The CWB Association brings you a weekly podcast that connects to welding professionals around the world to share their passion and give you the right tips to stay on top of what’s happening in the welding industry.
When Philippe "Phil" Vincent, from Whitehorse, Yukon, swapped the Québécois skyline for the vast wilderness of the North, he didn't just change his address; he revolutionized his career. On our latest episode, Phil recounts his extraordinary transition from military service to becoming a welding virtuoso in the Yukon, where temperatures plummet and the gold mining industry's pulse still beats fiercely. We traverse the unique history of this region and how its gold rush legacy continues to shape the local culture and economy, offering a glimpse into the life, labor, and lore of the North.
Whether you're a seasoned welder, a curious adventurer, or simply fascinated by the resilience of those who call the Yukon home, this episode promises to spark a flame of interest and admiration for the art and science of welding in one of Canada's most intrepid environments.
Check out Klondike Welding Ltd: https://www.klondikewelding.ca/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KlondikeWeldingYT/
Thank you to our Podcast Advertisers:
Canada Welding Supply: https://canadaweldingsupply.ca/
There is no better time to be a member! The CWB Association membership is new, improved and focused on you. We offer a FREE membership with a full suite of benefits to build your career, stay informed, and support the Canadian welding industry. https://www.cwbgroup.org/association/become-a-member
The CWB Association brings you a weekly podcast that connects to welding professionals around the world to share their passion and give you the right tips to stay on top of what’s happening in the welding industry.
When Philippe "Phil" Vincent, from Whitehorse, Yukon, swapped the Québécois skyline for the vast wilderness of the North, he didn't just change his address; he revolutionized his career. On our latest episode, Phil recounts his extraordinary transition from military service to becoming a welding virtuoso in the Yukon, where temperatures plummet and the gold mining industry's pulse still beats fiercely. We traverse the unique history of this region and how its gold rush legacy continues to shape the local culture and economy, offering a glimpse into the life, labor, and lore of the North.
Whether you're a seasoned welder, a curious adventurer, or simply fascinated by the resilience of those who call the Yukon home, this episode promises to spark a flame of interest and admiration for the art and science of welding in one of Canada's most intrepid environments.
Check out Klondike Welding Ltd: https://www.klondikewelding.ca/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KlondikeWeldingYT/
Thank you to our Podcast Advertisers:
Canada Welding Supply: https://canadaweldingsupply.ca/
There is no better time to be a member! The CWB Association membership is new, improved and focused on you. We offer a FREE membership with a full suite of benefits to build your career, stay informed, and support the Canadian welding industry. https://www.cwbgroup.org/association/become-a-member
All right, I checked, checked, good, so I'm Max Ron. Max Ron she the baby association welding podcast podcast. Today we have a really cool guest welding podcast. The show is about to begin.
Speaker 1:Attention welders in Canada looking for top quality welding supplies, look no further than Canada welding supply. With a vast selection of premium equipment, safety gear and consumables. Cws has got you covered. They offer fast and reliable shipping across the country. And here's the best part, all podcast listeners get 10% off any pair of welding gloves. Can you believe that? Use code CWB 10 at checkout when placing your next order. Visit Canada welding supply dot ca. Now. Canada welding supply, your trusted welding supplier. Happy welding. Hello and welcome to another edition of the CWB Association podcast. My name is Max Ron and, as always, where we're looking high and low, east and west, under and over to try to find the best guests we can find for the show and today we have someone from way up north and when I talk about north, I'm talking north, north, northwest territories. Up north we have Philippe Vincent, or, as he told me to call him, phil, because the proper pronunciation is in French, which is Philippe Vincent, hi.
Speaker 3:Phil, how's it going? Good morning.
Speaker 1:Good morning, I'm good. How are you Good? Don't you love it when I can butcher your name in at least two prominent languages?
Speaker 3:Oh, that's okay. I've been. I've been through that my whole life, so you're doing pretty good. Actually, it's not that much of a butcher job.
Speaker 1:Awesome, philip. So you know right now where you're sitting. Right now, where are you?
Speaker 3:I mean, I'm in Whitehorse in the Yukon actually, so we're north of British Columbia and east of Alaska.
Speaker 1:So the Great Yukon, and there's a lot of mystery and folklore about the Yukon, you know, in Canadian and North American history. I think a lot of people have heard of the Yukon and and don't know much about it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's the last gold rush. That happened in the late 1800 early 1900s, where people from all the way to the coast were traveling to Skagway, alaska, which is south of where we live, and making their way up to Dawson City. Dawson City is actually the town where the Gold Rush and Discovery Channel is filmed, and that's where the last gold rush was, but it's also still a gold town as of today.
Speaker 1:Yeah there's lots of TV shows that I see. It's still still people out there, you know, either bringing big equipment I actually know a friend from high school that went up with, bought the whole machinery and he's doing the vacuuming in the water, where they vacuum the ocean floor to try to get gold. But then there's still people that I see, you know, with the pan, with the pan in the water and it seems to still be a living like. I mean, there must be still lots of gold floating around.
Speaker 3:I think there is, and like even the, the high tech operation, they still test the ground with a gold pan. That's the easy way to get traction.
Speaker 1:then so so you're. You're not from there, though, right you? You did not. You weren't born in the Yukon. You, you ended up, or or chose to live in the Yukon. So let's start at the beginning. Where are your roots from?
Speaker 3:Uh, my roots are from Quebec, uh, town called Trois-Rivières. It's halfway between Montreal and Quebec City, on the north shore of the St Lawrence River. Um, I lived there till I was about 20. Yeah, and what?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and this is worse, what made you want to leave?
Speaker 3:Um, early in my welding career, I decided to join the army because the economy was uh so so at the time. Um, so I joined the army and while I was waiting for a course, uh, from New Brunswick, they, they put us on the plane and they sent us to Whitehorse and I just fell in love with the place, um, the nature, the outdoors and all that. Um, so I let the army go, and then, when I moved here and I got a job in welding, right away.
Speaker 1:So when did you start welding? You said at twenty. You were looking to join the army and you were already welding. So you know what age did you get into the trade?
Speaker 3:Uh, I got into welding school and I was seventeen.
Speaker 1:Seventeen and it was a program. That's right. Yeah, program through, uh, you know, it's not a apprenticeship in Quebec, it's uh, it's a different system they have. But you know, the, the FHQ or something, what is it?
Speaker 3:It's. It's called the. It's a professional diploma, they call it Um, so essentially it's the same amount of school that you would find everywhere else in Canada, but instead of being work and school combined, you just do all your school all at once. So it was the eighteen months program.
Speaker 1:Okay, and then you hit the road and you start welding. Yeah.
Speaker 3:And then you get done and you're a welder.
Speaker 1:And and why did you get into welding in the first place? You know, what was it in your life that aimed you towards the trades.
Speaker 3:It's funny, um. So my brother, which is younger than me, um, started right after high school and one day he came home with a little stainless stick art piece that he did and I was floored by how cool it looked and stuff, and so basically he got me the, the, the disease of welding, that I was hooked right up from there, the, the disease of welding.
Speaker 1:I like that, yeah, yeah, to which there is no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no no, no, no no there's not. So did your brother end up being a welder?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, he did, he did. Uh, he was six months ahead of me in school and that the this day still is a welder Um supervisor now working around job sites. And get back there.
Speaker 1:So in the at home, at the family supper, who's the better welder?
Speaker 3:Oh, I would say I haven't welded in a few years, so definitely him.
Speaker 1:You're careful about your words there. I saw that You're very careful. Yep, so you, you know you enjoyed welding. It sounds like you picked a career that you were into. You have a it's in the family and and then it got pretty dry.
Speaker 1:So I'm I'm assuming this is probably around the 2008 time period when things kind of started getting a little dry for for new welders. I mean by then I had I had been welding for a while, so you know the ones that were in the trade for a while. We were pretty secure, but we did see I saw a lot of young welders kind of lose, lose their jobs.
Speaker 3:You know exactly that's. That's what drove me. I would say, drove me away because I still loved it. But I didn't want that insecurity in my life of like, am I going to get laid off, Am I not? So that's why the army was kind of the easy way out. If you want.
Speaker 1:And then in the army and this is something I'd love to have someone from like currently in an army training program to understand how it works. I've had a number of guests on the show who who did time in the army. At the college I used to teach the machinist dean format or the the head teacher, the dean of machining, was in the navy for like 10 years and they all talk about you know the trades programs in the military and the opportunity for training in the military. You know, and I don't know, how any of that works, so you know what. What did you do as a welder going into the army? What were you looking to do? Were you looking to weld more or get into a different career?
Speaker 3:Complete different career. What I enrolled in as was as a combat engineer, which, long story short, is basically bomb and bridges. So you build bridges and then you bomb other people bridges. So I never fully completed the training because it was really backed up at the time. It was like two, three years to get fully trained and I ended up here while I was waiting actually for my course. That's how I ended up in Whitehorse here, because it had nothing to do with combat engineer. What we were doing up here.
Speaker 1:And what was it that you were doing up there? What did they send you up for? We?
Speaker 3:were just being duty drivers for cadets.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:Because we were. We're just waiting, doing not much on the base, and you're a Georgetown, so at least now we were useful to youths and to the programs.
Speaker 1:And when you got that first call or letter and they said hey, phil, you're going up north, way up north, what were your initial thoughts?
Speaker 3:Well, actually I was. It was in June, and I remember packing my winter parka, which which is which is crazy, because up here in June is like 25 degrees and 20 hours of daylight yeah, so it's. It was a real misconception that I had no clue what I was getting into, but at 22 I was excited to discover something new and leave the little bubble of Eastern Canada.
Speaker 1:And when you land it, what were your first impressions?
Speaker 3:Oh, I, won't need my parka. This place is beautiful.
Speaker 1:It's beautiful. Lots of nature, trees brush grass.
Speaker 3:The mountains, the mountains. Like when you land in Whitehorse Airport it's almost like not bad, but almost like all the Whitehorse is in the valley. So you got all the mountains surrounding you and just the, the nature, and back then it was way less populated than it is now. So it it definitely had a little little something of a small town. That that gets your attention, yeah.
Speaker 1:Now, when you, when you land there and you're, and you're doing your, your job with the military, which sounds not optimal, it sounds like you kind of this isn't where you saw yourself in your military career, at what point did you start thinking, you know, I want to step away from the army or the military and and maybe try something else. You know, were you thinking that already when they were like, hey, you're two years away from getting into school for the military? Did you start over thinking already Like maybe I should leave or do something else?
Speaker 3:No, I would say. That's when, when I was about to leave, I asked my superior if I could be based in Whitehorse and he says no, that's when I says okay, well, that's where I want to live. And I knew already from a summer being here that there was lots of opportunity for welders because of the mining industry, because of the construction industry, because so I wasn't worried about just coming here and finding a job, and that's just what I did. It took me, took me eight months from when I left to be released from the army, because you can't just quit.
Speaker 1:No, you can't just go AWOL.
Speaker 3:No, exactly, so it took a little bit of time, but by the time I got here in May, which is the prime season, I ended up getting a job in welding in three hours of being in town.
Speaker 1:So that's awesome. And and then what about the, the military side of it, the? Does that still become something in your back pocket? Was there still communications with them? Or or is it a clean tie and you say I'm done with that part, I'm moving on to my new white horse life.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's. That was a clean cut. There's nothing. I've never got a letter after I got my T4 that year. I've never heard nothing from them at all actually. So it left some some good positive things in my life for the way I organize things now. But as far as work relation, that was it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you know, as a welder. Now you know you're fresh, sounds like. You're still pretty young, 22 years old. You're still a kid. You don't have a lot of experience for striking out a whole new part of the world in a whole new industry. Because you know mining in the west and in the north is a lot different than mining in other parts of the country. Mainly weather and and access and all these things make a big difference. And what was it like for you at that first job? You know like you get hired on as a welder and you're thinking, okay, I know how to weld, you know, were you pretty green still?
Speaker 3:I'm not gonna lie, in the two years in the military you forget a lot of things, like I did remember a lot. It came back after time, but the first day when I went in I and well, first of all it was a change for me because I did my welding school in French and so when I got it, I'm the boss of the company. It's a different company and I asked for your journeyman. I didn't even know what a journeyman was, because in French it's a different term for starter and in welding there's no such thing in Quebec. So it was. It was definitely a change. But I would say after a week, two weeks, I got back in my books and did a little bit of reading again to get back into it. It came back really good. The welding part then, that that's always was there, that never got lost, but the muscle memory sticks.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's the the technical side to set up the machine and read blueprints. That took a little bit, a little bit more time.
Speaker 1:And you know, did you then have to? Or was there any onus on you to get your journey person up there? Because I know the territories from an apprenticeship standpoint are still kind of a not set in stone, you know, like a Yukon, I believe, uses the Alberta apprenticeship model? Yeah, so you know, was there any onus on you from your the boss back then to say, look, you need to get your journey person? Or or you were just good and get to work?
Speaker 3:I mean it's, none of the jobs here are unionized, so the ticket really doesn't. It does mean something, but at the same time it doesn't affect how you're going to get paid. Like, we do have a lot of employees here from Quebec which are excellent welders and they don't have a journey person, but they've been doing it for 25 years. They have the same school as I did. So it's I wanted to get it, but it took so long that by the time I had the hours necessary to challenge it, there was no beneficial gain for me to do so, so I didn't really see a point to do so.
Speaker 1:And what kind of work do you find, or what's the majority of the work that you find yourself doing in in the Yukon?
Speaker 3:It's really interesting. So there's a few companies and like the one I work for, where we're, like we got welding shops and it's more of a well a shop. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly so. The nice thing is that, unlike Alberta, for example, where you got a pipe shop all you do all this pipe you got a excavator repair shop all you do all these repair excavator you got a building shop. All you do is buildings here because of the, the geographic location and the need for all that, in the same day you can be welding on pipe on a bucket or on a building, so you you really get well rounded and those shop environments.
Speaker 1:And is every shop like that? Is that kind of just the way it runs?
Speaker 3:It's like that for there's there's. There's four CWB shop in town and I would say for Two of them it's kind of the way it works so that there's not enough Demand either to to expand to like a shop that would be slowly doing Buildings right, you would run out of work. You would run out of work because in the winter sometimes the construction don't line up with each other.
Speaker 1:That's right now you brought up CWB you know for for being Ford CWB shops in town. In some provinces CWB doesn't count very much. In some provinces CWB is a big deal, you know, and it usually is tied to structural welding. That's the 90% of what CWB shops are gonna be doing is structural. That's why they're gonna get registered, is there? Is that why those shops you know bother to go through a CWB registration process is just for the structural work that can come through whatever 100%, because there's lots of bridge repair, like we still use the old bridges from from the the Army days when they build the Alaska.
Speaker 3:I was in the 50s, so those are getting time down. They need lots of repairs, which is CWB. Lots of steel buildings because of the high seismic zone here, which is all CWB. So it definitely made sense to get the certification for those, those two elements alone.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and high seismic zone. You got a lot of earthquakes up there. Is that ice shifting or is it earth shifting?
Speaker 3:No, it's, it's Her quakes. It's actually higher zone than Vancouver Really up here, so yeah so do you feel a?
Speaker 2:lot of them really.
Speaker 3:Over the years I felt a few that were actually quite, quite severe, like one of them actually cracked some buildings downtown oh, this, this snuck on the outside was cracked, and then to close government buildings. Really, I did not know that that'd be like.
Speaker 1:I'm from Chile, where we have a lot of earthquakes, and Just this last December I took my wife or November, I took my wife down to Chile and she experienced her first first earthquake. As someone from Saskatchewan who has never felt an earthquake, she felt her first one and it was only a 4.7, but that's enough to feel it and it kind of freaked her out, you know, and I didn't really think about the north having seismic activity.
Speaker 3:Oh, it's, it's quite high actually, like we had one about a month and a half ago where I was laying down in bed and I woke up and it was it's, yeah, no, it's. And it makes construction Like we have bylaws and white horse where building can only be so high. So that's not like high rises like Vancouver, but it still make the post disaster design Quite if you're still intensive for that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what's the population of void? I was like what, how large of a community are we servicing here?
Speaker 3:Like as of today, you con is approximately 40,000 and probably white horse should be about 30, 32 thousands of that.
Speaker 1:Really and that's not, that's not very many like. I mean, that's a pretty small town For being, you know, like the center hub of an area, especially a province or a territory that's so large and has a ton of resources, like there's a lot of resources in the north.
Speaker 3:There is. The access to them is a different things Because of land agreements and all that. So and it's there's a lot of and I can understand people that wants to protect you because sometimes mining operation. I'm always clean. Yeah, like like in the Yukon, the biggest Mining disaster in North America is sitting here in Faro and that left a bitter taste in a lot of people's mouth. I think that's a hundred, I think it's a Thousand million to clean, so a billion dollar to clean.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so and what about the indigenous communities up there? Like you know, when you say 40,000 total for the territory, is that including indigenous numbers? Or because I would assume there's? A really large unregistered indigenous population as well.
Speaker 3:I don't know. I wouldn't be able to comment about a registered or a registered to how that would work, but I think that the population is active populations. I would include probably everybody that's. It's on the books.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah and how involved are they, the indigenous communities, in the trades and community work and and you know the development of, of their territorial, because it's really their land. And you know we want as a country or as a civilization. You know too, we want what's in that ground. We all do, we want it everywhere. So it must be very, you have to be very accommodating. You have to be careful with how these negotiations go down, I assume even for any work that happens.
Speaker 3:They're really involved, like, as I can say, it's their land. And I know there's always. There's always consideration when we put in proposals to have first nation involvement Within the company, within the projects, to make sure that not only I know the government does their own consulting when they do the project, but so also for them to be involved and all the small businesses can also Beneficiate from the government money too. Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1:And what about the cost of living? You know we hear about this all the time. I had a friend just go up to none of it for work. He's a nurse and he sent me a picture of buying a bottle of Pepsi a Two-liter bottle of Pepsi for $20. Now, is that real? Is that a thing? Is it that bad in the Yukon?
Speaker 3:In the Yukon and Whitehorse. No, because we're still connected with the Alaska Way to Edmonton. So most of our things are trucked, which you refer to, and in of it would be the same thing as a few community in Northwest Territory and All Crow in Northern Yukon is flying. Only community, yeah, where, where then? Yeah, it costs $50 for 12 packs of Pepsi, but it's, it's understandable because it's only available by, by plane. So, yeah, with the cost of fuel now and carbon tax and all it makes it really costly to do all that right.
Speaker 1:And what about the pay then? Like if I'm being, if I'm paying, $20 for a bottle of Pepsi. You know, if I think in my normal life that a bottle of Pepsi is $2 and let's say that's one 20th of my hourly pay, you know, is $20 for a bottle of Pepsi up north still one 20th of an hourly pay? Or do you have to be much more careful with how you do your economics?
Speaker 3:Well, in Whitehorse it's not $20 for a bottle of Pepsi. I think we're talking. If you're paying $2 in Saskatoon, we're probably paying 250 here Okay so it's not.
Speaker 3:It's it's not like that much outline, like those communities where you pay $20 for a bottle of Pepsi. There's not many private companies doing business there, because you would have, you would have to pay, yeah, you would have to pay a labor, $70 an hour, and you wouldn't be able to get the service right. Right and but the cost of living is a little bit higher, like house, house prices or, but I think that's across Canada. Yeah, like when I first moved here, we were cheaper than Fort McMurray, so it was not, but I know now we're a little bit more than Fort Mac, so it's, it's kind of goes like this yeah, and I think a lot of places, especially if you're tied to Alberta, you're gonna have that fluctuation Based on the economy, right, absolutely.
Speaker 1:So what other industries are strong and prevalent in the Yukon, aside from, like the, the welding maintenance side? You know what about the welding for, like lumber or forestry or fishing or anything like that is what are the other main industries?
Speaker 3:There's not much for a forestry up here. Just do the climate like a 20 year old tree is gonna be this big. You wouldn't make money. As far as, as far as welding goes like I know, private contractors and miners usually hire their might, their, their own welders to do their line boring and Equipment repairs and shoes box and. But those, those type of welders would be more of a mill rights type of person, so like more mechanical inclined as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, kind of do everything.
Speaker 3:Yeah, like on a 12 hour shift, because that's what he would work out of mine. He would maybe do like four hours welding and then pulling wrenches for the other eight or something like that. So I would say, definitely the construction new construction and highway maintenance is definitely the main source for the welding here.
Speaker 1:And when we watch those shows, like the Alaska Highway, you know, and it's all these terrible accidents happening all the time and and people sinking in the ice and stuff. Is that actually how life is up north? They make it seem so dramatic all the time. Well, the Alaska way.
Speaker 3:is is sketchy between here in northern northern BCven, around Fort St John, especially when there's big snowstorm, because it's only a single lane both directions. So when you get big blizzards with the wildlife there's no lights, street lights, so it's just your headlights you have no idea.
Speaker 3:No idea. So it's it can. It can be challenging. Definite that the show the ice road truckers near yellow knife, it's. That part is a little bit dramatic for the show but it's definitely it takes some, some, some, some skills to be used to driving the Alaska way up and down all the time.
Speaker 1:So in your personality as a kid from Troy Vey in Quebec, you know you. You do a little stint in the army. You kind of were a welder. You get sent up into Into the Yukon. What is it in your personality that made you land and be like this is where I want to live, this is where I want to put my roots down, and it sounds like you made that decision fairly quickly, so something really attracted you that you know sold you on it.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So, like the main thing that I do on my spare time is fishing, it didn't matter if I was in the army welding a kid, that's always been my thing and the fishing appears Probably one of the best in the world. So after a summer here, once I knew that I would be safe financially and have a good career and Do the best fishing in my life. I says that's definitely where I want to be and I wanted to get away from. I wanted to get away from the big city to, like my a truck of eyes couple hundred thousand people here is thirty thousand, but because it's the hub of the north, if you want, it's a small town with the commodity of a big town, if you want. So you got access to many things that if forty thousand people town in northern Alberta, let's say, wouldn't have.
Speaker 1:So do you have like a superstore or girls like a?
Speaker 3:Yeah yeah, we got superstore. Can entire Walmart, few Starbucks, a few. Get the Morton's Mark's warehouse. Wow, save on the Ramah, like we got. We got all the goodies, if you want.
Speaker 1:Well, that's. It's amazing only for a thirty thousand person community, but I guess that includes anybody coming in and out, right, because there's probably a lot of people traveling through.
Speaker 3:No, no, no, no, no. This is, this, is only this is permanent people. If you really summer the population In the summer population, I would say probably go up to sixty, seventy thousand easy, just from people coming for the 24-hour Daylights but they don't want to see the 24-hour darkness. We're here for the good time, not the long time. Yeah, people.
Speaker 1:There is probably a fairly strong tourism aspect to the to that area as well. I know, me and my wife, pre-covid literally the year before COVID we were planning on Driving up to to Whitehorse because we wanted to do the camping from Regina up into Edmonton my daughter lives in Grand Prairie, alberta, so that's kind of on the way up and then we were gonna go all the way camping, stopping all the way and go camping all the way up. We love fishing too. But then COVID happened and everything got shut down so we didn't do it. But you know, we're not the only people. A lot of people love making that trip.
Speaker 3:Like the amount of people doing that trip is what drives the economy here in the summer for the small businesses. Mm-hmm, people, people go from Edmonton or even a Lot of American tourists wants to go to Alaska and they go from the lower mainland and they drive through Edmonton, bams and then up to Alaska. Because we're only an hour drive from Alaska, I can jump in my pickup and being Alaska an hour, so really, and Alaska has a lot more population, doesn't it?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, alaska, like encourage your own is 300,000 people. Oh, wow, so wow, and I think, and I can't think the whole Alaska somewhere around the 500, 600,000.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow. So that's a big difference and there's not much bigger of a like in geographically. I don't think Alaska is much bigger than the Yukon.
Speaker 3:No, it's not, but I think it's got more coastline like we don't have any coastline. Yeah, you can, and that drives the fish fishing industry and access. They have access right, so exactly.
Speaker 1:All right, well, let's take a break here for commercial and our sponsors and then when we get back I want to talk to you about. You know what you do now, where you work and and you know the pluses and minuses, the Obstacles and all the challenges that might happen to someone looking to run a business up in the in the northern territory. So we'll be right back here on the CWB Association podcast with Phil Vincent. Don't go anywhere, stay tuned and I'll catch you in a couple minutes.
Speaker 2:The CWB Association is new and improved, and focused on you. We offer a free membership with lots of benefits to anyone interested in joining an association that is passionate about welding. We are committed to educating, informing and connecting our workforce. Gain access to your free digital publication of the weld magazine, free online training Conferences and lots of giveaways. Reach out to your local CWB Association chapter today to connect with other welding professionals and share welding as a trade in your community. Build your career, stay informed and support the Canadian welding industry. Join today and learn more at CWB Association org and we're back here on the CWB Association podcast.
Speaker 1:My name is Max. I'm here with Philip Vincent coming to us from the Yukon Northwest or in the Yukon and Whitehorse, and he's telling us about his travels from Quebec to the north to being a welder up there. And you know, you start working for these companies doing a lot of basically a lot of everything, because you have to be able to service whatever and Then what you know. So you start working for company. You started building up your welding career. What? What's the next path? What's the pathway for a welder in in Whitehorse?
Speaker 3:Well, there's, there's, there's definitely a Lots, of, lots of opportunities for lots of different type of work, like, for example, as a company now we do our own steel erection, so somebody that wants to learn a little bit about the iron worker trade. You got a chance to do that and I guess it's it. It's so diversified that you never Like I got guys here now on the payroll that been here for 20 years and they're still learning new things all the time. So it's, it's the advantages appears that you never Focus only in one, one thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and for yourself. You know coming up and you're starting to grow as a welder in your area. What were the skills that you really needed to gravitate towards Quickly in order to have a successful career there?
Speaker 3:What? What happened with me? So we had many jobs at the time throughout the north and Cambridge Bay, northwestern Nunavut and then Ekelloet in all those places and I got the chance to travel a lot and do site work and I can speak from experience that usually when you work on site you're not in the perfect shop environment. So you learn a lot more and a lot faster. So and I was over time driven at the time like I was working maybe a thousand hours of overtime a year, so I really learned really fast because I worked probably for five years the equivalent of eight or nine years in the field and that really really helped me a lot to what I'm doing now.
Speaker 1:Actually, you know, and that's so interesting, there was an interview I had just not too long ago I think it was three or four guests ago where we started talking about the over, that magical overtime number that people have in their heads. You know, and I remember when I was on the floor, still working as a welder, working my way up, I would always aim for in between 800 to a thousand hours over time a year. That's what I would aim for. And now that I'm an old man, I think about working a thousand hours over time and it's like no way, there's no way I'm going to do a thousand hours over time a year. You couldn't pay me enough to work that hard anymore.
Speaker 1:But when you're young and you're driven, it's not even that hard. A thousand is like a good number and it's a good amount of wage. And it's not the money that you're actually getting ahead on, it's the experience you just said. Putting in that overtime it's hours, and they always say 10,000 hours and you're a master. That's what people always say. At 10,000 hours of anything, you can consider yourself a master.
Speaker 3:Well, when you're putting in twice as many hours as the person next to you, you're going to get twice as good, twice as fast right 100%, and from my experience, an hour in the field can replace two hours in the shop, just like that, because when you run into trouble, you might not be able to run to your foreman and be like, hey, how do you fix this? You got your customer here, you want to stinks fixed, or you just got to figure it out right? So? And when you get good at it, people will keep asking for you.
Speaker 1:So it's kind of a circle when you start looking around the ground for scrap, for scrap steel that you can somehow turn into something else.
Speaker 3:I told that you need because you don't have.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Exactly so you did your time welding. You're doing this. How long were you in the field for before you decided that you needed to change it up, or how was that decision made?
Speaker 3:It actually was made for me. So after about five years of working for the company and for now I, our foreman ended up quitting. So I was the next one in line to fill up the boot because I had the experience to put up buildings and to run a crew a little bit. So it went from there. And then I was forming for two years, three years just about, and then my boss went on vacation and he says, hey, just go and go in the office for a couple of weeks while I'm gone and just take care of a few emails and stuff. And seven years later I'm still in the office.
Speaker 1:He never came back from holidays. What happened?
Speaker 3:He did come back from a holiday, but he realized that I could do not bad, so he decided to start training me as a junior project manager and then slowly worked up from there.
Speaker 1:So, from from welder to foreman, to project manager to now, what is your role with the company?
Speaker 3:General manager.
Speaker 1:So your general manager and what's the name of the company? Clondike welding? Okay, so clondike welding. So if someone was to ask you, you know 30 second elevator speech. What's clondike welding? Let me know.
Speaker 3:Clondike welding is a company in order to 60. We do buildings, we repair bridges. We're always there 24 seven for the government. When there's accident, we're the first one to get called to fix any infrastructures that are critical. We can produce a lot of steel in the year, somewhere in the 1000 ton range. We got a big shop, we got a good management team, we got a good atmosphere to work for and we're constantly changing and upgrading to meet the demand. So I think we're a pretty, pretty driven company that's got lots of, lots of future ahead.
Speaker 1:Good, and what's the size? You know what size footprint are you looking at for your company? What size of what's your footprint Like your shop? How big is it?
Speaker 3:So our lot is four acres and we got. The shop is 12,000 square feet.
Speaker 1:Okay, how many welders do you have on staff?
Speaker 3:It varies depending on the time of the year. In the busy time we add up to 30 people on staff and in the slower time we're down sometimes, like now, to about 15, 12, 15.
Speaker 1:Okay. So and this is something I've heard is the cyclical nature of the work in the north. You know what do people do during the slow times. You know, are the layoffs just expected? Every year People go. You know it's just time to be on EI, or is there? Is there winter work to pick up in between, or Well, I've been here.
Speaker 3:I've been here now for 13 years and we've we've, I think only once or twice I've seen a lead off due to slow time, because when we boom and we get really busy, instead of hiring people permanently, we just bring people up from Alberta or Vancouver or something to help fill up that gap just for that three months period that we got. So our crew, our core crew, is always there. They never have to worry about any of that Awesome.
Speaker 1:And how do you hire when you're up north, you know, like I believe there's only one welding school and I believe that's Yukon U, yukon University is the only welding program there. Sky Pearson is the instructor there. And. Sky yeah. And Sky's an awesome dude. I work with him for skills.
Speaker 3:It is.
Speaker 1:But he, you know, I talk to him every year. We get together for skills every year as part of the teams and he always tells me that you know it's, there's not a lot of welding programs, there's not a lot of welding students. Sometimes they struggle filling the classes and you know, and it's not for fault of the program, just population wise. So what, what do the companies do to hire? How do you do you take all the kids, every kid that graduates, out of the program? You're like, you're mine, or or? How does it work?
Speaker 3:Well, it's difficult because, as in a shop, you need to maintain a certain ratio of journeyman to a premises to write, so doing just that wouldn't be feasible. I think there's two ways that the world changes pre COVID and there's post COVID. So pre COVID we used to get like two to four people every year that would walk in the front door with the resume and be like hey, I'm moving here, my wife got a job or I want to explore the North, and we could have like a few people. But now, with the since COVID, people are not traveling as much, they're not moving as much in the economy slowing down. So it's been it's been more challenging over the last couple of years to get them new employees.
Speaker 1:I know that one of the things we look at here in the CWB association. Literally we talk about it every year. I've been with the company now three years and it's something that I've been a focus every year and we haven't quite figured it out and hopefully these conversations are going to help. But how do we get more support up in the North? You know like we want to support, you know, sky and Yukon University. We want to support welding programs, trades programs in general, women of steel, you know, women in welding, indigenous people in welding, training people, underrepresented groups. All these things that we want to do, we do them in every province.
Speaker 1:You know we spend all this money supporting every province in Canada except for the territories, and I feel like that's unjust, like we should be finding ways to support the Northern communities. But what's been missing is that everywhere we go in Canada along the, along the provinces, we always have industry partners. So we'll always have an industry partner to say, hey, we'll partner with this industry, we'll work with the college, we'll run a couple programs over the summer and introduce a whole bunch of people to welding. Whether they stay in welding and work or not, that's fine. Whether they stay in, you know there or even follow with it in the end is fine, but at least it gives them ability to see that there is support, you know, and it's not. It's not so isolated, because I think people sometimes get afraid that if you go up north you're completely cut off, and I don't think that's true.
Speaker 3:No, it's not true at all, and that's definitely something that that would be interesting to do and maybe that's something that you can, you can contact you can get in contact with me after the podcast there and something we can definitely would be interested in doing for sure, because it's an our advantages, and other companies as well, to have young people that are enthusiastic about welding and it's such a beautiful trade Like it's not like a lot of people have a misconception that it's, it's, it's it's your little dark shop, dirty and black smoke and this, and that, like, things have changed where safety is more of a concern. And then it's, it's, it's more, it's not a dirty trade as per se anymore. It's a beautiful trade that you can work with your hands and it's it's. As far as I'm, I love welding.
Speaker 1:That's a beautiful thing, Well and look at your own story. Like I mean, it's a. It's a trade that has so many avenues of growth. You know you can end up general manager of a company. Myself I was a Red Seal welder. I ended up being director of the CWB and you know these are, these are pathways that exist. So yeah, you may. There is times where it is a dark, dirty job. There may be times where that's it, but that's not forever and that's not all of it. That's just a small piece of what the industry is.
Speaker 3:Exactly, and every job, as far as I'm concerned, of their, their quirks. So if you take the good and the bad, I think it's a it's a beautiful job. It's a beautiful career with tons of opportunities, because, regardless of where the industry goes, there will always be steel bridges, there will always be steel buildings, there'll always be steel equipment. It's going to be a job that you never going to run. If you're good, you're never going to run out of work, and if you're invested in your work too, and what's it like to travel in and out Like?
Speaker 1:is there flights that come in and out every day? Is it fairly easy, like in the summer, to to get in, to move around lots of hotels Like? What's the atmosphere like there for for visitors?
Speaker 3:For visitors. It's great Like there's two or three flights a day in the summer, if not more, in the winter at least once or twice a day, and you can take a car and drive up the highway from Edmonton, 2000 kilometers. So in the summer, a couple of days you can be here and it's a beautiful drive. So it's, it's there's nothing, nothing there, like it's. It's not secluded as per se. White horse is not secluded, yeah yeah, and it's fairly, fairly cheap to to fly from Vancouver, edmonton to here. So it's not the end of the world.
Speaker 1:This is the reason I'm asking and I'm going to pitch this idea to you on on the open air in front of thousands and thousands of people we do can weld. Every year we do conferences across Canada. Every year we participate in conferences around the world. Conferences are a wonderful way to bring people together, to network, but also to showcase local industry. One of the things that I've really focused on since we started since I started at the CWB is that every second year we pick a location that's perhaps a little bit more remote to try to showcase industry and and I kind of open up people's eyes. So you know, this year it's going to be in Toronto. It's the big show, but last year we did it in Moncton, new Brunswick. You know a small community. We teamed up with the New Brunswick Community College, a small college, and showed off some industry. You know it's only a 200 person conference, much smaller scale than our big one, but people, really we have learned love those small conferences. Maybe we have less people come, but the people that come are very serious about what they do and they want to learn about whatever's going on.
Speaker 1:So I've already thought about it with my team a couple times, like, could we do a conference in the North? Could we find a Northern like in the territories to do a conference? But there's so many questions about you know where, how who's going to go, what industries would support this? Is there a mining association? Is there, you know? Is there a unions? Is there other colleges? And and I haven't really been able to find a good contact, the only contact I have honestly is Sky. He's the only person that I've ever talked to and he's always like well, I don't know what's going on outside the school, really like I just work with the school and the college and you're kind of the first person I've thought so, in your professional opinion, would it be an attraction? Would like, are there conferences that run up there already? Do people host conferences in White Ours?
Speaker 3:There's like reverse trade shows sometimes and these kinds of things, which we did a reverse trade show for a project specific A year ago and it was kind of a hit, like we got lots of people, lots of lots of applicants and all that seems to be something that's the one I've seen are more project specific. That being said, I don't think that anybody in the industry I've ever taken the time to do something like this. I think it would be, I think it would be a hit and, quite frankly, I know sky quite well. I'm sure between me and him we could help you set up something up here. That would be, that would be good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because it's not a lot of moving pieces. Like when I was talking about doing the conferences and smaller communities and we were talking about the plan, all I said is I need a college, I need an industry supporter and then I need some events, so like a facility tour or or a Sightseeing tour. So, like you know, we in New Brunswick we went and looked at chip building and then we went and looked at the college and whatever's around. You know you eat lobsters and whatever. Like whatever is local. Because I didn't want to be like, hey, we're coming to your community to tell you what to do. Like we even contacted the local indigenous people in in Moncton and said you know, can you come do the opening ceremonies? You come do the food? So you tell us about your. We even did sessions with Skills trades of indigenous people where they showed us, you know, bead making and stuff like that. And I think that the there's probably so much of that history Up in the north that no one knows about, including myself, right.
Speaker 3:No, 100%, and I do think that's something like this if you make, if you mix it with the the first nation cultures and roots, you would definitely get lots of, lots of success with that 100%. Well, I'm gonna follow this up.
Speaker 1:We're gonna talk after the show, but it is something that I've brought up every couple years and people have kind of pushed back. Well, I wouldn't say push back, but there the question is like, would we have enough people attend? And then my responses Does it matter? Maybe we have less people attend, but the people that attend will be amazed, and that's really what's important. You know what I mean.
Speaker 3:Quantity over quality, quality over quantity. For sure that's right, cuz we go to Toronto and Toronto's 6000 people conference.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. But I also know that at the end of the, at the end of the week, when the conference was over with 6000 people, everyone feels like everything just happens so fast. And you say you sit someone down. You say okay, what do you remember the most about the last week? And it's like I don't know. You know what I mean, but when we talk about New Brunswick, people are still you know, it's been eight months. People are still telling me oh, new Brunswick, we went to that local brewery breweries like 400 years old. You know, we got to do this cool stuff and they're still talking about that little community in New Brunswick. You know what I mean. So I think it makes a difference in people's minds.
Speaker 3:No, 100%, and I think, I think you could get a lot of that here, and there would definitely be something to be said of having such events. I think would be. It would be you would remember it, because the Yukon is a place that you don't forget. That's why I'm still here 15 years later Now for yourself.
Speaker 1:Professionally, you know, as a general manager of a welding shop. You know what are some of the big obstacles that you have to deal with. When you Planned out work or the year, even when you look at a fiscal year for your company. What are some of the biggest obstacles that you have to overcome?
Speaker 3:I Would say that the, the geographics are definitely one of them, that one of the challenge versus fabricators it's different from in Montana, vancouver, is when I need material. It takes minimum two days if a truck is coming off the highway to bring me on material. So it takes a lot more planning, front-end planning, because you can just say, hey, go to such and such and get a piece of steel because you won't. You won't get it right. So Definitely the location is a big one, the weather, of course, or construction season is only Good. Construction season is only about six months, if that.
Speaker 3:If so, yeah, like right now we're putting up an expansion at the hospital and my guys there they're Working outside. Last week it was like minus 28, minus 30, and it was just just cut off before we were shutting it down and it just makes everything slower. So you got to take that into account too, because in January you can be lucky and get away a month of Minus 15, which is good weather, mm-hmm, but you can also want of minus 40, which is Not good weather Well, and the steel?
Speaker 1:the steel doesn't work well when it's below minus 20, like it just doesn't work Well. It doesn't move the same. It doesn't weld the same. Even with preheating people like always, grab tiger torch and heat up the joint. It's not the same. You cut a steel when it's minus 40, then measure it when it's zero. You know like. I mean you got a way different.
Speaker 3:Like these, things grow and shrink quite a bit 100% and that like at minus 30, minus 40 even. I don't care if you preheat. By the time you turn around, grab your stinger and start Laying your bead, your thing is cold already. Yeah, it's like we avoid doing any, any welding on site, even when it's colder, minus 18, because that's kind of the cutoff it's. Anything after that we're bolting up the building is not such as bad, yeah, but and you know, hot work usually yeah, I know how works.
Speaker 1:It's difficult. I've been on hot site or cold weather sites and welding up about, especially at height and the cold, because you get a little bit of wind and then there's nothing underneath you to help you warm up either. There's no ground, so you're cold all the way around. And I remember my rod oven like I mean rod ovens they set that you know 120 Celsius, 250 Fahrenheit, and it wouldn't. Even it was my rod oven was at 20 degrees Celsius. It was so cold that it was just sucking the heat right out of the rod oven so we couldn't even use the, the electrodes. We're like well, I guess we're not welding today. I remember my format at the time. He was really pissed off because he's like oh, we gotta get this done. And I was like there's no way, like nothing is, it's too cold, it's like minus 40 and we got like 70 kilometer winds. This is dangerous.
Speaker 1:We should not be doing this.
Speaker 3:Like, ultimately, we tried to avoid Putting up buildings at this time of year, but yeah, we're not making the column this one. Usually it's a general contractor that dictate the schedule, not the subcontractor. So, like I would say it's very seldom we put up buildings when it's that cold, but it does happen and what about bringing up talent?
Speaker 1:you said like every now and then, every year, you have to bring up some talent from other provinces To help supplement the work. Is that a tough process, or do you do you have like kind of regular people that seem to come back every year, or how does that process work?
Speaker 3:It kind of works both ways. We do have a crew in Alberta of like a few guys that they're the first one we call and if they're not busy they come and then they work and then they go, and if they don't, then we gotta just do a whole new hiring process. Usually you wins or one of those hiring sites and Do interviews over the phone, which I find really really difficult in the welding industry to be doing an interview over the phone because you can be able to build a spaceship on a resume. But you can run a 78 enough. You can run a 78 up hands.
Speaker 1:Your Says a lot, right well, I do know that some welding companies are now doing zoom interviews when they'll actually book the interviewees at a local school or or hall and and so have the camera set up and say, okay, run some beads in front of me in the camera for virtual Well tests.
Speaker 2:So I don't know if that's something that you'd be interesting.
Speaker 1:But, post COVID, everyone has a cell phone or a web camera. It's very easy to set it up to to run some beads.
Speaker 3:You know that's that's actually a pretty good plan. I might I'm kidding my back pocket for next time.
Speaker 1:Well it is. It is tricky, like I mean, hiring is always a tricky thing, and I've had this conversation with so many people because If I look at a resume, it'll say welder fitter. Everyone writes down, everybody writes down welder filter, like that, and they might, they might not even know what welder fitter means, but they're gonna put it on their resume, welder fitter. And then they show up and they can kind of weld and there's, you cannot fit at all, because fitting is the fabrication is a whole nother game, just because you put some things in a jig doesn't mean that you're a fabricator.
Speaker 1:And and you don't know that till they show up, unless you do some type of an exam or a tester, like I mean. I know some places, like friend of mine who owns a company down in Pennsylvania he does a Fitting test. He forces everyone that comes in for a job test, he hands them a you know six Identical squares and says fit me a box, I want a box. That's it, six squares. Yeah, it doesn't get any easier than that and needs to measure the same on all sides and it needs to be square. And he said out of 50 people he may have two that can do it. And I was shocked by that, you know. And I, he said that half Didn't even finish, they just abandoned the project and said, no, I can't do it. And and, if and if. That's the reality because really there's only a couple Fabricator courses left in Canada, period, and there's none in the US. There's like they're done. Where are these young Welders gonna learn to fabricate? I mean, that's tricky.
Speaker 3:You know what I think. That's one thing that I must say that the program in Quebec was was unreal for and I think I would, I would love to see that more in in programs across Canada is to have more emphasis on the blueprints aspect of the job, because that's just as important as well that if you can read the drawing to know what you have to weld. It's. It's difficult, right. So, like my course on 18 months, there was one day a week for the whole 18 months that was only drawings.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, I know in.
Speaker 1:Saskatchewan we still have fabricator program. Alberta still has a fabricator program. I Don't know if BC does, in Ontario doesn't. So it's getting less and less. You know the fabricators that comes to Saskatchewan I used to teach here. Every single student that went through the fabricator program got hired before they were even done school, Like they weren't even close to being done school and already had a company being like you can come work here, and they actually didn't even care if they could weld. They said we could teach you how to weld. The welding I can teach you. The fabricating is the tougher part to teach 100%, 100% and it's, it's.
Speaker 3:It's what we're lacking here. Finding the most is I can find lots of people that can weld. It's easy, it's the fabricating part and that's actually like if we go back to what we're talking earlier. It becomes even hard sometimes when, when the program, they have all those welders, those young apprentices, it's fine. But then they can well, they can run a metal core, flux core, flat, and that's perfect. But if you don't have the fitters, if they're them steel, then you're, you're hooked right. So there's definitely a lacking industry of fitters as per se.
Speaker 1:There's a I was just so. I was talking to a company, brand brand industries. I used to work at brand industries when I was younger. They're a massive manufacturing company here in the prairies and we were talking about the pyramid and they, when I was working with them, they kind of explained this pyramid of fabrication to me.
Speaker 1:And I always think about this when I think about education. Because they would say for one engineer you would have five fitters, fabricators, to work with that engineer to put together the things that he's coming up with, and they would communicate. So you always communicate to them. This doesn't work. This does work. We may have to make changes, blah, blah, blah. For every five, for every one fabricator, you have seven welders. So one fabricator good fabricators should feed enough work to maintain Optimal seven welders, and that's a lot, I would say. In my world, three to five is fair. Three to five is fair, but this is, you know, they have their, their, their structure that they're aiming for so fine, aim high. And then for every welder you would have three assemblers right, which would be mill rights, hydraulic. You know people that know Machining, any of the other supplementary trades to welding, and I always think about how that pyramid gets wider as you go down.
Speaker 1:So they say, okay, we need all these welders, we need all these welders, but for every three to five of these welders you need to have one fabricator out there, right, mm-hmm? And for every three to five of these welders you need to have ten to fifteen assemblers, hydraulics maintenance, the machinists, mill rights to support them. And and I don't think the schools across Canada Collaborate to work that out because we can push all these welders out, but then where's the fabricators? And we can push all these engineers out, but where's the welders? You know. And that that pyramid doesn't fit, you know.
Speaker 3:Mm-hmm, there's definitely holes, blocks missing in the pyramid. I agree with you on that one and that's something that I've noticed, like I've been in that that management position for six years now and I think for every people that walks in the door, one out of ten maybe is gonna be able to be a good fitter, maybe, yeah, a lot of good welders, but fitters and fabricators it's. It's a lost art almost, which is essential to the trade, as you said, because if you're missing a layer of the pyramid, you don't have permit anymore.
Speaker 1:That's right. And and I feel like welders have ability, like the good, the top welders have an ability to Visualize. You know the arc, the weld, they can, they sound and the smell in the field. They just know. And you see these good welders, they don't even need to look, they know what it is, they can even tell by the sound. We all get to that point, fabricators. It's a different thing. You're able to envision the whole project in your head like 3d model and you can spin it around and you can pull pieces out and put Pieces in. And that's not a skill that you're born with. I mean, some people have it, some people don't. Right, and and it's. I've seen People want to be fabricators but they just don't get it. And it's not that they're not smart, it's not that anything like that, it's just not in there in their genetics or something. They just have the ability to do that and that's the piece I think that you have to have and train. It's tough.
Speaker 3:It's very difficult, but once you have it, then you see, you see everything as a whole, different Mm-hmm as Spec, if you want, like once you understand that drawings and you 3d in your head, then it's, it's, then you're good. Oh, yeah, yeah, once the light comes on, the lights comes on and it stays on forever like it's just it's. I think, like you said, it's the skills that you got to learn, it's not something that you're gonna be born with.
Speaker 1:Yeah, some people maybe, but yeah the lucky one. So, and now? What's? What's the plan for you going forward like? It sounds like you're Happy in the company. What's, what are the goals that you're setting up for your company now as general manager? What are the things you're?
Speaker 3:trying to do Like we're. I would say that we're probably, as of today, probably the biggest fabricator in the north of 60, so from there I want to try to to make the company Better from from from other companies in Canada, for example, fabricators from so when people hear our name, they're like oh yeah, that's good quality. At the moment, starting next month, we have our we hired an engineer that's gonna start working full-time for us, so we're gonna become division one of CWB and and I actually last night I was working on our certification with CISC together quality standards certified as well. So just trying to always get go to step ahead, to be to be ahead of Everybody else if we want well, and you have to.
Speaker 1:I mean one of the things I always tell people about certification, whether it's AWS, as me, cisc, aisc, cwb, iso, iw, whatever the process, whether you want to do it or not, is Beneficial. All of them are beneficial because you learn. You learn so much through an audit process, through a registration process. You learn more about the process of the electrodes, the welding, the Liabilities, the insurances, that all those little pieces of steel construction, everything that knowledge isn't isn't really accessible to people until they start going through this registration process.
Speaker 1:Then you start learning all this stuff and you're like, oh my gosh, I have to do all these things in order to get that piece of paper, and it's not just do them, learn them. You know what I mean? So, yeah, it's, it's a lot to take on. I mean, your brain must be pretty full of of codes right now.
Speaker 3:Yep, yep, it is, and I mean I do enjoy this part of the work too. Like I just tried to think of ways to make the company, like I said, bitter and highlight from everybody else. So, like I think, I think the CISC certification was the next logical step for us.
Speaker 1:Especially in the.
Speaker 3:British world. You know Exactly, and there's only a few companies throughout throughout Canada that have that certification and all the names that are associated with that. You can tell oh yeah, these guys are, these guys are good big players that you can tell their name. So that that's kind of what we're hoping. And AWS is not of the table either, because we're so close to Alaska. It could be, it could be some, some work there as well.
Speaker 1:So yeah, even though we know that CWB is better. What about growth? You know, with a limited population limited, I guess, amount of availability of employment, is there an opportunity for companies like yours to grow is like, you know, like companies in highly populated areas are like Well, we want to grow and then we're gonna get so big we'll open a second shop or a third shop or we'll expand across Canada. Is that, is that even possible in the Northern Territories?
Speaker 3:I would say if there would be expansion for us, I would say would probably be south. I don't foresee expansion north because we're already covering all the way up to the Bulford Sea. But I would say as a company there's still lots of room for us to expand as per se. With automation nowadays too, you can bring a machine in the shop and then that's going to increase your production 50%. And the nice thing about automation too, is that when the work flow goes down which up here it is always like this you can just turn the breaker off and then you don't have to lay off anyone, you don't have to pay nothing, it's just there and next time you need you fire it up and it's good right. So I would say automation and mixed with starting to look maybe Alaska or northern British Columbia is definitely options that are feasible.
Speaker 1:It's interesting you bring up automation because we have such a big push at CWB to get into automation codes and supporting industry with automation From an agnostic point of view, where we're just trying to help you streamline your company. We don't tell you what to buy or who to buy, but we are starting to offer programs now to help companies automate, because that is going to be where companies need help with. In the past they needed help with the welders, so we're there to support the welders. That's what this association does. But now companies are saying well, we're getting into welding automation. Who supports us for the robots? So you know we need to start getting into that as well. And for remote areas, I think people forget how automation could actually be a much higher impact, like you said, for places that are more remote and plus, a robot doesn't necessarily care if it's minus 30 or plus 20. You know what I mean.
Speaker 3:Exactly, but I think it still needs to be a balance, because if it's overpopulated with automation, then people don't want to go into trade and then you still need, like, if you got your beam line to cut and process and mark your beam, you still need somebody to put the stiffener in and to paint it. You know what I mean. So I think it's a juggling act between doing it just enough but not too much, so we still keep people interested in the trade. I think there's a company we bought a Plasma table from. They're top of the line automation and then they're Canadian made and they're unreal. So I definitely think that throughout the years we'll see more and more of those beam lines and this and that helping to fill that gap.
Speaker 1:And like the industry now, I mean automation is not new. We've been working with robots for 70 years now. They've shown that automation and robotization of employment increases the amount of people you have to hire. Everyone for many, many years thought that we would lose to the robots, the robots would take over and everyone would lose their jobs. But now we know that actually the robots increase the number of jobs we have because they produce more production and humans are growing. It's not like our population is going down, right.
Speaker 1:So the population keeps going up and automation is just filling a gap.
Speaker 3:The work is still there 100%, and I think it's for the best as far as I'm concerned, because if we don't keep up with the demand of building or highways or anything, then it's actually slowing down the population, because then there's no housing. Those high rises in Edmonton, they're all built out of steel. If you stop building them, there's no houses to get built. So exactly. So I think it'll be a good step forward in the future.
Speaker 1:So for the listeners that are tuning in, if they were interested in experiencing your part of the world and maybe going up there to work as a welder, what would be the steps they would need to take to try to get up there and find some work?
Speaker 3:Well, I would say reaching out is always a good thing. Like we're available on Facebook, I'm available on the website, my email, reaching out see the workload we got and just put the resume out there. And the best way I would say is, if it's a plan that somebody that plans to do this in the future is not wait till you're ready to move, is put your resume out there and then, when we got the work, we'll be like hey, we got opportunities now. I would say this is probably the best approach because sometimes, with the work being always up and down, we never know if maybe that when you're ready, we're not ready or vice versa.
Speaker 1:Right, and what type of certifications would you look for, or what would you look for on a resume that would really stand out? What are the tickets or qualifications that you would love to see?
Speaker 3:Somebody that can read blueprints, imperial metrics, that can fit a little bit of structural steel based on tecla drawings, that's a huge asset. That's a no brainer. It's definitely something that would highlight from everybody else. As far as welding wise, we're focused more on metal core in the shop and stick in the field. Somebody that can run a nice 718 vertical typically it might sound silly, but typically that makes to me that makes them a really good versatile welder that can do field work and shop work. Somebody that has experience putting up buildings but can also work in a shop, that's ultimate for me, because that's being that we do everything in house. Being able to do it all, or at least willing to learn it all, definitely makes a big difference.
Speaker 1:Do employees in your area qualify for the Northern Living Allowance, the bonus from the government?
Speaker 3:100%. Everybody that lives in the Yukon is available for it up to two person per household. It's not as much as people think it is, but it still helps. At the end of the year, I would say the hardest part for somebody that's thinking to move up here permanently is to start looking for housing before they jump in their truck and drive up the highway.
Speaker 1:It's probably not easier just to rent a trailer and live outside all year round. Probably can't do that very well.
Speaker 3:I got a couple guys that said they do. They came from Alberta and they're more than happy to live in their fifth wheel year round.
Speaker 1:As long as it's summer months, not the cold, cold, cold winter.
Speaker 3:Oh, they still do it in the cold, cold winter. I wouldn't do it myself. The housing market did cool off a little bit over the last six months so it is more affordable, but it's definitely planning ahead for somebody that wants to come here for any periods of time. There's that misconception about the North that when people come to work you go and you do overtime and you do three weeks ten hours a day every day and then you go and turn around. The reality is in the shop we work 40 hours a week, monday to Friday, 8 to 4.30. And when we're on site. Yes, there's opportunities for overtime and for this and that, because we need to get the building up quick and this and that, but the reality is 90% of our work in the shop is a 40 hour week. So if people that want to come here shouldn't want to come here for all patch lifestyle, they want to come here for the nature, fishing, hunting, camping Lifestyle and work at the same time yes, exactly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, that's good advice. I love that All right. Well, phil, this has been a wonderful conversation. You know just a couple. I want to just finish off with a couple more questions, but it's been a wonderful on the show, you know. First of all, in terms of the CWB Association, we have chapters all over Canada. Do you think that we have enough of a welding community for us to set up a chapter in the North? Do you think we have enough people, enough welders, fabricators, engineers that there'd be an interest for it? Because that is on my checklist of possible places to look at setting up a chapter.
Speaker 3:Well, I would say that that's definitely something that would require. I don't think I can comment right off the bat like this on the spot, but I would definitely be interested in to helping you out with this If that's something that you want to do. You got my contacts and I would be. I wouldn't mind getting involved with that actually.
Speaker 1:I'm okay. Well, I'll reach out for you. And the last question is you know where do you go on your summer holidays? You know, if you live somewhere where people go there for summer holidays, where do you go?
Speaker 3:In the summers. I don't get much holidays with the type of work I do.
Speaker 1:Well, I guess, where do you go in the middle of January when you want to run away?
Speaker 3:A week ago. I just came back from Columbia. There you go. I've been here a couple of times. South America I love, but in the summer here we just stay here because I can drive my truck for half an hour and being in the middle of nowhere doing camping. That's just what I like doing. Just far enough. So the cell phone can't ring is the perfect spot.
Speaker 1:That's great advice, awesome. Well, thank you very much, phil, for taking time to be with us today, anytime. Thanks, mike. I'm sure people that are interested you know, reach out to Philip Vincent, that Klondike welding up in the Yukon and Whitehorse. If you have any questions, you can find them online. He said they're on Facebook and when this podcast drops we'll also be sharing his information with the post. So you know, make sure that if you have any interest in going up north or even a holiday, check it out. I'm interested. I've always wanted to go up there. I have people that have gone up there and never come back. I feel that happens like actually quite a bit. So, you know, follow along and stay tuned with that and for all the people that have been downloading, sharing and commenting on our podcast, thank you so very much.
Speaker 1:We're doing great. We've got a great year planned ahead of us. We've got lots of conferences coming up. We've got some great plans and some really cool stuff coming out. We're going to be working hard around Skills Canada. We're going to be in Quebec City for Skills at the end of May. So we're going to be doing lots of really fun work around there in Team Canada. We also are going to be a Fabtech in Toronto in June and Fabtech Orlando in the States, I believe in October. So we're going to be all over the place. We're going to be doing all the cool stuff and I hope to see everybody there. And if you see us in the wild, come up to us, say hi and shake our hands. We'd love to meet you All right, so stay tuned for the next episode. We hope you enjoy the show.
Speaker 4:You've been listening to the CWB Association Welding Podcast with Max Surveill. If you enjoyed what you heard today, rate our podcast and visit us at wwwassociationorg to learn more. Feel free to contact us if you have any questions or suggestions on what you'd like to learn about in the future. Produced by the CWB Group and presented by Max Surveill, this podcast serves to educate and connect the Welding community. Please subscribe and thank you for listening.