After a summer of hiking, fishing, canoeing, and endless adventures up on Menzie’s Mountain. It has finally come time to say farewell to Roberts Lake and find a job. Went back to town and headed to the employment office. Once there, I was offered a job logging on Nootka Island. It was a 15 and 6 shift. When the job was confirmed, I was told to be in Gold River the next morning at 11:00 am, where a flight was booked to take me and a few other crewmembers in. The flight was uneventful, and after a bit, we arrived at camp. This camp was in Kendrick Inlet. As the plane pulled up to the dock, the other guys grabbed their gear and headed up to the bunkhouses. The boss came down onto the float and said, Leave your gear beside the crew boat that was tied up to the float and head up for lunch at the cook shack. Sitting by the boat were a bunch of boxes filled with food. I placed my bag there and sauntered up to the cook shack.
As I was eating lunch, one of the cooks asked if I was heading to the outer camp, Seems like it I said. That’s tough said the cook. He told me I was heading out to the West Coast of Nootka Island to what he described as a very rustic camp.
As I was finishing my lunch, the boss came in and said to head down to the boat, load my gear, the food boxes, and he would join me in a minute. I got everything stowed away, and we headed out. I asked him where we were going, and he said they had a small camp on the edge of a huge tidal flat, on the outer shores of Nootka Island.
I enjoyed the view as the boss navigated the boat to the outer camp. I had heard that Nootka Island was one of those wild places that was full of natural wonders. I could see that it was a land of big trees and rocky bluffs. In between these craggy precipices were small bays filled with spectacular sandy beaches. I have always needed to see what is around the next corner, so I was having a wonderful time on this ride.
We rounded the corner at Yuquot and were now looking straight out at the Pacific Ocean, and the sea was getting a bit rougher. We finally stopped offshore, right where a tidal flat met the sea. There was a small shack that had been dragged up on shore, and it looked like they had tried to level it off, but with not much success. Out of the shack came a muscular young man wearing a dirty apron and sporting a thick red beard that reached down his chest. He grabbed a pretty big wooden skiff from the upper beach and pulled it to the water’s edge.
3-foot waves were hitting the beach, but he just pointed the skiff into them and, with some powerful pulls on the oars, he beat his way through. Once in the rollers, he easily pulled up to the boat. He was the cook. He had not been out of camp for a while and was a bit bush crazy, but a nice fella all the same. We loaded the food, my gear and myself into the skiff, said goodbye to the boss and headed to the shore. On the way, he told me that we had to surf our way in on a wave and that we needed me to jump ashore as we came in and help pull the boat as far up-shore as we could. The cook jumped out with me, and we both pulled the boat higher to avoid the waves. I began to wonder just where I had gotten myself. I felt like I was on the edge of the world. The boss had waited to ensure we made it in, seeing him leave and disappear around the corner was tough, all I could say was “Damn, there goes my ride.”
We packed up the supplies and my gear for the bunkhouse/cook shack. There were only 4 of us in camp. The shack was not very level, but by putting your bed on the lower side of your room and pulling your mattress partway up the wall, it was not too bad for sleeping. One end of the old shack had our rooms. The kitchen, wash area and dryroom were on the other end. There was the cook, our hook tender, the tower operator, and I staying here.
Sundays were days of rest where one could hike around a bit. I hiked out to Bajo Point one Sunday and found what appeared to be a missionary cabin. The walls were stuffed with old newspapers from the 20s; they were quite fragile, but we could see the dates on some of them. There were a few crosses still on the wall and a bit of other stuff scattered about. I had originally hiked here to see if I could make it to Calvin Falls in a day, but decided that was not possible and did not try. I saw the falls once from a distance when I spent a few weeks on a trawler and would have liked to see them up close. There is a trail that takes you right past them now.
The rest of the crew lived in Yuquot, and they were picked up daily in a sort of crummy. I say sort of, as it consisted of the back wheels and rear compartment of an old crummy. They would use a 404 Timberjack Skidder to hook onto the front of this and pull it up with the winch. Our tower operator ran this contraption. He would then head to Yuquot over a very rough and muddy trail to pick up the rest of the crew. When we got out to the yarder, I saw it was a Madill, but it had a rigged wooden tree for a pipe. There was no loader. There was a deep fog out on the water. I looked out to where the rigging was going. I saw it ran through to the middle of the lagoon, and then, just disappeared into the fog, and I wondered how we got out to work.
One of the boys choked a log in the landing, and the engineer lifted the butt rigging until the choker was tight, at which time, he hopped onto the log and held onto the choker. The engineer slowly pulled him across the lagoon, disengaging into the mist. The engineer brought it back for the rest of us. While we were waiting, I was told that we only needed to do this when the tide was in; the rest of the time, we could walk across where it narrows down by the beach. About a week later, the tide was high at day’s end, and we were required to use the log technique to get out of the bush. The log was chocked, and we began our trip across the water. When my time came, I was pulled out to the middle, where the engineer stopped. He then started to lift the log up and down, trying to knock me off. He could not shake me off, so he just lowered the rigging down until I had no choice but to fall in. Apparently, this was something they did to all new guys; it sucked at first, but as it was quite hot, it turned to humour pretty quickly.
The boss was a religious man, and he would not let any crew work on Sunday, so it was a day to relax. There was a nice lake about halfway to Yuquot, and one Sunday, I took a walk to see this lake that was along the trail. It was a warm day, so I had a swim; it was great. On the way back, I walked along the gravel beach where we would drag our logs down and coal-deck them. There were about 10 feet between the logs and the water. The water was pretty calm, and I sat against a big cedar butt and pulled out a book I was reading, which was Dune. The sun was shining, and there was a warm breeze blowing; it was a beautiful day. All of a sudden, it was like the kraken himself was reaching up to drag me into the sea. It was a Grey whale running along the edge of the beach, just at the drop-off. I think they do this to ease an itch, but don’t quote me on that. I got soaked in the process; the whale was only about 3 meters from shore. Scared the shit out of me. After a bit, I began to laugh over this. He was so close that I could have jumped onto his back.
This developed into a story I used to tell tourists in the bar; it was a story of whale riding. The story got good over the years, and some of my friends knew it so well that they could join our table halfway through the telling and step right into the story. The gist of the tall tale was how we would wait along, rubbing beaches at the ready, we would be wearing cork boots and carrying a gaff. When the whales ran along the beach, all you had to do was run up the side of them. Once you reach the blowhole, you would use the gaff hook to hold it open. The whales would not dive until you released the blowhole. I suspect the book Dune I was reading had a big influence on this story. When Dune was published in 1965, it was not released by a traditional novel publishing house? None felt it was a good book. So Chilton Publishing took a chance and reproduced it; Chilton usually publishes auto repair manuals.
Whenever I was in town from camp, the first thing on my agenda was to see Mom. Ever since I was a child, my mom cared for me; she worked very hard to keep me healthy despite all the health issues I suffered that came with being a preemie baby. As far back as I can remember, I have visions of Mom holding me in her arms as she sat in her big wooden rocker, softly singing to me as I would fall asleep. Sometimes when I was having a bad bout, Mom would sleep on our big old sofa, holding me in her arms. I loved my mom deeply, and we had a real bond.
I can remember running into her room as a child in the mornings, where she would hug me tight and tell me she loved me. I would answer with an “I know you do,” and she would say to me, “How do you know that?” and I would reply, “Because you just told me so”. This was a ritual we went through every day.
After Mom and Dad had moved back to Vancouver and Dad had passed on, I would go home to visit as often as possible. Mom was suffering from dementia and quite often would not know which one of her sons I was. I would prompt this ritual, and she would realize that I was her boy buddy, and she would hold me tight and say, “I love you”. Mom died from a heart attack when I was just becoming a man.