness checklist”

http://www.getprepared.gc.ca/knw/ris/eq-eng.aspx#a3

I guess so, maybe not. After hearing about it all day on Saturday I guess it was true. My first thoughts were blasting, as I’m sure everyone’s were. I even caught wind of someone saying they were blasting in front of the Multiplex. For those who are not in Yellowknife or are new, blasting the rock in the area is very common up here when doing construction of any manor.

It happened at approximately 11:08am on Saturday morning off the shore of Great Slave Lake. According to Natural Resources Canada it was a quake with a magnitude of 1.0ml just 6km south of Yellowknife. This is nothing to be proud of but a decent one for Yellowknife.

If memory serves me correctly, which occasionally it does, this is the 3rd earthquake around Yellowknife in the past 20 years or so. I can remember people talking about one that happened in the middle of the night that woke them up. And a second one during the day, where people reported feeling it up the NorthwesTel Building. (I could be wrong though)

It is very common for Yellowknifers to mistake a earthquakes for blasting, because blasting just happens so much more often. Although there was one time about 4 years ago that an earthquake was mistaken as blasting. It was when the highway to Rae was still being worked on and they were using more explosives than normal. So when it went off it gave off a lot more grumbling than normal.

UPDATE: So what was blasting, was an earthquake is now again Blasting. What Yellowknife felt was a larger than normal blast from Con mine. From CBC North

Mine manager Scott Stringer told CBC News on Monday that Saturday’s blast had been scheduled for last Thursday, but was delayed twice because of weather.

“It was a fairly large blast. We used about 15,000 kilograms of explosives,” Stringer said.

Stringer said workers involved with the blast had notified the authorities a day in advance, including the mine inspector, the local airport and Natural Resources Canada.

More blasting work will take place at the site until Dec. 15. Stringer said he is looking at ways to better warn Yellowknifers in advance of the upcoming blasts.

Natural Resources Canada later updated its online report of the “earthquake” incident to say it was a blast for a water treatment plant.

This has been an odd story at the, but surely someone from the mine could have stepped forward sooner and explained what was really going on at 11:08 Saturday morning.