After the fish plant closed. The Forest Service asked me to try out for fire suppression, I thought it sounded pretty awesome. I had met a few forestry guys while I was working on the forest service work project and they felt I was a good match for firefighting. I was sent to Port Alberni for a series of physical tryouts, there were around 30 of us there, and 6 of us passed the fit tests as they were pretty tough. These physical tests were the precursors of the ramp tests that type 2 wildland firefighters go through every year to keep their type 2 standing.
I wish I could say that I breezed through these tests, but must truthfully admit that I barely squeaked through them. After this, the 6 of us took a fire suppression course in Port that ran for 6 weeks, and 4 of us made the grade.
After passing the exams, I moved back to Campbell River and signed up with the local forestry as a grunt for the upcoming fire season, I worked many fires through the spring and summer, and then a major fire erupted in Strathcona Park. I got on as a crew boss. This was a big fire for Vancouver Island, it had a 5-mile front and over 300 men fighting it. My crew of 10 was a water team and our job was to set up water systems to get water to the various hot spots on the front. We set up all kinds of systems, where we could we would set up gravity flows, In another area, we set up pumps at Buttle Lake where we would pump water uphill through a series of large relay water tanks until we got water to where it was needed. If a creek was available, we would set a pump and put a man there with a radio. We laid out many km of hose. One of the gravity systems we set up involved a series of hose lays running down a canyon to get water to a particularly hot area of the fire, just as we had it set up the wind shifted and the fire came rolling right up the canyon toward us.
The smoke was intense and the fire was crowning through the treetops right over our heads. We had no choice but to run up as fast as we could with the fire licking at our asses. As the fire raced up the hill behind us, the old-growth trees began to candle. I started to think that maybe we were not going to get out of this, but we managed to just get over a ridge and out of the way before the fire overran us. We lost most of the hose and various other tools and equipment to the flames but my crew was safe. This fire was in a national park and there were huge trees and cliffs everywhere, making it tough to battle this blaze.
I have heard it said that the trees in front will explode from their sap boiling from the heat. It might appear to be so, but I have never observed this, even in a firestorm. The trees catch on fire but never explode.
My crew and another 300 personnel fought this fire for 3 weeks to get it under control and contained. Then 6 of my team stayed on for another 3 weeks of fire patrol and mop-up. We lived in 3 separate wall tents, 2 to a tent, spaced along the fire front up on the mountain. We would do patrols along each section of the firefront, cold trailing as we went along. We would also banana roll all the hose to load into cargo nets and long line them off the mountain. There were miles of hose. Once we were off the mountain, we washed, dried and re-rolled all the hoses from the fire. This took weeks. We not only used our dry racks, but we used the fire hall hose tower as well.
Several of the foresters who looked after us offered me more work with the forest service. I took it up and over the next couple of years, I worked in silviculture, recreation and protection.
I learned how to do slash burns and took to this with enthusiasm. On any given slash burn, I would first fall all snags within 100 meters of the area being burnt. These snags were like candles that lit very easily from the intense heat created during the burn. Then you have a loose fire in the adjoining forests. Falling these snags was pretty dangerous, some of the old firs could be 2 meters at the butt and be covered in a foot of rot. Sometimes this rot would just break loose and come down at you with enough force and weight to kill you, requiring you to get the hell out of the way. Once the snags were gone we would set up waterlines to any spots I felt could allow the fire to jump the lines. We would set up forestry personnel at pumps and hose ends.
Once all was in place and the fire weather was good to go, we would send up the helicopter to start dropping the ping pon balls. These balls are filled with Potassium Permanente, then just as the balls are to drop, they are injected with Glycol. When these 2 chemicals are combined, they create a tremendous amount of heat and flames. I would have the heli begin the burn dead center of the slash, working his way out in a circle till the fire was so hot that it created an updraft pulling in air from the edge of the slash. At this point, the heli would ignite the outer edge, while we hit missed spots with drip torches. Then the updraft would pull the flames into the slash. This was a lot like doing a backburn on a wildland fire. I did so many slash burns that I don’t think I could count them all. One thing I can say with pride is the fact that I never lost a single burn. I worked almost exclusively out of Zeballos throughout the year, except during the fall when the slash burns were all over the district. I stayed in a pretty nice trailer provided by the government.
Zeballos is a wonderful little town with a rich history of mining and logging. It was a small west coast fishing village until 1924 when gold was found. The village soon sported 3 hotels, a brothel, a general store and a hospital.
Today it is once again a small village with most of the mines closed and logging almost done, tourism is the new source of income now. Once gold was discovered, the village soon sprang up into a small city with 3 hotels, a brothel, a general store and a hospital. Over 1500 people called the town home. The town even had a newspaper. The town was a buzz with people from all around the world arriving to be part of the excitement. The harbour was full of ore ships, freighters and float planes.
In 1939, W.W.2 broke out and many of the men left to fight overseas, when they returned at the end of the war, gold prices had fallen and were not high enough to keep the mines going. Within a few years, the town had far fewer folks with only about 200 remaining, mostly sustained by logging and fishing. Logging remained the main industry and still is today.
In 1962, with high iron ore values around the world, an ore mine was opened and ran for about 7 years, boosting the population and adding a new cash source to the community, but iron prices fell again and the mine closed in 1969.
Today, the village is a small West Coast community with a resource-based economy but tourism is starting to be a driving force as more and more visitors are looking to Zeballos as a destination, a gateway to the west coast. The village is becoming a favourite place for kayakers, sports fishers and nature lovers who want to leave the crowds behind and experience the wilderness of Vancouver Island. Comfortable accommodation and several cafes welcome visitors.
The road to Zeballos turns west off Highway 19 just north of Woss. The 40 km gravel road is usually in good condition and is looked after. Watch for bears, deer and elk crossing the road and eagles soaring overhead as you drive in. The village is very beautiful, it is located at the head of Zeballos Inlet.
During the early 70s, l logged out of Zeballos and the village at that time had a fairly large population of around 300 plus another 350 men across the river in the logging camps. There even was a small theatre that showed movies a couple of times a week. The problem for us who lived in the camps across the river was that there was only one bridge to the other side of the river and it was 5 miles up the road, making it a ten-mile trip to get across to a town you could hit with a rock.
I can still remember how we would get all gusied up and head to town on a Saturday night, we would remove our shoes and pants at the river’s edge and wade over to the other side in our underpants, fairly easy to do. Then after a night of drinking, we would head back to camp, sometimes there were quite a few of us. Now getting back across was not as easy since most of us would have quite a stagger going on. Many would lose their balance and have a cold and wet walk the rest of the way to camp. Two young native brothers had a house beside the camp, they would head across in a row boat to pick up the boys who did not want to risk the river crossing, $20.00 for a lift to camp was the deal, and they would make a fair bit on a Saturday night.
The natural settings around the town are just breathtaking, there is a wildlife viewing platform located in the centre of town and the estuary is easily accessed and is a great place to view birds and sea life.
Fall, winter and spring are best viewing times for waterfowl, which include many kinds of seabirds and ducks. In the fall, back bears come to feed on the spawning salmon and many other birds and animals use the area throughout the year. Some great trails run through the estuary full of picnic tables and boardwalks and a great campsite for your stay.
I always loved going to Quadra Island to visit friends or to go camping. Back when I was a young teen, I had many friends who had bought land there and built a variety of hand-crafted domes and cabins. I always enjoyed getting an invitation to come for dinner. The freedom these people had was pretty cool, none of them had hydro and they cooked and heated with wood-burning stoves. Dinner was always something different and usually vegetarian.
Camping on the island was awesome, we liked to head up to Village Bay Lakes where there was a cabin we could use. It was in between the main and little main lakes, it was on the creek that flowed between the lakes, and you could canoe up this creek right to the cabin. Fishing was good in the lakes and you could hook into some big bruisers when deep trolling from the canoe.
On one trip, I had gone in with a good buddy, Bo was a good friend and one of my main fishing buddies. We would lake and river fish all over the place, and fishing out on the chuck was always fun. I had an 18-foot Sangster boat, this was our ocean boat, I also guided as an independent guide with my boat during the fishing season.
Anyway, Bo and I had gone camping at the village bay lakes and would be staying in the cabin for a few days. On our way into the cabin, we were heading up main lake, when I thought I saw a huge red shadow go by under the boat. Bo had not seen it and told me to slow down on the joints that I was smoking. Just as he was laughing at me, this shadow went under us again, we both saw it. It was a huge school of Sockeye salmon. I did not know they spawned in these lakes. It seems they come up from Village Bay through a short creek that flows into Hoskyn Channel.
One thing about camping with Bo was the amount of alcohol that would be consumed. Bo liked to drink just as much as I did. When we reached the cabin and got our gear stowed away, I grabbed the upper bunk in the backroom of the two-room cabin, Bo took a lower one. There were 4 bunks in the room. We then went out fishing on the little main lake. We planned to fish in this lake on the first day, and then head to the main lake for the rest of the trip. The little main lake is not very big but it has plenty of fish, as not many people go there. At the time there were no roads in this area and it was really pretty. The lake was surrounded by big trees and there were shallows along the shore containing all sorts of water plants. Winds were calm and the sky was blue, birds were singing and the fish were jumping. It was a beauty of a day. We fished until afternoon, and we had kept enough fish for dinner and released all the others. We then headed back to the cabin.
After a great meal, we started in on the booze. I guess I got quite drunk and do not remember getting into my bunk. I woke in the middle of the night and needed to take a pee, so I swung my feet over the edge and went to climb down. I found my assent was compromised and could not find my way down. It was so dark that I could not see at all. It was like Bo had nailed a sheet of plywood up to block me in. I was crawling around trying to figure out how this could be when Bo woke up and asked me what the hell I was doing. When I told him he began to laugh, then said you were too drunk to get up to the top bunk and had crashed on a lower bunk, and as he turned on his flashlight I could see I was now crawling around on the floor.
During the weekends, when I was in town, I liked to head to the bar on Saturday night and then later in the night, I would head to one of our clubs to go dancing. As a buddy and I were walking into the Bobos Nightclub one night, I was surprised to see the bouncer straddled on top of a girl actively punching her in the face, she was a bloody mess and not moving. One look in his eyes showed he was not about to stop. I later heard he was high as a kite on some sort of drug.
When you walk into the club, you first come into a small room where you pay the cover cost and get your stamp from a girl in a ticket window. You would then walk past the bouncer, and go through another door into the club. This was a small room and the bouncer was a big fella. So I, as a fairly inebriated individual, took 2 steps toward him and with all my might, I kicked him in the side of his head with the heel of my cowboy boot hoping to put him down. This should have rendered him unconscious but to my horror, this seemed to do nothing more than piss him off.
He turned toward me and knocked me out with one punch from his giant hand. I saw it coming up, but could not dodge it. That hand looked like a sledgehammer but it felt more like a baseball bat when it hit me. My friend who was there says he then got off the girl, grabbed me by my hair and dragged me outside where he proceeded to smash my head on a cement abutment. After a bit, he left me there and went back to work like everything was OK. I was covered in blood, my lips were mush, my nose was broken, my teeth were a mess, my eyes were black and I was dead. You hear tales of people who died and they have all sorts of fantastic experiences, I had nothing, I just laid there expired.
Someone called the police and they arrived along with an ambulance. According to my friend who was with me, the bouncer was arrested by the cops, he did not go friendly. The ambulance attendants dealt with the girl and me. The girl was in bad shape and would need surgery to put her face back together and I was deceased. Two attendants worked on me, seems one thought they should just call my death but the other kept at it and finally pulled me back. I know this because he came to see me the next day in the hospital to tell me the story. I thanked him for saving my ass.
Once the ambulance got me to the hospital, they stitched up my face as best they could and then put me into a room. I was made to wait for pain medication, and I was not allowed to fall asleep because of the concussion I had. They had a nurse sit beside me whose only job was to keep me awake, she was an old schoolmate who I had thought of as nice when we were young. After shaking me for most of the night, I was not very happy with her. I got over it though, after a while.
The girl was sent to Vancouver by air ambulance where she received numerous facial reconstruction surgeries. She would fully recover in the end. I never met her. I think I would have liked to see her once and chat a bit about that night, but that was not to be.
My injuries were messy but pretty minor. When I got out of the hospital, my inner lips were covered in stitches and my face was badly bruised and swollen, my nose took a while to heal, although one nostril has an air leak that occasionally affects my eyes. I was off work for a few weeks, although my face was sore for quite some time and any bump to the nose would bring on a nosebleed that would always take time to stop. But looking back, I must say it ended ok.
About a year later, on a Friday night, I was sitting in the Quinsam pup having an after-work beer with a buddy when a beautiful First Nations girl and her friend walked in and sat at a table on the other side of the bar.
I looked at my buddy and told him that my future wife had just walked in. He laughed at me but I just got up and walked over to her and said hi, my name is Bud and I am your future husband, she laughed as she turned to look at me. One glance of her eyes and I was held spellbound. I knew she must have fallen from the stars as I could see the universe in them. I asked if I could join her and she said yes. This was September 7, 1984. After that first meeting, I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with this beautiful young lady, she was so damn beautiful.
On February 14, 1985, after a whirlwind courtship, we were married. It was a private wedding in my riverside apartment, just some friends and family. A few weeks after our wedding, we were up at her parent’s place for dinner. After we ate, Gina pulled out some photo albums and as we were looking through them, to my surprise, I saw that little one with the big doe eyes who my mom looked after all those years ago. I suddenly realized that I had married that girl that was on my backswing all those years back. When I said to my new wife that my mom had looked after her. A look of surprise came over her face and she said to me that she remembered that day and the handsome young man who had looked at her from the porch that afternoon. Funny how some things are just meant to be.
Not long after our wedding, we discovered that Gina was pregnant, and it was pretty awesome, we were both excited. But four months later, she began to hemorrhage and we lost the baby to a miscarriage. We were devastated and my wife was very distraught. There was nothing I could say to console her, all I could do was hold her in my arms and hug her tight. She cried for months. An opportunity came up for us to care for a couple of children, four days and nights a week while their single dad was at work. This was good for Gina. Jenifer and Steve became as much our kids as their dads. They stayed with us for several years. We lost Steve a few years ago but Jen is happily married with children of her own.
At the same time, a full-time forestry position came up and I was offered an interview to be held in a couple of weeks. I was newly married and the thought of being a union member appealed to me, I would be on a salary and that means a more stable paycheck. I told them that I was very interested.
Just before my interview was coming up, Jen and Steve came down with chickenpox, the dad asked us if we had already dealt with this when we were kids and we both said yes. I seemed to remember having them but apparently, I was wrong and I came down with it a few days before my interview.
On the day of my interview, I had pox scabs all over my body and a temperature of 103. I did not want to miss my interview though, so off I went, kinda delirious, sweat pouring off my forehead in big beads and looking like hell. They took me into a board room with a long table, told me to sit at one end and they sat at the other end. They fired a couple of questions off to me and then said if I was willing to come in as sick as I was for the interview, the job was mine.
Over the next few years, I worked for the various forestry divisions, first with the silver culture division where I learned how to lay out plots, do pre-harvest assessments, do waste surveys and numerous other skills within this division. I took to this like a duck on water and loved the job.
Next, I went to work for recreation, this was awesome, we would look after trails, and campgrounds and repair picnic tables and outhouses. One of the great projects I got to be involved with was building the Sayward Valley Canoe Route. It was a winter project and the trails were mostly built using canoes to access them. It was a canoe route after all. There is not much left of the original trail that we built, but it does show up here and there.
We had 2 teams of 4 and we spent 2 months building the original trail. Cutting these trails out of the forest was pretty tough work, the trails had to be big enough to allow people to move their canoes and gear through from one lake to the next safely. We did a pretty good job, but since then it has been upgraded, I have walked sections of it and am quite impressed. On a trail that runs from Twin Lakes to Mohun Lake, we found a white pine that is the biggest I have ever seen. I mean it was massive. The white pines that grow on the island have been dealing with a tree disease called rust, which has been affecting most of the trees on the island. This particular tree was rust-free and pretty impressive. I seem to have forgotten where it was now.
After working for recreation, I got the chance to work with a science officer who had a class 5 position. His name was John and the job entailed the study of different forms of logging as well as the study of impacts from this logging. We processed plots from different stages of forest growth, from ancient forests, to fully logged settings recently processed. We would create a soil profile of the various layers looking also at the mineral horizons. We looked at the microbial communities of fungi and bacteria. We listed all plant and insect species as well. I was in my glory.
Part of the work had us seeking a direct link between mycelium and tree/plant growth. John felt that this mycelium is a super highway used to transport nutrients from one tree to another. I had always believed in this as well. There were many organizations and individual scientists who were looking into it as well. I spent a year with John and my interest in plant species, uses, and soil compositions and my love of fungi was born. These were amazing projects to work on and I thank John for the year of discoveries.
I was a heavy drinker in those days and still would fight at the drop of a hat. I was going up for another assault charge, in a long line of assaults. I took time off from the Forest Service to deal with my issues. I quit drinking and got help from a government program. I was getting one-on-one counselling in anger management and had joined AA. Quitting drinking saved my marriage.
The bills had begun to pile up and I needed to work again, the Forest Service said they had something coming up in the fall. Then another outfit up on Gilford island offered me a job cooking in camp. The camp was about 20 km inland from Scot Cove. I had never been a camp cook before, but having been on the other side for years, I knew what to do. I was a pretty good cook, I even cooked all our meals at home. It was for one 15-day shift. Gina came in with me. The camp had a modern cookhouse and wash/shower rooms but our cabins were wall tents. They had plywood floors and walls with the tents set up over them. They had proper beds and each had a wood stove. The camp was being sold and we would be doing an inventory as well.
We had a full-size diesel generator and full power in all the cabins. I would turn off this power at 9 pm and fire it up around 4:30 to get things ready in the cook shack. My wife Gina was a beautiful young lady of 20 years and the boys all wanted to talk with her. I have never seen such a group of loggers act so politely in all my days. My wife gave them all haircuts and they came to supper each night in their go-to town clothes, hair slicked back and fingernails and necks scrubbed free of dirt.
Halfway through our shift, one of my deep freezers gave up the ghost. We were a long way from town and this freezer was full of food that would go bad before I could a new one in. We took a drive down to Scott Cove and put the word out. I was surprised when a man said he had one at his float house but it was across the cove and we would need a boat to pick it up. The only boat that I could locate was a 16-foot Boston wailer owned by a local First Nations lad who guided the tourist that visited the bay during the summer months. The freezer was a full-size unit.
So off me and the young feller head across the bay to bring it back. We tied the boat tight to the dock with some rubber bumpers between, we then very carefully and slowly slid it across the boat sideways, he worked from the back of the boat and I from the front. When we got it loaded, it was hanging over each side by a foot or more and we had about an inch of freeboard. It was a slow trip across but the water was like glass and we made it, A few of the boys were waiting to unload it as me and young feller held the boat steady to the dock. Then it was just a matter of getting it into the truck, back to camp and installed in the cook shack. Sometimes things just work out.
One morning, Gina and I were sitting at a table in the cook shack relaxing. We had just finished cleaning up the morning mess from the boys and Gina had helped me make six pies for the crew that were on the counter cooling. We were sitting right beside a window having a coffee. There was a wild thunderstorm going on and we were watching it. Then all of a sudden we were blinded by a bright flash that filled the room. Then almost instantly, the trailer shook from the thunderous boom that followed. Lightning had hit the ground right side of the window. I found it very exciting but Gina was terrified. She was stuck to me like glue until the storm passed.
Did you know that if lighting hits sand, it will form beautiful glass sculptures, at the time I did not know this. I wish I did, as the whole area was sand.
When the shift was over and it was time to leave, all the boys begged Gina and me to stay on, but one shift of cooking was enough for me, and besides, I think all the boys were falling in love with my wife. We headed back to town with a check in hand.
After the cooking job, I was offered a job with a forestry contractor who did both pre-harvest assessments and waste surveys. We did shifts in camps from as far south as Jervis Inlet and as far north as Owekano Lake, at the head of Rivers Inlet. Owekano Lake was an awesome place to work. One of the prettiest spots on the coast of BC.
One day, not long after we had started working here, we had parked at the end of the main line. We were hiking in to do several pre-harvest assessments in the next 5-year plan. As we were moving through the forest, we came upon signs of a grizzly bear fight between two large boars. One could see that this fight had been at least a year ago. The condition of the ground showed it must have been an incredible battle where one of them killed the other. On the edge of the area, you could see where the victor had laid down and died also. It must have been an epic battle. Bones were scattered about from scavengers feeding on the remains. Looking about, I saw that both skulls were still there, with the teeth intact, I pulled the four upper incisors to take home. Three of them were made into necklaces that my two sons and I now wear, the fourth was given to a friend who was of the bear clan. He was a good friend and over the years had presented me with many wonderful gifts of a spiritual nature. Now it was my time to have the ability to return something of wonder to him. After telling him the story of the fight between these two titans of the deep forest, he was overwhelmed. His was the hug given between two brothers.
Some of the many bears we saw were massive, but they fit for the territory. This land was primal and pristine. We were working up along the Machmell River doing pre-harvest assessments. The forests were almost prehistoric. Each tree was a mighty giant. Walking below these mammoth trees made one aware of just how small we are. One day during lunch, we stopped at the end of a road that almost reached a canyon, this canyon was on the Machmell River. If you have ever seen a King Kong movie, this looked like something you would see in the production. It was so deep that it looked almost bottomless. As we sat at the brim of this chasm you could see it going around a corner from our position. At the corner of this yawning crack in the land, you could see a waterfall flowing over the lip, it was a big falls. It never reached the river below, it would turn into mist and float down the river, settling on the rock walls. This abyss was only around 100 metres across and yet it was unfathomable deep.
Further up the road from here was the Pashleth Creek bridge crossing, this was the highest logging road bridge in the world. I understand that it was very difficult to construct. I got out and walked across the first time I saw it, it was pretty awesome. I took a rock out onto the bridge and dropped it, there was a good amount of time before I saw it hit the water below.
In 2005, the Machmell River logging operation was shut down and dismantled. Environmental laws had changed regarding where logging could take place. Everything had to be removed, I mean everything and the camp area was to be cleaned up. The two bridges on the other hand are still there. Pretty tough to reach though, I suspect more animals cross these spans than humans these days. It would be cool to see them again, maybe one day.
By the time fall came, the contracts started to have some space between them and I told my boss that if he wanted to keep me on, there would need to be more work. I had not worked for more than a week when the forest service called offering me my job back. I told my other boss that he had to replace me, he was not happy but that is just how it is.
I was given a position as a danger tree faller for the forest service and they gave me a partner, we were working on rehab blocks and future slash burns. There were always some big snags that needed to come down. These snags were scary, mostly fir and rotten, huge chunks would break off and come crashing down. You had to be quick to avoid being killed and at the same time, save your saw.
I was still dealing with not drinking and it was a daily battle, it had been more than a year since I quit. We were working on a block in the summer, and it was hot. We would start work at 5 am and quit at noon, then stay another two hours on fire watch.
I had an awesome fruit juice jug that I would make Kool-Aid in and put in the freezer overnight to freeze. This was so good when the day heated up, but on this day I had forgotten it at home. It was the hottest day yet. all day long all I could think of was that big jug of Kool-Aid. When it was noon I headed to the truck, a few minutes later my falling partner Dan arrived. As he leaned over the truck box to put his saw in, he exclaimed how much he needed a beer. I realized at that moment, that even in such heat, I still only thought of that jug of Kool-Aid. It was a great feeling. As I am writing this, it’s 40 years later and still have not had a drink.
Gina became pregnant again. We both were very happy and perhaps a bit worried about it. But through her first two trimesters, all was going well. We spent a lot of time outdoors, hiking easy trails and getting fresh air, i made sure our diet was healthy as well. One day we headed up to a short trail that ran alongside a section of John Hart Lake. As we were walking along Gina all of sudden said she was feeling faint and needed me to hold on to her.
Her skin went pale on her face and she began to get a cold sweat, I was holding onto her. Then she lost conciseness, and I could not hold her up and gently laid her down in the moss at our feet. It was about half a mile to the car. I did not know what to do. I began to panic. I realized that I had to get a hold of myself, I knelt to hold her head on my arm and slowly rubbed her face while talking to her. She finally opened her eyes and smiled up at me. She was shaking and told me that she had seen herself being laid down by ladies all dressed in white, they could have been angels she said. After she began to feel better, we made our way to the car. That was the first time anyone ever called me an angel.
During this time, my wife’s father came back into her life. He had been sober for many years and now spent his time commercial fishing and volunteering at the Victoria Friendship Center. I found that contrary to all the stories I had heard about this man, he was a true gentleman. We became friends. He was up from Victoria visiting when Gina went into labour. I took her to the hospital where her mom would be waiting. Dad stayed at our house, he would wait to hear about the birth, we did not want her mom and dad together at any point.
The labour was long and from what I was seeing, quite painful. Damn, I had idea what to expect. Every time a contraction came, she would squeeze my hand so hard I felt she was breaking bones. At one point, she said to me in a very dark and deep demonic-like voice “You will never touch me again”. At 2:30 am, my child was finally on his way into the world. They were telling her to push and the baby came halfway out, I still could not tell if it was a boy or a girl. Another push and it was a boy, he came forth completely covered in shit and sporting a boner. He was beautiful. They quickly took him away to clean him up, I looked at my wife and she was sleeping. When they brought my boy back, I was reaching out for him. My mother-in-law was quicker and jumped up to take him in her arms before I was able to. I waited more than half an hour to hold my son. I was not too happy about this but she was an elder. So I had to bite my tongue, hold back my words and wait my turn.
I got home at around 4:30 am and to my surprise, Dad was still up waiting to hear about the birth, and both my brother-in-laws were there. We all sat at my kitchen table while I regaled them the tales of my son Robert’s birth. The boys rolled a bunch of joints that we smoked while we chatted and laughed, the joints kept going past Dad’s face and he got pretty high. I took a look at him and he was smiling like high heaven. His mouth was grinning and his eyes were all a sparkle. The boys eventually went home and Dad was already sleeping on the couch. All in all, it was a great day. I went to bed dreaming about my son. At 8:30 in the morning, the phone rang. It was my wife calling to say she was ready to come home. Damn, that was fast but she is a tough young lady. So it was off to bring my family home. Robert was born on March 29, 1988. This was the birthday of my best friend, how cool is that?
In May of 1988, my wife and I were doing some spring cleaning in the yard. Picking up paper and raking up winter debris. My wife reached down to pick up a small bundle of pink paper that was lying at the base of one of our big fir trees. When she touched it, it rolled over and gave her a tiny but startling squeak. My wife screamed and fell back onto the ground. She called to come see. My curiosity was peaked and I rushed over to see this tiny little bird who did not even have feathers yet.
You see, the pink paper turned out to be a baby crow that must have been born this morning and pushed out of the nest by an older sibling. It looked so weak and helpless just lying there. My first thought was to get this bird back in its nest. I looked up our giant fir tree and realized I was never going to get him back there.
My next thought was, let’s raise him. So the bird whose name became Merlin was moved into the house and a great adventure was started. I had no idea what crows ate in the wild, so I got on the phone and got hold of every organization and bird society that I could think of and asked them what I needed to do to feed and care for this little bird. Most told me it was too young and I could never keep him alive.
I then phoned the Ministry of Environment office in Campbell River and got a man on the line who understood crows, and he helped with many things. He had a great knowledge of crows and told me what the wild crow’s diet consisted of and how a mother crow would feed it to her young. This involved the chewing up of insects and bugs, thank god for little food processors. I don’t remember the name of the fish and game guy, but he was awesome.
So Merlin got a nice warm nest area right beside the wood heater where he would be warm at night and he got constant care all day long. We kept Merlin comfortable at night and though much trial and error we got him to eat and over the next few months, he grew into a full-grown crow. He lived on a perch in our living room and was very inquisitive about everything. If a person he had not seen before walked in, Merlin would tilt his head from side to side, checking them out, and then with a loud caw he would launch himself towards the visitor and with flashing wings would land upon their head for a better look. This came as a great surprise to many of our visitors. This suited my humour to a t.
By the fall, Merlin went everywhere with me both in the house and out in the yard. He loved being outside and would spend hours hanging out in the yard. As fall came and winter was getting close, Merlin asked me to take him outside where we were greeted by many Crows in our fir trees, all cawing and making other crow sounds. Merlin was cawing back and getting very excited, then all at once, the other crows flew into the air and started to fly away, and Merlin flew up to join them.
As he was leaving, Merlin flew around our yard a couple of times and then flew off with the other crows cawing away, almost like he was saying goodbye. He visited several times over the next few years, then we moved and I lost contact with him, I hope all is well with Merlin, he was a true friend of mine.
At the end of 1988, a position came up on the initial attack fire team and I was invited to apply, I got the job and never looked back, man I loved fighting fires. We were 2 teams of 4. The guys were pretty well-trained, really tough and awesome to watch in action. During fire season all we did was fight fire, work on fire gear and practice working with our gear. I was a firefaller, but mostly I would just fight fire and build helipads. Sometimes a big snag would be hit by lightning and I would need to drop it to put it and the surrounding fire out. Then I was in my glory.
I did love my job, and a chance to drop a burning tree was pretty awesome, if you have ever got a stick burning and then waved it in the air at night, you will know what I mean. This was like that but on a scale so much bigger, as the tree fell, the flames would roar and then it would almost explode when it hit the ground. We would then make short work of the fire and be on our way home.
We did not start work until 10:30 am. Each morning after arriving at the base, my crew and I would do a 5-mile run, then we would do the 500 sit ups and push ups that were a requirement, but we would usually all do a 1000 of each, and then we would head off to work. When the weather was wet, we would do slash and pile burns, this was good practice for firefighting. If the weather was hot and dry, we would be working around the base. Sometimes in really hot weather, they would keep us on standby at the base for another 4 hours at the end of the shift.
After 2 seasons, I was promoted to a team foreman, with better pay involved and more opportunities for upgrading my skills, I took every course I could get. Over the years, I was trained in fire weather, hiring of crews and equipment, fire cause investigation, air control, dangerous goods fire suppression, and numerous other certificates. I was the guy who every year, certified personnel in hover exits for both the forest service and logging personnel from various companies.
When we would be involved in an interface fire, the local fire department would come to me and ask where I needed them to deploy, Campbell River Fire Chief Larry Lunigan and I would be involved in fires occasionally and we worked well together. He called me up one time and told me to apply for a full-time position in his firehouse, I did, as they pay well and have awesome pensions. He called me up to give me the bad news that my age was too high, they only hired guys under 25. Damn eh. I was a man in his late 30s but looked much younger.
During the off-season, most of my guys would be back at university and the couple of us left would do various jobs, mostly involving slash burns and trail building. Each year they gave me a recreation project, one winter it was exploring caves in our district to look for potential tourism opportunities. I love caving and dropped into my first hole when I was just 7 years old. It had become a lifelong passion. My objective in these missions was to look for potential recreation opportunities at these cave sites. Getting paid for several months to explore caves was a great way to spend the winter. Another year I was given a chance to go fishing in as many lakes in our district as possible. I was to register how good the fishing was and if there were campsite potential, or perhaps trails that could be built in the area. These projects were awesome. There were many projects. I had my choice of who to hire for these jobs. I always hired my buddy Norm who worked well with me.
In the fall of 1989, my wife became pregnant again. This was something we had been trying for. The hope was for a girl but it did not matter that much. I thought it would be cool for Mom to have a little shadow to teach her stuff to. They say that to have a boy and a girl makes it what they call a million-dollar family.
Gina had one of those perfect pregnancies, not a single problem during the whole time. When she began to feel contractions, she asked to go to the hospital. Gina asked me to contact her mother so she could be there, I said OK but in my head, I was thinking yup, as soon as the birth happens. I still remember not being able to hold my son after he was born. Is this petty of me, maybe but I felt strongly about this.
The labour was short and after watching our first baby being born, this one was a breeze, my wife even joked during it. When the baby came, it was one push and she was out. I was the father of a little girl and I could not have been happier. I held onto her for an hour before I called my wife’s mom. Telling her the birth happened so fast that I had no time to call her. It was a little lie but I felt good telling it. It was May 4th, 1990.
Before the birth, we had many aunties who felt that if we had a girl, she should be named after one of them, they all made sure we understood how upset they would be otherwise. My wife and I realized that this was quite the situation. I figured the only way to get past this was to name her Georgina Ann Logan after her mom. Not one auntie showed any displeasure about this, and to the contrary, I think they were all impressed with how we got out of it.
Before her birth, I speculated how a little girl would be great for mom. A little one she can share all her craft skills and jewellery-making with. This is not how it played out, not at all. My little girl became a daddy’s girl. It did not matter what she needed to be done, Daddy had to do it. You could never know how many Barbies I dressed. If little Gina got a boo-boo, only Daddy could make it better. I took to this role whole heartily as she was my little girl and I loved her.
Now when I am working on one of our trucks, she will come out and get right under there with me, she is pretty handy too. You see, she has small hands and can get them into spots where my hands don’t fit. Don’t get me wrong, my little girl is a lady, she looks after herself with care and is very pretty, but she can also do a bit of mechanics work with her dad and is not afraid to get dirty.
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