Had a blast at work yesterday, literally. Some folks from the Ministry of Transportation were giving me a tour of the new highway under construction in our area. I've been following the construction for a while now, writing occasional updates, etc.
At this point, they're mostly blasting through rock, digging out muskeg (a sort of boggy mass of decaying organic matter and soil) and layering the rubble into the excavation. They already cleared the entire strip of trees last year.
Granite, forest and muskeg describes a good part of the landscape around here, with the bedrock very close to the surface, often protruding in places. So, putting a road through a hill requires a lot of dynamite (actually an ammonium nitrate concoction).
We just happened to arrive at the largest rock cut in the project, just as they were getting ready to set off 37 tonnes of explosive. This threw granite boulders up in the air like popcorn and reduced the whole hillside to rubble they could haul away in big Terex dump trucks.
Fortunately, I had my video camera along, just in case. You can see the big bang at
http://www.almaguinregion.com. Just scroll down and you'll see the link.