Once I had the cabin rented, I needed to find work, and at the time, if you were a logger and looking for work, you would go to the office, which was the Quinsam Hotel pub. This was a logger’s bar and the best place to find out who was hiring. Lots of times, you would get phone calls from outfits that were interested in hiring you personally.
I had been looking for a job for some time when one afternoon, I got a phone call. I took the call, hoping it was for employment. It was not an employer, it was my best friend, Larry, who had owned the Easy Does It van; he had moved up to the interior just after the van burnout and was hoping to get me to join him there. I asked him where he was living, and he told me it was Wildwood, just north of Williams Lake, and I said You bet ya, man, be up as soon as I can make arrangements.
I went home and packed my stuff, and the next day I was on my way back to this town that had been so attractive to me. I arrived at 3:30 am, and as the bus pulled into the empty parking lot of the Chilcotin Hotel, I saw not just my buddy but two other good friends, Roger and Paul. They looked tired but happy to see me. These were good friends, we had logged together and rented a house together for several years, and we considered ourselves like brothers. The reunion was great.
That first summer, Roger and I took a canoe trip up the Cariboo River into the Cariboo Mountains. This was a trip I had dreamed of doing for years, and now I was loading the canoe. We planned on going right up to the Cariboo Falls and back again. We figured it was going to take about 15 days to complete.
We put in at the lower end of Cariboo Lake and canoed up through to the Cariboo River. Once in the river, there were plenty of rapids to contend with. After each set of rapids were calm areas where we would camp and fish. We saw many moose along the way, and grizzlies were everywhere. A very large boat charged us just after we left Cariboo Lake, and we had to paddle as hard as we could to get away. He was pissed off about something, and he chased us for a fair distance before giving up, growling all the way. That night, we slept on a large island in the middle of the river. We pitched the tent on a beautiful sandy beach.
Along the way, we found numerous old homesteads, abandoned now, but awesome cabins that were hewed out of the wilderness by pioneering families. At the time we investigated these old cabins, they would not have taken too much work to make them livable again. Lots still had woodstoves, and a few were still in use by trappers. One of these old homesteads still had an upright piano in it, and most of the keys still played a tune. Must have been quite a journey getting it to the cabin. These homesteaders were a tough lot, that’s for sure.
By the time we reached Kimball Lake, we were already 10 days in and still had quite a way to go. Our food supply was getting low; meat was not a problem, there were plenty of grouse, and fishing was phenomenal. But coffee was low, eggs and bacon were gone, and we were low on bread. So we decided to head back out. The trip back down the river was much faster as we were running with the flow. I believe we ran into the same grizzly on the way back; at least he looked like him. He was on the island where we had camped. He was standing upright on the riverbank, arms in the air, growling at us as we went past. We wound up spending 14 days on the river. On the way back to Williams Lake, we stopped at the Likely pub, had a couple of beers and got invited back the next weekend for the beer races. This sounded intriguing.
We told the other guys about the likely beer races. We all went to the local pub next weekend to see what this event was all about. Seems that it’s a timed race where you run through a bit of a course, then into the pub, where you navigate around a few tables to the end of the bar, where there is a draft beer waiting. You drink this beer as fast as you can, then you run out the side door, around a corner and then back to the starting point and ring a bell. The one with the longest time was eliminated from the race. If you fall, it’s an instant ejection from the race. My 3 roommates and I all signed up. There were quite a few contestants. All went well at first, but the more beer you drank, the tougher it got. Soon, contestants began to stumble and fall on the corners. After about 11 or 12 beers, we were down to just two of us, a big cowboy and me. This fella was standing far steadier than I; he was twice my size. He did his run successfully. Now it was my turn, and I was giving it my all; the crowds were cheering loudly as I made it through the first course and had my draft.
Then, as I came out the side door and attempted to round that last corner, I stumbled, and though I tried to keep upright, it was a fool’s attempt and down I went. Fun was had by all that day; I never laughed so hard.
My first year in Williams Lake had me working in various mills, logging for a few companies and doing some chimney building.
Then I took a job as a bartender at the biggest hotel and nightclub in town. I would work the pub downstairs until closing time, then go upstairs to the club and spend a couple of hours as a bouncer. This was a cowboy town, and the boys would be getting pretty drunk by the time I came on.
Behind the bar were some sawed-off pool sticks with leather straps; My boss Rusty told me these were to control the crowds when things got out of hand. They worked pretty well. My buddy Larry and his girl Laurel both worked in the club; she was the head waitress, and Larry was another bouncer. One night, in the club, a customer came running up and said a bunch of guys had hauled Larry out an exit door and were beating on him. By the time I got across the club and out the door, all that was there was him lying on the ground, choking. After checking him out, I realized he had been kicked repeatedly and needed to go to the hospital. He was in rough shape. But then, it was a rough bar; it was called the Chilcotin Hotel. Heard it has now burned down. The bands that played here were pretty well known; one of the bands that played here a couple of times a year was Jefferson Starship (originally called Jefferson Airplane).
One night after closing, they would come to our house to play for another few hours. Seeing Jefferson Starship playing in our living room was pretty cool. So many of the bands that played the club would party at our place afterwards. We loved it, but the parties could get a little wild at times. The city did not take a liking to our gatherings. One afternoon, a police car pulls up, and an officer walks up and hands us an eviction order, not from our landlord but from the town of Williams Lake. It was time to move. It appears they found a way to move us on.
We took to doing forestry contracts of one kind or another around the interior. At one point, we were doing a spacing project where we had troubled youth learning how to use the tools for doing forestry work. One evening while we were relaxing after dinner, we heard a plane going over the tent camp that seemed to be having some difficulty, and all of a sudden it went quiet. Then there was an explosion. It was not very far from camp, so some of us went running to the crash scene. It was horrific, the plane was totalled, and the 3 occupants were dead, two adults and a child. They had been on their way back to their ranch. Our youth helped to pack out the bodies after the police and coroner finished. Some took it pretty hard. It was pretty harsh.