I started working as a logger when I was just 14 years old. I took a job logging for Elk River Timber, along with another lad who was of the same age and had been kicked out of school as well. He and I were hired on as one man, and we had to split a paycheck. Worked out to about $1.50 an hour each. They just called us the kids; all you could see of us were our hard hats as we moved through the fireweed.
We were quite small, this lad and I. We were like a couple of hobbit loggers, but we were hired for the job because of our small size. You see, the company had felled trees right into the Elk River, and Fisheries wanted them removed. They hired us because we were light enough to get out on the logs in the river to set chokers. I was happy to have a job. The camp we stayed in was called Camp 10. It was just past Drum Lakes, heading towards the north island. I swam in these lakes many times after work.
I owe a lot to this logging company for giving me that first job. Although I did not stay working there for long. After this, I began hiring out to gyppo outfits. The work was tough. I bulked up over time and became good at my job. I spent more time in camp than I did in town, but even on my days off, I was hardly ever home. I would only come home to see my mom, give her some money and make sure she knew I loved her. Go on a good drunk, I quite often booked a room at the Rainbow Motel. It was good to be on my own.
Over the next couple of years, I logged for various outfits up and down the coast. I went from being a snot-nosed, skinny kid to being well on my way to becoming a man. Seems I was raised by loggers. I learned what it was to be a rigging rat, and loved the job. They taught me to drink and fight. I did enjoy a good fight.
Our family was a logging family. My 3 brothers all became loggers, even my brothers who were in the military became loggers when they left the service. One of my sisters was married to a camp cook. My other sister was married to a logger who died on the job up in Call Inlet.
In those days, Dad drank quite a bit and would get to beating on us boys when he was drunk. My mom was a wonderful lady, and as sweet as pie. She always had a smile for everyone and treated everyone as if they were the most important people in her life. When my dad was drinking, she was like a sow grizzly bear, protecting her young from harm. She could stop Dad in his tracks with just a look. But my dad drank a lot, and my mom was not always around to look out for us. So, once in a while, Dad would lay a beating on one of us boys. Even from a very young age, I had been looking forward to leaving home and getting away from my dad’s bouts of drunken anger.
When I think back on how life was during my pre-teen years, I always seem to remember those times of celebration, Christmas, Easter, birthdays and so forth. They would start as joyful times, but after the beer and whisky got flowing, Dad would start up fighting with one of my brothers, and it would become a brawl of fisty cuffs with tables overturned and things broken, with my mom sitting in a corner crying. I would run off and come home after the fight. I can tell you, there is not one time that I can remember when there was no fight. Every bloody time, it was the same damn shit.
I’m not here to bash the dead, though, and to be fair about it all, I must truthfully say that when my dad was sober, he was OK. Everything I know about the bush I learned from him. He would take us boys fishing and hunting all the time and was always teaching us about the ways of the animals. My dad had such an understanding of the forest and its inhabitants. It was amazing how he could just look at the forest and tell us whole stories about what he was seeing. He would say it was like reading a book, written in another language; all you had to do was learn the language. He had such knowledge of the plants and animals, and how they lived. He knew many of the healing plants, and just how to use them, when to harvest, and how to prepare them. When you were in the forest with him, he was always telling you what was good to eat and what was not, or what could be used for medicine. I still remember how our table at home was always full of meat from hunting and fishing, along with my mom’s reserves.