Once I had the cabin rented, I needed to find work. The logger’s employment office was no longer in operation, so at the time, if you were a logger looking for work, you would go to the Quinsam Hotel pub, which was the logger’s office. 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 a few days when 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. He had moved up to the interior, and he wanted me to head up for a visit. I asked him where he was living, and he told me it was a place called 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 informed the landlord that I was not going to stay. He was surprised, as I had just paid my first month’s rent a couple of days ago. The next day, I was on my way back to this town that had been so attractive to me. This was an awesome change of events. 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 in the past, and we considered ourselves like brothers. The reunion was great.
That first summer, I had many adventures with these buds. My friend 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 getting as close as possible to Cariboo Falls, which was just below the outflow of the Caribou River at Sandy Lake, before heading back again. Sandy Lake is part of the Bowron Lakes Canoe Route. We figured it was going to take about 15 to 20 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. Below each set of rapids were calm areas where we would camp and fish. We saw many moose along the way, and grizzlies were pretty common. A very large boar charged us just after we left Cariboo Lake, and we had to paddle as hard as we could to get away. It took getting into the middle of the river, where the water was deep, to put some distance between the bear and us. Being charged by a large grizzly boar who seemed pissed off at the world was pretty intimidating. He was in a bad mood about something, and he chased us for a fair distance before giving up, growling all the way. That night, we slept on an island in the middle of the river.
As we paddled upriver, we began to see numerous old homesteads, abandoned now, but we could see that they once were awesome cabins that had been hewed out of the wilderness by pioneering families. At the time we investigated these old cabins, most were beyond repair, but some 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 we saw still had an upright piano in it, although none of the keys still made a sound. 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 after the first encounter. He was standing upright on the riverbank, arms in the air, growling at us as we went past. Just as we were out in front of where he was standing, he charged. It happened so fast, we barely had time to react. It is amazing how fast one can paddle when chased by one of these bears. This fella really did not like us much, and he was quite frightening. As we pulled away from him, he stopped, stood up and growled at us until we went around a corner.
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 back the next weekend to see what this event was all about. It turns out 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. After each run, 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. There were some incredible crashes both in the pub and in the outdoor portion. 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, 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 time, after closing, a few band members had come to our house to play. 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. It became a thing among the bands. We loved it, but the parties could get a little wild at times. The city did not take a liking to our gatherings. On one occasion, a cop walked in the front door, intent on shutting the party down. Larry just ran up and grabbed hold of him by his belt and collar, and before he knew what was happening, Larry threw him back out the door. One afternoon, shortly after this, a police car pulls up, and an officer, along with a couple of city clerks, walks up and hands us an eviction order. This was not from our landlord but from the town of Williams Lake. We were no longer welcome in Williams Lake. It appears they found a way to deal with us. It was time to move.
We took to doing forestry contracts of one kind or another around the interior. At one point, we were doing a spacing project out in Cottonwood, where we worked with troubled youth who were close to timing out of group homes. We were teaching them how to use the tools for doing forestry work. This would help them secure a job. One evening, while we were relaxing after dinner, we heard a plane going over the tent camp that seemed to be having some difficulty, then all of a sudden it went quiet, followed shortly thereafter by 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. We learned later that they had been on their way back to their ranch. Our youth helped to pack out the bodies after the police and coroner finished. The plane had contained a 100-pound bottle of propane, which exploded in the crash, destroying the plane. This shattered their bones, and the bodies became like sacks full of jelly. They had to be tightly strapped down on the stretchers as they kept rolling off as we packed them out. Some of the lads took it pretty hard. I cannot forget the horror of it all.
After the plane crash, we bid on and won several spacing contracts out in Bella Coola. A trip to the bank to secure a business loan was the first thing on the agenda. Then we began buying and loading up the gear needed: 10 new saws plus gear, stoves, large cook tents, smaller wall tents, food stocks and other supplies to get these contracts started. Paul and I were to make the first run to the valley. It would be our first trip to Bella Coola. We were in a 1963 2-ton Chevy truck that was loaded with most of the supplies. We were heading in to put up the camp; others would begin arriving over the next few days. The whole area was incredible. The mountains seemed to go straight up from the river bottom to touch the sky; the valley is not very wide but is full of small farms, with log cabins surrounded by farm animals and gardens. The air is fresh here.
The road from Williams Lake was long and dusty; it’s 454 km of gravel road to get from Williams Lake to the top of Freedom Hill. I hear most of this is paved now. When we saw this hill for the first time, we could not believe what we were looking at. The hill road is 11 km long, and over that length, it drops 1.3 km in elevation. It took us just over 5 hours to drive the 454 km from Williams Lake. It took us 4 hours to drive the 11 km to get down the hill. Our brakes kept overheating on the way down, and we had to stop at all water sources to use a bucket to splash water on them to cool them down. The brakes would be red hot. This is an incredible hill.
There is a story going around about the creation of this road that goes something like this: The road was built to within a mile of the top from Williams Lake and almost reached the bottom as you head out of the valley. The military had agreed to complete the road, but the valley people had to survey the route. With only one day to post it in the mail or lose the military aid, a rider got on his horse and rode up the steep ground, going back and forth. He ribboned the route as he went along. They got it in on time, and the military did its thing. I have heard this story many times, and it’s a good one; the only problem is that this story is not true. The real story is that the government only intended to build the road out to the Anahim reserve. Then out as far as Hagensborg up the Bella Coola valley.
The locals in Bella Coola would not be satisfied until the road was complete, though, so they formed a volunteer road-building crew and began to complete the road themselves. They started with bulldozers at the bottom and the top and quickly had the road from Anaheim to the top of the hill constructed. This caught the eye of Phil Gaglardi, who at the time was the Minister of Highways. He was impressed and thought they just might have the gumption to build this road, so he offered to help cover the costs, even though the government engineers stated it could not be done. This was a good choice, as these boys did indeed build the road. This section is known as Freedom Hill. He only paid some of the costs, but it was enough for the boys to get the job done.
I must give kudos to the residents of the Bella Coola Valley and congratulate them on the construction of Freedom Hill. Although there are 11 km from the top to the bottom as the crow flies. The full road that needed to be built was more than 60 km long, covering the area from Anahim Lake to the Bella Coola Valley.
The bulldozers met 88 km from the Pacific Ocean, they touched blades as the last of the boulders were pushed aside to a jubilant shout from the volunteers. This was the third route to the coast in B.C., after both the Lower Mainland and Prince Rupert routes. Another route had been proposed that would go from the Cariboo down to Bute Inlet. This was proposed by Alfred Waddington, who was a surveyor for the Canadian Pacific Railway company. This route was eventually abandoned.
I have often wondered if a road could have come in from Tatla Lake and connected with the Atnarko River valley. This valley is home to Lonesome Lake. If you have not heard of this lake, look up Crusoe of Lonesome Lake. It’s the story of Ralph Edwards and how he settled in this lake area to build a ranch out of the wilderness. I have not been to the Atnarko Valley and only know about this valley’s travel possibilities from books and stories. As I looked at Freedom Hill for the first time, I thought that a road through this alternate route could not have been as difficult to build as Freedom Hill was. The Bella Coola valley is narrow with mountains on either side that seem to reach right up to the stratosphere.
After arriving in the valley, we set up the camp on Noosgulch River, just up from where it joins the Bella Coola River. This River is east of Hagensborg and about 20 miles up the valley from Bella Coola. We had 35 employees, most of whom were local First Nation boys, along with a few of the valley white lads. They were a great bunch of guys; they all worked hard and got the jobs done right and on time. Everyone got along.
Right out in front of the camp, just below a bridge, there was a slow-moving deep pool where you could fish. Later in the year, we would swim here to cool down; this water, even in late summer, was extremely cold. We used this river to bathe. It was still early spring when we first started to use it. You would jump in with a gasp from the cold and quickly get out, then you would soap up before throwing a bar of soap back in, where it would sink to the bottom. Then jump in again to get the soap, rinsing off as you do. During the spring, there was a First Nations elder who came every day. He would strip down and lie in the river for hours. One of our boys told me he was doing a cleansing ritual.
Our tent camp was set up right where the Grizzlies travel, and tracks could be seen in the morning by late-night travellers. One day, I heard our dogs barking loudly somewhere in the thick underbrush, so I wormed my way through the salmon berries to where the dogs were barking up a tree. I looked up to see a very small grizzly cub hanging on, and it was calling for its mommy. The brush was so thick that you could not see more than a few meters. The hair on the back of my neck got stiff as I gathered up the dogs and got out of there before the sow returned from wherever she was. My heart was pounding.
One sunny day after work, one of the boys and I were walking up the road toward a deep pool, surrounded by a deep canyon, up on the Noosgulch River. This was a great place for fishing. The river has big old-growth timber that you hike through to get to this slow-moving pool. This was not far from camp. We were looking to get enough for a good feed for camp.
The road used to reach this spot was a temporary skid road cut into a steep hillside; there were sparse but big trees growing here, and plenty of sand and scrub grass in between. It was steep. As we were walking along this road, smoking a joint, and just enjoying the day, we heard a sudden noise up the bank. As we looked up, we saw it was a big grizzly bear. He saw us, and as he turned to head up the hill, he slipped and started to tumble down the bank. He rolled down, head over heels, until he fell off the steep upper edge and landed on the road with a thump, and a very loud grunt coming from the bear. He stopped rolling right at the edge of the road and was having trouble retaining his balance. He looked just like a man, standing on his legs, arms flailing around, trying to catch his balance. Then he slipped over the bank and continued to roll down the hill toward the river in a noisy and undignified fashion; he just rolled right out of sight. I looked at my companion and asked him if he had just seen what I saw. With the joint still in his hand, he said he had. I felt sorry for the bear.
Later that week, at lunch break, when all my guys were down on the road, getting ready to start a new section. A couple of white hats from Crown Zellerbach came driving along and said they were here to inform us that they wanted us to move our camp. I informed them that the contract we had from the BC Forest Service said that this was where we could set up our camp, and as it was crown land, we informed them that we would not be moving. Kinda got some sour looks on their faces, and then one of them noticed that we had quite a few First Nation boys working for us and had the gall to say, ” You’re not paying them as much as the white boys, are you. At this moment, one of our Nuxalk boys, a big lad, was walking past the truck, and I heard him say, What the fuck and he started back. I told the white hats that they had better take off while they can. They did. Now, our boys started to voice their anger over this, and I, too, was pretty pissed off about it, so Larry and I headed to the CZ office to chat with the Company.
When we talked to the head guy, he tried to brush it off as a misunderstanding, but we were not buying into that. We told him that we were going to bring our entire crew down the next morning, and we expected to hear an apology from the white hats. He said it wasn’t going to happen, so we said we were going to send our story to the Vancouver Sun to let them do an article about it. The next morning, we showed up with all our boys and the company bigwigs, and those white hats came out. The company headman stepped forward to say he was sorry we misunderstood what his boys had said. My crew started to yell at him that that was bullshit and to get his boys out front and have them speak for themselves.
Finally, they came forward and said the words. “We are sorry for what we said”. We left to head to work, our crew was pleased that we had gone and done this for them, and I heard a while later that those white hats had been fired, probably not for being racist, but more likely for causing so much embarrassment to the company.
We had started working here in the early spring; it was now October. Our camp had become pretty big, with large wall tents, off-the-ground cots and a great big cook tent. But with the rains that had started to fall daily, heavy rain, we were in the process of renting enough rooms in the hotel in town to house us all. A couple of more days, and we were going to move the camp gear to a friend’s barn, and everyone into the hotel. I had headed to bed early that night, but was jolted awake by yelling at around 3 am, wondering what all the noise was about. I stepped out of bed and came ankle-deep in ice-cold water. It was a flood. I quickly threw on my clothes and ran out. Sure enough, the river was running right through camp. Damn, a lot of stuff was already washed away. We started to salvage what we could; several of us had ropes tied around our waists and were trying to get stuff before it washed away. We took everything we could salvage to a high spot by the road on the other side of the river.
A crew of boys got the big cook tent moved and set up so they could start the stoves to cook some food and begin to dry things out, while the rest of us were back at camp fighting the river and saving as much as possible. You could see the cook tent up on the hill, across the bridge, where they were making coffee and some food for us; it was a nice sight. Then all of a sudden, the light in the tent got really bright just before bursting into flames. It seems a tent peg had torn loose in the wind, and the corner of the tent fell onto a stove. By the time daylight came, we had salvaged what we could; we had lost quite a bit of shit, a couple of saws had washed away, and we had lost our big tent and stoves, along with plenty of clothing and other gear to the fire. We moved into the hotel and finished the last couple of contracts before shutting down.
I loved to hike. Over the year I spent in the valley, I got to see so much. One day, my buds and I went across the Bella Coola harbour in an old inboard/outboard clunker some friends kept docked in town. We were headed to the old Tallheo Cannery. At one time, canneries dotted the west coast of BC there were hundreds of them. Workers would be hired from the local communities when possible, and more would be brought in to fill the ranks as needed. Those brought in would stay in bunkhouses on site. Over 300 worked seasonally at this cannery. As refrigeration started to be more common, many of these canneries died out. Although fish processing was over here long before my visit, the cannery building was still used as a net loft. When we went over, the fuel dock and store were still in operation. We spent a wet and windy day exploring the area.
I have always had a love for waterfalls, and one summer day, we drove up Blush Road to Odegaard Falls. At the time, it was a well-maintained logging road, although I hear it is pretty rough today. Blush Road begins in a tight canyon where the Nusatsum River flows almost onto the road. Then it’s a drive up a valley to the trailhead. We made short work of the drive, parked and hiked in on a rough trail. I went back in the fall for another look. There had been heavy rain for days. I could hardly believe how active the falls were. It was cool in the summer. Now, after all the rain, it was pretty awesome. It was so loud, I thought it sounded like thunder.
One afternoon, we were all up fishing in the Bella Coola River, just above Firvale. The trout fishing was good here, and it was a nice place to just sit back and enjoy the scenery. All I could see were mountains covered in glaciers in all directions. Flowing down the sides of these mountains was a sea of green speckled with so many waterfalls that I lost count. Although the sky above was blue, there was a fog rolling down the river; it was cool watching this slowly block our visibility to where we could just barely see the other side of the river. I first heard it, an elk bugling, it was haunting and as I looked across the river to where a small grassy meadow was. I saw him, a young bull elk, sporting a nice set of antlers. As he moved through the fog, head held high, his antlers caused the fog to swirl behind him, and all the time, he was bugling to his herd. It was very cool.
I was invited to spend the winter with a family whose boys worked for us. Their mom and dad were pretty cool. One day, the boys and I were chilling in the basement living room, listening to tunes, when all of a sudden the door flew open with such force that the door handle went through the wall. Their mom stood there panting in a stooped position; she had a crazy look in her eyes. One of the boys softly said, “Oh, oh, it’s Mary”. Then her eyes focused on me. She slowed, stood upright as she turned towards me. Then, so suddenly that I had no time to react, she leaped across the room to jump on me. She was pounding on me mercilessly all the while yelling “the anti-Christ” over and over. I mean, what the hell. I was unsure what to do. At that moment, the eldest son pulled her off me. As she turned to face him, he slapped her hard. She looked at him in what seemed like confusion. He slapped her hard again. Then she turned and walked out the door as if nothing had happened. The whole thing took maybe 60 to 90 seconds.
The boys told me that on occasion, she became this other person who was quite insane, and to get her back to their mom, you had to slap her face hard. I knew it was time to get out of there. She had put the willies on me. I am surprised she never crawled across the ceiling to jump on me.
I called a friend in Williams Lake to see if he had room to put me up for a bit. : Yup, come on up,” he replied. Once in Williams Lake, I got a job rebuilding an old Bombardier for a local rancher; it had tracks instead of wheels. It was for a ranch up in the Nazko area. I replaced the motor, added a hydraulic pump to the cabin and a three-point hitch to the rear deck to attach a backhoe. Then, I added a front-end blade for plowing roads. After adding new tracks, it was good to go. There is no steering wheel in this beast. It has a gas pedal and a brake pedal that activate both sides. To steer, you have two rods with handles that come out of the dashboard; these are individual brakes that, when applied, allow you to steer. You want to turn right, just pull the right side brake. I had met a few ranch owners while building this rig; they had heard about the project. One offered me a job on a remote ranch. It was spring, and a new adventure was about to begin.
Over the years, I had read many Louis L’Amour books. Always wishing I could have lived the cowboy life, ridden the same trails as my cowboy heroes. Now I was to do just that. The ranch was a substantial spread, covering thousands of acres. Most of this was a lease. The owner had bought the natural hayfields that were in a line along a 15-mile valley, then, as he had the only source of hay, he was able to lease the entire valley. I would be working the back end, about 15 miles from the main ranch.
I was told to be at a Dude Ranch, I was to look for a road called Spain Lake Road, take a right, and drive to the end. I drove out on the Bella Coola Road until I reached the small community of Alexis Creek. I stopped at the Pigion General Store for directions. Very cool old store, I had stopped here often on my trips in and out of Bella Coola. Following the directions they gave, and six hours of driving on an old, rough road, I was able to find the Lodge. This was a working dude ranch; it was located at the end of any drivable road, and my truck barely made it. I stayed the night at the dude ranch, where they put me up in the bunkhouse so I could get an early start the next day. From here on in, it would be a full day’s ride by horseback into the main ranch on the old wagon road.
The lodge was pretty cool, the owner and his wife were awesome folks, they were First Nations. Their cowboys were a great group of young folks of both genders. The spread was a working dude ranch, people would come stay and get to do cowboy stuff, and they paid well to do this. The owner’s wife was a guide for these folks. She told me many tales about taking guests out. One tale had me laughing pretty hard. She used to buy large orders of fake arrowheads and scatter them in the creeks around the ranch.
Then she would take the guests out looking for them, and when they would find them, she would say they were so lucky to find an arrowhead. The guests would take these trophies home and display them for all to see. She was a real hoot.
In the morning, I was told the ranch had left a horse and a pack horse for me to use, with a riding saddle. After breakfast, I saddled up my riding horse, packed the other with my gear and headed into the ranch, just me, the horses and my pup. There were no drivable roads from here on, only an old winding wagon road. The wagon road was now quite overgrown and had sections of corduroy road through the swampy areas. You would go over ridges and down through wetlands as you made your way along. In the high country, you rode past majestic giant fir trees surrounded by grasslands, and travelling through the wetland valleys with their beaver ponds and pine trees was incredible. Ducks and geese were in abundance, while there seemed to be at least one moose in each pond.
On the way in, you have to go through a ranch owned by a cantankerous old cowboy. He would eventually become a friend, did I say friend? That would be an exaggeration. He would nod his head my way if he saw me. The first time I met him, I was on the road that goes right past his cabin. He came out with his six-gun in his hand, which was now pointed at me as he came up to my horses. I had been informed that he did not like people much. I could see that. He wanted to know who I was, and once I told him who I was and where I was heading, he grudgingly let me through. His eyes said that they would be watching me. Just before I rode on, he called my pup over. Cody did not like people, but he went right up to this oldtimer, who then gave him a pat on the head and said, “Good boy.” That was a strange thing for my dog to do.
This old guy was pretty tough. I remember when he was 83, he gave himself a bad hernia clearing land, but he also had hay that had been cut and was drying in the field that had to be put up. He was too proud to ask for help. So he took an old inner tube, wrapped it tightly around his belly and spent the next week putting the hay up. He then headed to Williams Lake to see a doctor, and he was immediately sent to the OR for a hernia operation. Like I said, one tough old guy. Sad to think that this old timer, whom I had the pleasure to meet, was from another era and is long gone now. All the oldtimers I met on that adventure are gone now.
Just past dark, I reached the main ranch, where I was fed dinner while my horse was cared for and my packhorse unloaded. The ranch house was huge, a two-story log mansion. With surrounding bunkhouses, outbuildings and shops. The next day, we headed out to my cabin by buckboard. It was a one-room cabin with a sod roof, a wood stove, and a spring outside the door for water. They did need to replace the roof, which was done before I arrived. A table, a couple of chairs, a jug of kerosene with a lamp, a metal frame bed and mattress, and several supply boxes had been brought up by wagon from the main ranch a few days before, and all was good to go. There were a few cases of jarred food in the supplies. Two types of canned moose meat, one just meat and one, meat with veggies. There were dried stuff as well, flour, coffee, sugar, a few spices and several loaves of bread. They had brought a few goats for milk and some chickens for eggs. Butter and bread would be brought up weekly from the main ranch. There was a good supply of firewood stacked up against the cabin wall.
Through the spring and summer, I got myself familiar with the valley and got into a routine of caring for the ranch cattle. I got to know some of the cowhands from both our place and some of the other spreads in the area. The meadows where the hay fields were located had beaver ponds that kept them wet; this produced some pretty nice hayfields. A couple of weeks before it was time to hay, a couple of cowboys from the main ranch showed up with a few cases of dynamite. They told me that they were going to blow holes in the beaver dams to drain the fields to harvest the hay. I was to help. This was fun, but I had concerns about the beavers. I was assured that the beavers would rebuild the dams after we finished. Flooding the fields for next year’s crop of feed. There was a haying crew heading into the ranch that contracted out to not just our ranch but several other spreads in the area.
When they arrived a couple of days later, I saw it was an extended family of Chilcotin First People, and quickly learned that most of the older ones did not speak English. I was surprised to see a friend of mine with them; his family owned a horse ranch north of Williams Lake. Randy helped me to speak with the elders. Turns out he was married to one of the ladies. They arrived by buckboard wagons and quickly set up camp. The next morning, they began haying.
I had never used horse and wagons to hay, actually, I had never hayed before. It was hard work. We would work all day putting up hay, we would use a baler to build square bales and then use a hay sling to pile up loose hay as siledge. Then have a feast that involved big steaks, baked taters and various other tasty complements. After supper, a fire would be lit, and out would come guitars and drums; they would dance for hours. One evening, I was sitting by Randy as a couple of 0f old girls were gesturing my way and giggling, talking to me in their language. Sitting next to them was this young teenage girl who was pretty big. I asked Randy what they were saying. He looks at me and says in a soft voice, “They are arranging your marriage to the young lady.” I did not know how to react, but they all quickly had a good laugh at the look on my face. They then let me off the hook. This family would come every year and hay our fields. I got to know most of them fairly well, even learned a bit of their language. I can not remember how to speak it now.
One really cold winter, second year in, it had been 40 plus below for weeks, snowing every day, and the snow was deep. My meat supply had been eaten, and getting down to the main ranch for supplies was not in the books until this winter storm ended. It was getting serious, and I was thinking I might need to butcher one of my milk goats for meat. I had been out hunting every day, looking for a moose, but could only cover so much ground on snowshoes. Then one day, I opened my cabin door at first light and there, right in front of me, not more than 50 feet away, was a moose. It was eating hay with my horses, one shot with my Marlin 35 repeater, and I once again had meat. I quartered it, hung it up and left it outside to freeze.
The next day, I took my meat saw, a small power saw with the oiler disabled and started to butcher the quarters up and wrap the meat. I had an outdoor freezer box where the meat would stay frozen until the spring thaw. It was weird, but whenever the saw was not running, I would think I could hear its echo far off in the distance, but it was strange; it would get loud, then quiet, then loud again. This went on for an hour. Finally, I realized it was not an echo of my saw, but was a couple of snowmobiles, and they were heading my way. Sound travels a long way in the cold north, and it still took a while for them to arrive. As they got within sight, I saw to my horror that the snowmobiles had an RCMP officer operating one, and the other had a Game Warden running it. I was wondering in my head just how they had known that I had killed a moose before I had killed it. I mean, we were 2 days from the nearest road, and I had shot the moose only yesterday. It did not add up.
After feeding them and letting them warm up around the stove with a hot cup of coffee, we got to chatting. Seems they were not here over the moose but were out trying to find out if any of our cattle had been rustled; it seems some rustlers were working in the area. They had come up from Redstone, stopping at each spread along the way.
The reason the game warden was there was that he was also the range manager for our area, and he knew all the ranch locations. While the constable was writing up his report, the game warden and I were standing on my porch chatting about the extreme weather. I tell him we had been snowed in for a while and things were tough, I point at the moose head and remains, casually saying, “We were out of meat and had to butcher one of my goats.” He smiles and replies, Yup, I can see that, that’s all that was said about that moose. They got back on their snowmobiles and off they headed to the next ranch.
It was nice to see visitors, even if it was a short visit; it could get lonely up at my cabin. One time when I was craving human conversation badly, I decided to ride to another ranch that was about 20 miles from my place. There was an oldtimer there who had settled here back in the 30’s, he was a pretty cool old cowboy. He had bought a small herd of cows in the prairies and drove them out to here, put up a claim and has been here ever since. He lived alone. My pup and I headed out early in the morning, and we reached his place in the afternoon. When I knocked on his door, he was having a nap on his couch and nearly fell off, as he would hardly ever get visitors, even in good weather times. He put coffee on and fed me while we chatted. I stayed for a few hours before I said it was time for me to head back; the evening was coming on.
He thought it was too late and said I should stay the night. But I wanted to get home, and with the ground being snow-covered and a full moon coming up, it was like daylight, and the ride would be easy. So I got up on my horse, called my pup and off we went. We got back after midnight, and it was good to warm up. It was good to see someone.
Sometimes I would randomly run into this old cowboy out and about, as our two ranches were bordering each other. We would ride along until we came to a creek. I would get a fire going, and he would pull a coffee pot and the fixings out of his saddlebags and make coffee. We would relax, have a coffee, smoke a bit and visit. The coffee always tasted like cowboy coffee, thick and strong. The creek would provide a relaxing background sound, as the old timer would begin to narrate a tale or two. He had many tales he would tell, stories about aliens, sasquatch, and all manner of content. I always enjoy these wonderful yarns. I think we both enjoyed these occasional moments of companionship.
Not long after I started working on the ranch, I had to journey to town on court business. After taking care of my obligations, I headed back to the ranch, and as I arrived at the lodge, I saw that the old cowboy who lived past our spread was there loading up a wagon with supplies. He said he was heading out the next morning. He hoped I would travel with him, so I said sure. When I bunked down for the night in the bunkhouse, I had pulled off my 2 pairs of wool socks, but then did a stupid thing and did not separate them. The morning temp was about -25, and I just pulled those socks on as I dressed, had breakfast and then hitched my horse to the old timer’s wagon, and we headed out. About an hour out, my feet began to hurt. It seemed my inner socks were still a bit damp from driving into the lodge in my truck with the heat on.
The old cowboy stopped right away and built a big fire, had me remove my socks, and we dried them by the fire. My feet were white and all wormy-looking. As they began to warm up, they began to hurt. Each time the pain was too bad, he would have me stick them in the snow. Eventually, they stopped hurting and got some colour back, my socks were put back on, dry and warm, and we headed on with our trip. If I had not been with this old cowboy, things could have been pretty bad. I felt like a real greenhorn.
The fall is the time to get out hunting birds, like grouse, geese and ducks. When the geese would migrate in the fall, sometimes thousands of them would stop for the night in the meadow in front of my cabin. I would go out before daylight and quietly lie down at the edge of the meadow. There was a flat spot, and if I lay in it just right, I could aim for head level, fire and bring many geese down with one shot from my Marlin 35. I would wait till I could see before taking the shot. As soon as I shot, the geese would fly up in one huge flock, honking loudly and flying off. Lying in the field would be enough geese for a feast, all shot through the head by the same bullet.
One warm fall day, I was out hunting grouse, which were one of my favourite birds to eat. As I rounded a curve on the trail I was walking on, I spotted one up ahead, so I took aim with my 22 and was ready to fire. I noticed that there was something wrong with this bird. Its wing appeared to be broken. I found that I could not shoot it now and spent the next ½ hour catching it. I took her home to my cabin and tried my damnedest to get her fixed up. After a bit, I think she came to realize that I was trying to help her. The fear was gone from her eyes. I spent the night looking after her, but in the morning, she passed on. I buried her gently and even shed a tear about it all. Funny how that works.
Later that winter, I was out moose hunting on a series of natural meadows not far from my cabin, and the snow was so hard that I could walk on it without snowshoes. As I walked along, trying to make as little noise as possible on this crunching snow, I kept my eyes on the meadow edge, looking for signs of moose or perhaps a whitetail deer. Then all of a sudden, the snow directly in front of me exploded with a burst of noise, and flying snow as a grouse’s flapping wings flashed past my face. I fell back, with my rifle going off. The whole event scared the crap right out of me. Turns out it was a pair of grouse that had been startled by the sound of my boots on the snow above. I found some pretty good humour in this and still laugh about it. The grouse will build tunnels in the meadow’s long grass that become trails for them to travel once the snow covers the meadows. Allowing them to find feed.
In the spring, I was asked to come down to the main ranch to construct a new outhouse for them. I built it out of logs, and it was skookum. I had dug a new pit a few meters from the old one and used the dirt to fill in the old hole. Then I built a log deck over the part of the floor that was not over the pit hole. I covered this with boards. Next came the log structure and roof, which I covered in tar paper. I then added a proper toilet seat for comfort. As I said, it was pretty well built.
Later that night, the rancher’s daughter, who was 13, went out to use the new outhouse before bed. I was in the kitchen having a hot drink before I hit the bunkhouse, where I would spend the night, as it was too late to head back to my cabin. All of a sudden, there was loud screaming coming from the outhouse. I ran out with my gun, thinking she was being attacked by a cougar or bear, as the scream was quite bloodcurdling. As I rounded the corner of the goat house, she was standing in front of the outhouse, shaking. I asked her what was wrong. She said something very cold had touched her butt while she was sitting on the seat. I took her lantern and looked down the hole, and to my surprise, there was one of the milk goats down there, and when she sat down, it reached up and touched her butt with its very cold nose. From what I could figure out, when I dug the hole, some roots were sticking out. I could see that the roots at the top of the hole had been chewed back, but the roots lower down were still sticking out. The goat must have found the door open and thought the roots looked tasty. She must have been reaching for some of the deeper roots and fell in.
Damn, but here was this momma goat looking up at me from the hole, crying out for a rescue. It was the funniest thing I had seen in a long time, her looking up all forlorn-like. We tried to get her out through the hole, but found it was just not working out. She was destined to stay in the hole all night. The next morning, I had to disassemble the whole outhouse to remove her. Rebuilt the outhouse again and put a bungee cord on the door to pull it shut when not in use. The goat was pleased to be out.
There was always lots of fencing to do on the ranch, cattle to feed, hay to put up, and cattle drives. It was like being in one of the Western books that I liked to read so much as a young man. The ranch was a big place, and the fencing was only put around hay meadows; it seemed that by the time you had one meadow fencing repaired, another one needed work. There was a hay meadow about 6 km from my cabin that needed fence work. I was on my horse Dexter, a big horse, my favourite horse and had gotten off to open the gate. As I tried to lead him through the gate, he refused to go in, and as he was quite big, you could not pull him in if he said no. So I got up on his back to ride him in, he got to bucking and the next thing I knew I was on top of the fence, ribs hurting like hell, and all I saw was Dexter running in a gallop in the direction of the cabin. Reins flying behind him. It was a long walk back with my ribs just killing me, and Dexter was waiting for me, looking all worried about how I was going to react. I let him know how ticked I was as I struggled to remove the saddle with my sore ribs. I spent a few days healing and then took my other horse, Penny, back to the meadow, looking around the gate. I could see signs of a grizzly bear and a recent bear scat, and figured out that the smell must have spooked Dexter.
Grizzlies could be dangerous, but there was another animal on the ranch that would always try to kill you. These were our mossyback bulls that would travel the backlands solo throughout the year. Come fall, these bulls would service our herds. These guys always seemed to be in a bad mood. You could be just riding along, minding your own business, when all of a sudden one of these guys would come crashing out of the forest, looking to gorge you and your horse. You always had to keep an eye out for these beasts.
Besides my horses, I had my pup Cody, a big malamute, wolf cross. He had been my companion all these years, and he was a good friend; his mom had been owned by my friends Larry and Laurel, and I had been there the day he was born. I was completely taken by this pup and claimed him on the spot; he was the runt, like I had been. But he grew up to be the biggest of the litter. At 6 weeks, he came home with me and was still a youngster when we moved to the ranch. After four years on the ranch, he had become a bit wild and would disappear for days at a time, sometimes for more than a week, thinking he might have been running with the wolves, as there were many around. I would go to sleep at night listening to them. We were both getting bushed, so my mind started to think that maybe it was time to head back to the world. It had been 4 years since I came to the ranch. It was spring. Perhaps we both had become a bit wild. So I saddled up Penny, packed up Dexter with my gear, and we all headed to the main ranch, where I informed the boss that it was time to head out. He was not happy but understood. Spent the night, and in the morning, I headed out. It was a day ride out to the lodge and the start of the road to civilization. I left my horses with the lodge, knowing they would be in good hands until a ranchhand could come by to collect them, loaded up my truck, and then Cody and I headed into Williams Lake to purchase some insurance for the truck so we could head back to the island and Campbell River.