Tall Tales and High Trails

Table Of Contents

This book is dedicated to the doe-eyed girl, she changed everything

Tall Tales

In The Beginning

My twin sister and I first came into this world on the morning of April 29, 1955. We were the youngest of seven siblings, (four boys, three girls). It was a rough beginning for my mom with plenty of health issues, and then more serious problems began manifesting during her second term. After a series of tests, the doctors told her that she would need a cesarean birth well before her due date. One of the fetuses was not doing well, they were afraid of complications with the birth if she went full term. This fetus was me.

The closest hospital was in Chilliwack. When they brought my mom into the hospital for surgery, she was almost 2 months short of full-term. My sister came out at a healthy 6.9 pounds, but I was just over 2 pounds. So I spent my first 6 weeks in an incubator. No one expected me to survive. It seems that I had alternative thoughts on this and pulled through.

It would seem my sister had sucked the life right out of me, but she would make up for this as we grew up. My sister was so much stronger and far more fierce than I, and she protected me passionately. What I remember most was how she would stand in front of anyone picking on me and give them that look and if needed, she had a pretty wicked right hook. Sometimes she would put her arm on my shoulder and smile down at me. She was a pretty cool twin sister. I have always loved her in that way only a twin can understand.

Follow The Setting Sun

At the time of our birth, our family was living on the army base CFB Chilliwack in Vedder Crossing. Dad was a military man. Dad had worked with my granddad long before he joined the military. His name was Robert Jamison Logan. He owned 3 tugs that he chartered out to various businesses on the St Clair River, hauling barges and such. Dad and his brothers worked on the tugs at one time or another in their younger years. 

When the American and Canadian prohibitions happened in 1920, it would prove to be a lucrative boost for the tug boat operators of the St Clair River. It was also good for the brewers in Canada. You see, in the States, prohibition included not just the bars but all breweries. In Canada, we had an exclusion that allowed our brewers to continue creating alcohol as long as it was not sold in the country.

A section of the border between Canada and the USA was located in the center of the St Clair River. It was a perfect place to smuggle alcohol into the States. My granddad became a rum runner. He was just one of many boat owners who took on the rum runner role. The St Clair River allowed the USA to become the main buyer of our country’s products. It was a free-for-all in the beginning, but by the late 20s, it had become far too dangerous.

My father and uncles worked the tugs alongside Grandpa, and I have over the years heard the tales of their escapades in delivering the booze while dodging the American Authorities. Eventually, the USA put into use high-speed armed boats to try and stop these smugglers. By the early thirties, the prohibition was lifted, and it was all over, but they had been through many adventures. Dad shared a few stories with us kids. Were they true stories? Man, I hope so.

In 1956, the year following the birth of my sister and me, our family moved to Camp Borden. It was an army base in Ontario. With Dad being a military man, we tended to move around a lot. I have but one good memory from living on this base due to being so very young. I remember being in a bobsled that was being pulled around an outdoor rink by my eldest brother Bob. I can still see my brother’s double-blade skates and the Montreal Canadians hockey jersey he was wearing as he raced around the ice, pulling me behind him. I was laughing almost hysterically from the thrill of it all. Bob was wearing bob skates, which seemed appropriate for a boy named Bob. It was all very exciting.

Dad finally retired in 1959 and joined civilian life. We headed back out west and into the setting sun. Dad had this awesome 1950 Plymouth five-door suburban that had sunshades over the windshield, it was green with wood panelling on the doors. It was a big car. There was lots of room. My older siblings were in the back seats with one sitting up front with Mom and Dad and my twin sister and I were in the back. On top, we had a big army bell tent and all our camping gear. Our household belongings were being shipped by a transport company, compliments of the military. It took us all of two weeks to get across Canada, as we had taken the less travelled routes, and we camped all the way. It was an incredible journey.

The wildlife we observed on this journey was amazing, every pond and lake we passed seemed to have moose feeding at the shore. They were always so majestic looking, standing knee-deep in the water, antlers covered with plants torn loose from the bottom as they lifted their heads to keep a wary eye on us as we passed. These animals were massive, as large as horses. I was enthralled by the magic of the natural world around us, this was when I first felt the draw of the forest.

As we travelled through the prairies, we often saw enormous brown bears and one time we came upon a sow who had three offspring, we stopped to watch the antics of these little ones as they tumbled about, playing with each other.  I still have a memory of one of these cubs stopping to smell a small flower as the other two flattened him from both sides. Then all three rolled down a small hill to land in a pile.

As we moved along, we encountered countless pronghorn antelope.  They could jump so much higher than the whitetail deer that seemed to leap across the roadways around almost every corner. I had never heard of these creatures before and found them intriguing. Then as we approached the Rockies, we began to see great gatherings of elk, these herds were pretty impressive to see for a young fella like myself. I think the wildlife we saw on this trip was the highlight of the whole journey. 

Each night we would camp beside a lake or river, where the fishing always seemed to be good. Mom would cook up some grub on the Coleman stoves while Dad set up the big bell tent. After eating we would sit around the fire for a bit. Although, after a tiring day, my twin sister and I usually went down early.

As we were driving through Saskatchewan, Dad took a side trip to show us a couple of strange places. The first was a very long saltwater lake that was also a bird nesting area, we camped close by and walked a series of trails along the shore of the lake. It was weird visiting a saltwater lake dab nab in the middle of Canada, almost like seeing a small ocean. The bird life was cool and varied, the trails were a great way to get out and stretch. All in all, it was worth the visit. I would like to return someday.

After this, we went to a forest of aspen trees, unlike the tall and stately aspens you usually see. These trees were twisted in all directions, a lot like our coastal gary oaks or black hawthorns that grow in our estuaries on the BC coast. I believe it was even called the Twisted Forest. This forest scared me. Almost like there was an evil presence or a windigo spirit that had made everything unhealthy. I was glad when we left this place. I made a mental note to never come anywhere near this forest again.

I learned that day from Dad that a grove of aspen trees is just one plant that lives below ground and the trees are shoots of this plant. This whole part of Saskatchewan is covered in aspen trees, along with poplar trees and Norway spruce. The Pando Grove in Utah is considered the largest tree in the world, it is 1 tree under ground with about 47000 stems, it is approx 80000 years old.

Once we hit the mountains in Alberta, the roads got scarier and some spots were so rough that mom and all of us kids would get out and walk, watching, while dad would drive through them. The roads in 1959 were not the super highways of today, even the good roads were iffy then, but Dad took the roads less travelled and these could be pretty rough. Sometimes it required us to backtrack to find another route.

We saw incredible snow-covered mountains and lakes that were so blue and deep it was hard to believe you were not looking at a painting. Waterfalls and wild rivers were everywhere. I was spellbound by the beauty and even then, I knew my life would be spent hiking into the wild lands, always in search of these hidden places of wonder. As I look back on this, I have come to see that my dad was always looking for these same things.

When we finally reached the Fraser Canyon, we found ourselves driving on well-built, but narrow roads that had just been paved, although there were still a few unpaved sections. The drop-offs into the canyon were pretty intimidating. We made a stop at Boston Bar for food and Dad took us across a ferry that was in the air, suspended on cables. This took you across the Fraser River to North Bend. I seem to remember it only had room enough for one car. I have heard they have put in a bridge to replace the ferry now. After going back to Boston Bar, we continued south, until we reached Hope. To reach Chilliwack from Hope, Dad took the Flood Hope Road down to Yale Road which we followed to Rosedale and then on to Chilliwack. From there we drove due east through Sardis to reach Vedder Crossing, the place of my birth.

We made a stop at a motel in the crossing and spent the night. It was our first night in real beds since leaving Ontario, and we all showered the trip off our bodies. The motel was a nice place just up from the shores of the Chilliwack River. All the cabins were surrounded by tall trees. We would return to this motel numerous times when Mom and Dad would visit friends in Vedder Crossing. Just across the bridge and up the road a bit was Cultus Lake. I always got to spend at least one day at the lake on our visits, usually under the control of an older sibling.

The next day we headed down the road and finally reached the coast of BC. This trip had been such a wondrous adventure, it was, by far, the best road trip I ever went on. As I look back on it, I realize everything my sister and I saw was viewed through the rear window.

The Demon Geese Of Burnaby

We spent the next two years living in Burnaby, out by Deer Lake. The area is all city now but it was farm country when we lived there. Our home was quite close to the Oakalla Prison Farm. We lived right beside a creek that flowed into Deer Lake, this was one of the tiny creeks that fed Deer Lake.

I remember gathering stinging nettles along this water course with my dad and how it took me so long to learn not to touch them. This was my first time gathering wild food with my dad who had been taught about wild foods and medicines by his mom, my grandma Lizzy who was Mohawk. Through my dad, I too would learn my grandmother’s teachings.

Though it was a small, treed area where the creek flowed, it felt like a vast expanse of wilderness to me. I can still smell the mustiness that seemed to permeate the whole creek bed. It was a wonderful smell of decay and rebirth. I found my love for insects on this creek, as it was alive with them. The sounds of these creatures were a constant hum, a melody of the hidden ones. Salamanders and snakes moved about beneath the forest ground cover, while frogs seemed to fill the calm creek waters and flying insects swarmed in the air. There were so many dragonflies of such beautiful colours and designs flying all around me. They looked like little sky jewels. When they would land on me, I would freeze in excitement until they flew off again. It was awesome.

I could sit in wonder, watching the ballet of these beautiful beings of the small world for hours, while all around me the sunlight danced on the forest floor and sparkled through the trees as they swayed in the soft summer breeze. The background music for this epic show was provided by the babbling creek.

The forest seemed to talk to me in that language only known to the innocence of youth. I knew unquestionably that if I sat quietly in the shadow of the trees, I would feel an almost mystical connection to everything around me. It was like an invisible force binding all things together. I felt the magic of the woodlands in a far more profound way back then. Sometimes though, even now, when I am deep in the forest, I still sense this magic that lies just beyond my adulthood reach.

On one side of our yard was a farm where we would buy our milk and eggs. Some mornings, Mom would ask me to walk over to this farm for one thing or another. She would always tell me to take the road as going through the farmer’s fields was too dangerous. I would always cut through his fields to get there. Ocassionly it required me to run past farm animals. Never had much trouble dodging the big ones like goats and cows. But his geese were another thing, they would come at me like an angry flock of little demons. They had no teeth, but they could deliver pain with those beaks, teeth seemed to not be needed. I was afraid of them and my fear was well placed. They were not easy to outsmart.

Living close to a prison was scary sometimes. On occasion, prison guards would show up to warn us that an inmate had escaped, and a guard would be left to keep watch until it was either deemed it was no longer a threat or that the inmate had been captured again. This would be both alarming and at the same time, quite exhilarating.

I was young during this time of living in Burnaby and I have only a few memories, but one of them is a very vivid memory. It involves the first puppy I ever had. A few months after getting this pup, it was run over by a car on Royal Oak Ave, right in front of me. I hugged him tight as he died in my arms, I was feeling such sorrow. It was the first time my heart felt such pain, such loss. It was devastating. The anguish I felt that day has not fully left my heart, and indeed it has been compounded by the passing of so many other pets since that day.

Mom and I carried my dog out along the brook where she helped me to bury him, telling me that ”God would take him to heaven.” To ensure this had taken place, I went out the next day and dug up his grave. To my horror, my pup was still there. So I picked him up and ran crying to my mom, yelling that god did not take him, that god did not want him. Mom was appalled at the sight of her 4-year-old child holding tight to this small bloody, dirt-encrusted, dead creature. She did her best to explain the concept of the soul to me as we reburied my pup. I tried to believe her, but in the back of my mind, I found that I did not think much of this God she put her faith in so strongly. If you asked me if I believed in God, I would honestly have to say no. Sometimes I would try to believe in him, but I always thought that if he was real, he could not be a good god. He always looked to his followers to prove their devotion, was he this insecure? This vain? This did not seem very godlike to me. But then again, I was very young back then.

I had a strange upbringing as a child, my mom was a full god-fearing, church-going catholic woman, and my dad was a man who had no use for the Christian religion or any religion. Dad would always say that the forest was his church. I tended to agree with my dad. My dad was a man of the forest; he understood the ways of the plants and animals. He would say that all things had a spirit and you needed to show respect for everything, even the very stones of the earth. He would point to the sun and tell me that is the father, he would put his hand to earth and say this is the mother. To him, this was something you could see and feel, unlike this god that Mom worshipped, her god was invisible.  

Stories Of Wonder

I grew up listening to Dad telling stories about the ancestors, the heroes and the villains of the past. There were tales about dangerous supernatural creatures and other mythical beings. Some narratives talked of love and generosity, and then there were stories of legendary animals, I loved them all, the animal stories most of all. Some were amazing legends about people turning into animals like bears and wolves. l was so enthralled with these stories that I believed I was going to be able to change into a bear when I grew up and wander the wilderness in search of adventure.

If you had asked me what I was going to be when I grew up, I would always say “a bear” like it was a given. Broke my heart when I found out that I was destined to remain a human, a lesson I learned when I was just about 5 years old.

These stories stuck with me though, and as my kids were growing up, they too heard these stories from their dad. When they began school, I would spend time going into schools to teach all children about our culture, telling these stories, and teaching about art, music and drumming. Sometimes I would be in the gym with the whole school in attendance. I loved telling these stories and the kids were so much fun to watch as their facial expressions changed throughout the telling. My children would grow up on these stories. 

No Fishing Allowed

In 1960, we moved into the city of Vancouver. After settling in, Dad decided to take us all fishing. No matter how hard Dad searched, he could not find a place to cast our rods among the factories and pollution that seemed to be everywhere. Every time Dad thought we had found a spot, the no fishing signs would be out.

Dad finally found a farm. A trout farm. This was not a normal farm, it was a farm where you could fish for trout in big round black container ponds. There were a number of these containers and many people were fishing in them. We did not fish there. We went home. That was it for Dad, he said we were going to move. He set a plan in motion that had us headed for a small Vancouver Island community named Campbell River. I was quite excited about this turn of events. It took time but we finally packed up our stuff and shipped it to our new home, loaded up the car with us kids and then Dad drove us all out to horseshoe bay in the Plymouth. This was where we would catch the ferry to Vancouver Island.

This was a new ferry service for the BC Government, they had just purchased this run along with five ships from the black ball shipping company. I had never been on such a big boat, but looking back now, I realize that they were quite small compared to the ships that are in service on these runs now. I think I explored every inch of that boat.  I had only seen the ocean in movies and books and coming across to the island was incredible. From the boat deck, I saw my first whale or at least a puff of whale breath from its blowhole. To me, it was like seeing Moby Dick. 

As we drove off the ferry and began to make our way up the island to our destination, I could not help but press my face against the window, taking in the sights of the island. I believe we were all pleased to be leaving the big city. At least mom, dad and us younger kids. My older brother Bob had just signed up to the army and was posted in Germany and my brother Joe had joined the navy. They would not be joining us, and my older sister Peachy who had just got married would not be with us as well. It was a strange feeling not having your siblings constantly around you. My twin sister and I, along with my sister Penny and my brother Howard were the only kids still at home.

When Dad would talk about Campbell River, he spoke with such wonder and amazement. He spoke with such passion in his voice that you could not help but imagine the beauty of this little island village. Dad had first set his footprints on Vancouver Island back in 1946 when he had travelled to Victoria on official military business. He was travelling with Mr. Armstrong, who would become my godfather when I was born 9 years later. After they had concluded their business in Victoria, they decided to locate a vehicle and travel a bit. They had some R&R coming, and the island had always looked enticing to my dad, so they secured a car and off they went.

When they reached Campbell River, it was quite small, the main street through town was still gravel according to my dad. Campbell River would only receive status as a village on June 24^th, 1947. I think this is what appealed to my dad and he said to Mr Armstrong that one day he would move his family here.

Their trip was in early June, they were back on the mainland by mid-June, and this was a good thing. On June 23^rd, a massive 7.3 earthquake struck the island with the epicentre being in Strathcona Park, up on Forbidden Plateau. 75 percent of the chimneys fell in Cumberland with many more in other close communities. There was a lot of damage and two deaths. If Dad had been there during the quake, it might have been detrimental to us moving there.

Paradise

Campell River was a fishing and logging village and it was not very big. That being said, there was a large fishing fleet with quite a few wharves along the shoreline to hold them all. It was just a 3-minute walk to the beach from my house and I spent most of my time hanging out at the wharves. Some of the old fishermen that had boats here had been born in the last century. Their tales were always grand illusions of behemoth fish that got away or of the storms they had survived against all odds. Other stories told of lost loves in distant villages or homesteading up the inlets of our coast. I would sit, immersed in these narratives all the while watching them mending their nets and gear. I am quite surprised that I had never become a commercial fisherman, although, at 13, I did spend a few weeks working on a trawler.

Across the road from the wharf was the two-story police station. I think we had 4 members in total and the bylaw officer/dog catcher. Up from the beach was the main road that ran through town. This road held most of the businesses that were in town. Plus the theatre where for a quarter, we could go see a movie along with a drink and popcorn on Saturdays. This was a great way to spend an afternoon. The theatre is still in use today, but for live stage shows only.

The Thulin Brothers, Charles and Fred owned a big section of the area down by the shoreline, they built the Campbell River General Store right on the edge of the beach where you could purchase most anything. It was sold twice over the years, with the Lavers family buying it in the late 40s and renaming it the Lavers Department Store. As a young man, I shopped here all the time.

The Brothers built a hardware store across the road from Lavers where you could buy a variety of hardware, including camping and fishing gear. I was a regular shopper here. They also owned the Willows Hotel. The Thulin’s began their history in Campbell River in 1904. 

When we arrived at the house Mom and Dad had rented unseen while we were still in Vancouver, we discovered it was very old, I mean, really old.  It was on Rockland Rd. There were only 3 houses on the old road, ours was by far the oldest. Mom and Dad immediately began looking for another home. Mom wanted nothing to do with this ancient house. The area around the property had been logged and was a barren landscape, and there were bats. Mom did not like bats.

We were only there for one night and that was all, Mom and Dad found a place in town just behind the Willows Hotel. It was 1962, the year before the hotel burned to the ground. Our new home was just one block away. It was a great home. My mom set up a boarding house in our new home. It was a big house we had, I think at one time it housed the hospital staff. There were three extra rooms we did not need, so Dad blocked a hallway off so you could not reach these from our side of the house. Mom would rent these rooms out. It was mostly old loggers that stayed with us, they had an entrance that was separate from ours. 

My mom would try to keep me away from them, but I always found a way to sneak in a visit. Some of these men were still logging on steam donkeys and using trains to move the logs to the beach. The tales they would tell were awesome. There were tales of high-rigging spar trees, or of using the steam donkeys that were built on skids to pull themselves up the hills. The tales of the oxen roads that would run for miles were amazingly cool to envision in my head. Some stories told of the men who built the railway trestles and how dangerous this job was. There were stories of trains that ran away and of hidden hospitals up the coastal inlets that would repair these old loggers when they were broken. These hospitals were funded mostly by the local logging companies. One of the biggest was in the community of Rock Bay, the town and hospital were built by the Hastings Mill Company to house and fix its workers when they were injured. At one time Rock Bay had a population of more than 500. I never tired of the tales they told.

This village of Campbell River that we had moved to was still just a speck on the map of the world and was located in a vast hinterland of wonder. In those days the forest that began at the edge of the village seemed to go on forever. This woodland was comprised of ancient old-growth fir, hemlock and cedar trees, and speckled with huge maples that we would climb in search of licorice fern. The shadows that fill the spaces between these giants highlight the wonderful colours that are hidden in the gloom except when they are emblazoned on the beams of sunlight that penetrate through the canopy of green. Look closely and you might see a variety of small creatures scampering about the mossy ground, while the tree branches always seemed filled with birds of all kinds and colours. Their songs so enchanting. There was an abundance of streams running through these woods of wonder, some were studded with beaver ponds, where during the winter months, the local kids would ice skate.

The ocean shores and tidal pools at the boundary of this forest of green were full of a dazzling array of fascinating creatures. I could spend all day looking into these little tidepool gems of wonder. They were like tiny little oceans full of life. Sometimes I would lay at the edge of the forest and the sea, listening to the voices of the animals, trees and rocks for hours. It was a melody of breathtaking beauty. To this young lad, it seemed I had landed in a place of wonder. Some might say I was in paradise.

Growing Up Coastal

Most of the kids that I grew up with had rowboats, or at least access to them, including myself. When we were young, we would row around the local wharves, exploring the sea life found beneath the incredible array of boats and docks, always protected by breakwaters. Sometimes we would have races where we would row under the high pier through the pillings. It was always good for a laugh.

My friends and I would gather tube worms from the edge of the floats and use them for bait. This sounds simple enough, but in practice, not so easy. It requires you to wait till the dusters come out of the tubes, then quickly grab hold before they disappear back into the tube and at the same moment deftly remove a section of the worm with a sharp knife to use as bait for rock cod and sea perch. All this without pitching headfirst into the chuck.

When it was a successful fishing adventure, I would take the catch home for my mom to cook up. This was almost spiritual, it gave me a sense of independence, a feeling that manhood was now within my reach. I felt that I could look after myself and protect those I loved if needed. Of course, this was always tempered with my mom’s teaching on how to be a good person. Mom had a way of using her grace and tenderness to teach compassion and empathy.

As we grew older, we moved on to motorboats. Then there was no holding us back from fishing for salmon, ling cod, red snapper or giant halibut out on the waters of the Johnstone Strait. We spent as much time out there as we did on land. The fishing was great back then, and nothing beat fighting a northern coho on light tackle or hauling up a big momma ling cod from the depths.

Most of us had become accomplished fishers by the time we were 12 or 13 and were very much at home on the water. By the time my friends and I were young teenagers, many of us were working as summer fishing guides for the local boat rental companies.

When we were not out guiding, we would be out exploring, first, we stuck pretty close to home, but as we grew older, our trips took us further away. One of my pleasures was heading out when the weather was stormy. I would head over to Quadra Island to fish in the protected bays and inlets. I would be wave riding the storm, giving it gas as I rode the tops of the waves and backing off the throttle as I dropped into the trough between. It was like surfing, and it was awesome. Sometimes a number of us would race each other across. Our boats were usually open 16-footers with 20-horse Johnson motors. It was always exhilarating.

During these days of ocean-going fishing adventures, I would often see pods of Orcas sliding under my boat or sea lions running alongside to get a view of me. Sometimes we would make eye contact and that was a fantastic experience. Or perhaps I would see dolphins in the hundreds, all leaping out of the water as they swam by. The sea was my playground, I was very comfortable out there. My friends and I would go clam digging, crab and prawn fishing or oyster gathering and have a seafood feast around a beach fire. We ate from the sea regularly, and the eating was good. Sometimes we would head to Open Bay on Quadra where the oysters were so thick that you had to break loose a big chunk containing many of them. We would place this on a bed of coals and as the oysters began to cook, they would open up. We would race each other to eat them. The smells were incredible and they tasted so good.

If I was not out on the sea, you could find me canoeing our islands rivers and lakes, or hiking into the forest regularly, hiking in the high country was of particular interest to me. I still love getting out in the mountains and hardly a week goes by without finding myself on a mountain trail. High-country hiking is more than a passion to me, it recharges my system, and it grounds me.

Canoeing Became A Lifelong Compassion

At an early age, I was introduced to canoeing, I was hooked from the first time my paddle hit the water, canoeing allowed me to travel without the noise others make. There is nothing like silently gliding along in the early light of a fall morning, sunbeams shining through the morning mist. You can almost sense the ancestors as you silently glide through the waters. Canoeing would become a lifelong passion.

I have had many grand adventures canoeing the rivers and lakes on Vancouver Island. along with many places up along the coast and throughout the Chilcotin plateau. One of my pups, named Cody, grew up in my canoe, he could leap into the water while barely rocking the canoe and swim along for a while. When he was ready to get back in, he would come up and put his front paws on the edge of the canoe. I would place my hand behind his head and he would press back while at the same time pulling himself up and over the edge, again, barely rocking the canoe. When I allowed others to join me in my canoe, quite often they would tip us, this never happened with Cody. He loved getting out on the water. He was the best canoe partner one could ask for. We were inseparable. 

When we were out canoeing or just camping, we seldom took a tent, a tarp was all that was needed. Mostly, we would eat fish or grouse gathered along the way, along with plants and various fruits. In those days, fishing was good in most places and there were always lots of grouse. A few cans of beans, salt and pepper along with some coffee for the morning was all that was needed. 

The Hill

When I was a young lad, we lived on St Ann’s Road, just at the junction of Alder Street. We lived above where the post office and Overwaitea Store were located. Above us was the old St. Ann’s Hospital. This hospital was first opened in 1914 with 22 beds. Like most of the coastal hospitals in those days, it was funded by various logging companies, but it closed its doors in 1924 due to a lack of funds and was much missed. Efforts were made to bring it back into operation again. They were successful. It reopened again in 1926, operated by the Sisters of St. Ann under the name Our Lady of Lourdes, but everyone just called it the St. Ann’s. It closed its doors in 1959 when a new modern hospital opened up on 2^nd Avenue and the St Ann’s facility was turned into Campbell Rivers City Hall.

Behind the post office and the Overwaitea Store was a hillside covered in a forest of big trees, at the top of this hill was the original three-story schoolhouse that was now a private home. My sister Peachy and her family lived here in the mid-60s, just before the hillside was logged and the old schoolhouse was torn down to build modern apartments. This was a cool house, 3 stories high and it had a big central staircase that went up the middle with rooms off each landing.

The forest below this house was my playground. We called it the hill. It’s where I acquired a taste for grouse, I used to hunt ruffed grouse with a homemade slingshot among the trees, my dad always called them forest chickens. There was so much to do in this forest, I played there all the time. I was always on the lookout for licorice fern when I was in this forest, I would find it growing up in the old maple trees, in the crotch of the branches. I could chew on this all day. At the bottom of the hill were some swampy ponds where I would chase frogs and salamanders, and then come home covered in mud. My mom would just shake her head, as she cleaned me up.

Our house was a big place with a large yard that bordered on this forested hillside. My brother Howard and I used to dig up worms at the edge of the forest, down by the ponds to be used as bait on our many fishing adventures. One day I dug up a monster-sized worm, I mean it was a giant. It was close to three-quarters of an inch in diameter and almost three feet in length. I still wonder to this day why this worm was so big. I have never seen another or for that matter, even heard of one of this size locally. There is an invasive worm, the lumbricus terrestris, or dew worm that can reach this size but I have not heard of one this big on the island. They are generally smaller here but a subspecies from China can reach up to 2 feet in length. Maybe this one came as ballast in a ship that sailed out of China.

We went fishing in Gooseneck Lake that day and that one worm lasted all day, we would only need to cut a small piece off each time we re-baited our hooks. The worm had a sweet smell and the fish might have liked this, we brought home a good feed of fish for dinner and many more for the freezer.

The Beach

When we were little, my buddies and I used to go down to the beach just below our house when the winter storms blew in. We would put a few logs together with found lumber, bent nails and rocks for hammers and ride the waves as they rolled in over the sandbars. By the end of the day we would be soaked to the bones and cold as one could be, but to us 8 or 9-year-old lads, it was a blast. My friends and I hung out at this beach quite often. It was our playground. This beach has now been filled in to create more land.

Out behind the beach was the estuary, a place of twisted trees, bogs and giant thatching ant nests, a place of fascination. Just above the estuary on the river was the Elk River timber log dump. It was a massive A-frame built out of logs that could lift huge loads off the fat boy trucks and dump them into the river. We often would ride our bikes down to watch this. At one time, trains offloaded their cars of logs here. On the weekends we would go down and swim here. You could dive right off the deck. There was this guy named Charlie who was quite a bit older than us kids, he would climb to the top of the A-frame, then stand on the top and dive straight off. It was so far down to the river and only about ten feet deep. I thought he was crazy.

Across the river was a place where they kept an old pile driver. We would occasionally hang out there in the summer. You could dive off into the twenty or so feet of water or just swing out on the cables and back. One day as I swung out, the whole cable came loose and down I went. All the cables came with me. I was lucky it was a muddy bottom as I went into the mud almost to my waist. As I pulled myself loose a thought came into my head of all the cable landing on me, pinning me under the water. I swam away from the pile driver as I headed back to the surface. Just as I the reached air again, all that cable came down where I had just been. 

Out behind the dump was the lane field ballpark. This was a great place, it had a covered two-story bleacher and a concession stand where you could buy hot dogs, hamburgers and other goodies during various events. The community would gather here not just for ball games but to do all kinds of picnics and other occasions. Just behind the ballpark, there was an old diesel storage tank where the remaining contents had turned to wet tar. I only went in once, then my dad had to use gasoline to get me tar-free and it burnt my skin. He kept hollering at Mom to get a feather pillow so he could see me tarred and feathered. He was joking, at least I hope he was. They removed this tank not long after.

My Sister Patsy (Patrica Sandra Logan)

Every weekday, my sister and I would walk across town to reach Elm School, I was in grade 1, and my twin was in grade 2. I could not tell time yet, so every day my sister and I walked past the old post office. She would use the big wall clock to teach me. Thanks to her, I finally got it. Although she was my twin, she was at least a foot taller and far smarter than me. I was still pretty frail in those days so she looked after me like an older sister would. We fought as siblings do, but I loved my sister deeply, there was this connection between us, more so with her, she would always know what I was up to. “Later in our lives, my sister was married to a military man, and in 1979, they were living in Beausejour Manitoba, which was a radar base in the NORAD defence system. One winter I was visiting a buddy in Edmonton and on the spur of the moment I decided to travel to the base to surprise my sister. I planned on going by train to Winnipeg and then hitchhiking up to Beausejour. When the train reached the station and I was disembarking, my brother-in-law was waiting for me. I asked him why he was there and he said that my sister told him I was on the train. I had told no one and my friend in Alberta did not know my sister.” She did this all the time.

I have many grand memories of my twin. One of my favourites is watching her rollerskating in our local parades, she was a member of the Campbell River rolling skate club and would be out in front with several other young ladies, on their skates, twirling their batons, tossing them high into the air and catching them again. All the while spinning around, followed by a marching band and the rest of the parade. She was incredible. I was so proud of her.

When my sister was due to give birth to her first child, her husband Bruce was up north working on a section of the Dempsey highway on a military project and could not be there for the birth. My sister asked me to come and stay with her on the base so I could get her to the hospital when the time came. They were stationed in C.F.P. Chilliwack. I had not seen my sister for several years and the thought of hanging with her for a few weeks was pretty exciting. 

When the day came, I was marching back and forth outside the OR, worried almost to death over the whole ordeal. When the doctor came out and said it was a healthy girl child, I was so excited that I must have looked out of sorts. The doctor broke out laughing at the look on my face. I was allowed a few minutes to see my sister and meet my new niece. My sister asked me to name her. As I had just finished a book about Princess Natasha of Russia, I got to welcome my niece Natasha, into the world. She was born in the same hospital as my sister and me.

My sister is no longer with us, she was in a car accident, on June 10^th, 1988. Patsy and her husband had separated and she had been hanging out on Denman Island with some friends. They all were drinking and during the night, they put the truck in the ditch. While they were pushing it out, my sister fell forward just as the truck rolled back trapping her underwater where she drowned. I still have nightmares about this. I woke up in turmoil the day after her death, not able to get my shit together, I had no idea what was going on. Then I got a phone call from the police, telling me of my sister’s death the night before. I cried for days, and still do sometimes when I am alone and thoughts of my sister float to the surface of my mind.

She came to visit just a few days before her death, I was at work and would be gone all day. My sister wanted to get to know my wife Gina better without my being there. So they spent the day together and had an awesome visit, I do regret not being home that day but can look back on my wife and sister hanging out all day, sharing stories. Gina told me it was cool to hear the narrative, from my sisters’ point of view, of the events of her and me growing up.

North Side Of Town

In 1963, a short time after the destruction of the Willows Hotel by fire, our family moved into the Campbelton area on the north side of town. We leased an old farmhouse that had about an acre of land with a fruit tree orchard. It was the remains of a much larger farm that had been hewed from the forest at the turn of the century. The house was pretty old, and was poorly electrified with only 30 amps, and only had wood heat in the form of a fireplace. It had been built in 1898. This was not long after our first settler, Fred Nunn arrived in the area 11 years before this. His farm location was just south of our home location.

Frederick Nunns and his brother Jack were born in Ireland on January 30, 1858, and before he had turned twenty, Frederick had set off to travel the world. He travelled alone to London and then to Morocco, where his brother Jack joined him, together, the twin brothers ventured to Australia, New Zealand, Cape Town, and South Africa where Fred spent some time as a member of the Mounted Police. Then the brothers emigrated to Canada and settled in the Campbell River area in 1887. They had plans to start a farm. The pair homesteaded several hundred acres just up from the estuary on the Campbell River. It was tough to work the land but they cleared a large portion and did indeed build a farm. Over the years many relatives and friends of Fred and Jack would arrive in the area to help, some staying only briefly, and others remaining for many years.

We know this because Fred Nunns kept a journal of his life in the Campbell River area. Entries were posted most days and usually talked about the weather, occasionally though, he would add details about other settlers or exciting things that happened on the farm. Some of the families that he knew and had interacted with quite often were mentioned in the journal. We know a lot about the early years in Campbell River and about the lives of the first settlers because of Fred’s Journal. Fred’s life was tough, as it was for the other settlers as well, but through hard work, they created a life here for themselves. Fred often talked about the fact that they could all rely upon each other in times of need. They would offer a hot meal and a place to sleep to travellers without hesitation and help with any construction that was being done by a neighbour in need. Fred Nunns was no exception to this rule and was known for his kindness, he was also known as a bit of a recluse. He was an eccentric old gentleman that spoke little, but always with intelligence. Fred had some strange rituals in the morning. No matter the time of year, Fred would get up, light the stove, and while still wearing his pyjamas, he would walk down to the river. He would wade into up to his waist, and proceed to wash up. Then he would walk back to his cabin, remove his pyjamas, and hang them beside his day clothes behind the stove, where they would dry before bedtime. All this is according to Mr. Campbell, the area’s first school teacher who had boarded with Fred.

In 1923 Fred had to visit a local dentist to have six abscessed and painful teeth removed, they had used Novocaine during the removal, he collapsed after the treatment and died, they suspected that it was an overdose from the Novocaine. Fred has left a legacy though, and his name lives on, The Nunns Creek Park is one of the places that keeps his name alive, it’s a wonderful park where there are several ballparks and a logger’s sports area that has some of the toughest loggers from the Pacific Northwest compete for the honour of being labelled the best. The park has many trails that let one wonder about the wetlands, the bird life here is just incredible. There are copies of the journal available to read at the CR Museum’s Archives Research Centre.

Our house was across the road from the shores of the Campbell River. The fruit orchard was full of apple, plum and cherry trees. I would spend hours out there eating whatever fruit was in season. I would climb high into the trees in pursuit of this feast. One late afternoon, I was going up an apple tree when I managed to get my left knee stuck in the crotch of the tree. I could not get it loose, I was in the furthest apple tree in our yard and not visible from the house. I struggled to get loose for more than an hour. No one missed me as I was always late getting home. Finally, Mom noticed that it had turned into night and I was not home yet. She came out on the porch and began to call for me. I called back that I was stuck in a tree. It took forever for Mom and Dad to get me free as my knee was now twice its normal size and jammed in tight. That knee has given me trouble since that day.

Being across the road from the river gave meant riverbank access, which allowed us kids to fish whenever we wanted. The fishing was great in the river. You were guaranteed to catch a fish just about anywhere you dropped a line. Sometimes we would fish off the Silver Bridge or the logging bridge where we could access both shores. It was hard to get the fish up to the bridge most of the time with plenty of them shaking loose on the journey up. So I got this grand idea that if I tied one end of a long rope to the bridge and the other to a big inner tube, I could float out right into the best fishing spot. I had not thought this through very well, but as I was only 8, it’s understandable. One thought should have been how in the hell would I get back to shore? The next thought should have been just where the tube would end up, seems it happened to be right in a set of rapids and as the tube reached the end of the rope, it started to dive under, then shoot up over and over with me going under water each time. I could not let go of the tube as I did not know how to swim. My tackle box and rod were gone and I was screaming for help. It took the Campbell River Fire Department to save my ass. Sometimes my stupidity amazed even me. My dad always would say that one day I would wind up dead from my crazy-ass foolishness, I have had many close calls but always seem to squeak through. Quite often I still hear my dad’s voice saying “ dammit boy, you got to think things through”.

There were elm trees along our street and the guy across the road from us was trimming the trees in front of his house. He was out on a branch when that branch broke, connecting him with the power lines. He was electrocuted. The fire department was brought in to get him off the wires. Hydro shut the power down, They used the ladder truck to reach where he was, by this time, everyone from our street was outside and watching. As they began to move him to the ladder, they dropped the man with him hitting the grass below, and the crowd gasped. The funny thing is, this kicked his heart going and he sat up, perhaps he was not dead at all, but just unconscious when he fell.

The Old Timer

I delivered papers in the area and one of the homes was occupied by a man in a wheelchair. I used to walk up on his porch and put his paper where he could reach it easily. Sometimes he would ask me to sit and chat, I think he was lonely and felt the need to know he was still visible to the world around him. This oldtimer lived in a small house just about where the White Tower Restaurant stands today. He was a nice old guy.

He had been a highball logger in his youth. I still remember sitting on his porch in Campbellton, watching the traffic go by as he told me stories of logging on the coast. He would get a gleam in his eyes as he recounted tale after tale.  He had begun logging back when he was a teenager back in the 20s, from what I remember from his tales is that he was from a logging family. For the life of me, I can’t remember the old fellas’ name. He reminisced about topping trees to rig as spar trees, and there were tales about working on the steam donkeys.

There were always incredible stories about the trains that pulled the wood to the sea. He had worked in the Campbell River area for his whole logging career, he worked for years in the Mohun Lake area, and lots of the names of other loggers he had worked with and the places they logged were known to me., this made them more truthful in my eyes.  I never tired of hearing these yarns. 

When I met him he was missing one leg up above the knee and the other was missing below the knee. He had told me it was due to having diabetes. Although I had stopped delivering papers, I would still stop by for a chat on his porch whenever I saw him sitting there. Over the next couple of years, I watched him lose his legs right up to the top. Then one day the house looked empty, and a woman was cleaning the place, she told me that her brother had passed away. I would miss this man and his stories. I can still vividly remember sitting on his porch in Campbellton, watching the traffic go by as he told his tales of logging on the coast. Could you imagine if his stories were put down in a book, what a glorious book that would have been!

Up Shit Creek

I was always getting in way over my head with my adventures and although I would become an ocean-going youth by the time I was hitting my teens. This knowledge was quite lacking when I was 8 years old. One day, a friend and I were playing along the bank of the river in front of my house. We were having a great time doing what kids do, chasing frogs, watching all the different insects and eating salmon berries. Towed along behind us was this little blue tub, just big enough for one to sit in while the other pulled. As we were enjoying our day, we happened upon a possibly abandoned boat, although that may be debatable. It was maybe 10 feet long. It would hold us both.

We played around this little boat for a while to see if anyone came to claim it, but no one came. It looked pretty solid so we got in, but leaving the boat tied to a rock on the beach. Still, no one came. So we decided to untie the boat and float down the river like Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, just like in the book. We tied our blue tub to the stern to be used as a lifeboat and off we went.

At this point, the river was moving slowly as it worked its way into the estuary and we pretended to be in the wilderness. There were no paddles or life jackets, but we had our lifeboat. We had lots of fun as we slowly drifted down the river. We planned to just go ashore when we reached the sea at the river mouth.

At one point we were opposite the Elk River Timber “A” frame log dump. A big Fatboy truck was being readied to have its load lifted off and dumped in the river. The load was lifted up and over the side of the truck and then the load of logs hit the river with an enormous splash. We watched as a big wave headed our way and we rode it like river champs. This was all very exciting to both of us young lads.

Around every corner was something new to see, ducks of all kinds, sporting bright colours taking flight as we floated towards them. Canadian geese by the hundreds honking loudly to warn us to keep off their nests. Deer were feeding on the shores while eagles soared up high on air currents.

The booming grounds were downriver from the dump and the gentle river current was put to use to guide the logs into the various booms. Most of these would be towed to mills around the island, but some would be towed up a channel to the mill pond at the Raven lumber. Here they would await the journey up the green chain that was used to feed the mill a continuous supply of logs. The mill ran 24 hours a day, I grew up to the sounds of the green chain. As we coasted past the log booms, we got some weird looks from the men who worked there, perhaps they could see what was coming.

On the lower river, we saw many trumpeter swans that hardly moved as we drifted through them, they are such magnificent birds. The sounds of seagulls in the sky were like a song of the sea playing in our heads while we watched great blue herons feed at the edge of the river, knee-deep in the water. It was a warm sunny day and we were having so much fun.

As we arrived at the edge of the ocean, we saw it happened to be low tide and the river was flowing pretty fast, to our total dismay, we just shot out into the strait between Vancouver Island and Quadra Island. Now two boys, both 8 years old, in a very small 10 foot boat with no paddles or life jackets, out on the waters between these Islands is bad enough, but things were about to get much worse. Unfortunately for us, the tide was pulling us towards Seymour Narrows a few miles up the strait. Up until the 50s, Seymour Narrows had an underwater mountain that at low tide was only 3 meters below the surface. Many ships and 114 lives were lost to the turmoil that was caused by this underwater mountain. Then on April 5, 1958, that all ended when approximately 635 tons of rock were removed from the mountain in a huge explosion.

The threat of striking the underwater mountain is now gone but it is still a narrow channel filled with back eddies, whirlpools and the tides can run through at 28 knots. This is still a dangerous piece of water. If we were not rescued before we reached the narrows, we would, beyond any doubt, be pulled down by one of these giant whirlpools. Or perhaps flipped over by a massive back eddy, and that would be that.

We started to cry out for help, but for all our shouting, no one heard or saw us. We drifted past the painter’s subdivision crying for help, then past the pulp mill, yelling for help, past race point, still hollering out, past the entrance into Menzies Bay, crying out, and then we were in the narrows. We were no longer crying for help, we were holding on for our lives. There were boiling back eddies, and monstrous whirlpools all around us, things were pretty grim and we were sorely afraid for our lives. I was terrified.

Then all of a sudden, out of the blue, a seaplane comes flying in and lands right in the narrows, amongst the tumultuous maelstrom of the waters. As it pulls up to our little boat, dodging whirlpools and back eddies on its way, the back door flies open and a young girl, 7 years old, hollers at us to get in the plane, she looked like an angel to me. We got in, and off the pilot flew, taking us back to town. The pilot was the little girl’s dad, and he was pretty damn mad at us.

When we got back to the wharf, he phoned our dads to come down to get us, they were pretty mad too, especially after they were chewed out by this pilot. When we got home, Dad did what he always did when he felt he needed to teach me a lesson. He took his belt off and beat me black and blue, he held me up by my hands and just beat me until I was almost limp. I sure came to hate those beatings.

The girl is still my friend all these years later. A few years back I ran into her, and she had her dad with her, he was pretty old, but after taking one look at me, he stated, you’re that dumb kid I pulled out of the narrows back when you were a sprout ain’t ya?

I often wondered who had tied that boat up and what they thought when it was found gone, I wondered how it and the blue tub fared after we left them in the narrows that day. Do I feel guilty about it, ya, a bit? I had no right to take that boat, and I almost killed myself and a friend doing it.

The Flag

Sometimes my adventures were on the more dubious side, sometimes they involved the police. This would become a pattern for a while as I grew older. There was this one time while I was still 8, and I was visiting a buddy who lived downtown. He was the first friend I had in Campbell River.

I was always at his house, as coming to my house was out of the question as you never knew how my dad would react. I did bring him into my kitchen once to ask if he could spend the night. My mom was making bread and dad was just about to make tea. I was just behind him when I asked. He turned on a dime swinging that ceramic teapot at my head, I ducked down as Dad tried to kick me as I dove out the door. If Dad had connected that teapot with me, he might have killed me. After this, I never brought any friends into my house. Dad had been drinking that day. He drank often. 

Anyway, my buddy and I had been playing outside, down by his house and we found ourselves behind the Safeway store. It was just across the street and up a sand bank from his house. While we were playing around, we discovered a way to climb up onto the roof by using a drain pipe attached to the back of the building. Once on the roof, we could see several flags blowing in a breeze. We stole a Union Jack flag. Not sure what we were going to do with it, but when we climbed back down the pipe and turned to run, laughing about it all, we came face to face with two young police officers. The sight of them stopped us in our tracks. They promptly arrested us. We were put in the back seat of their black and white police car. There we were, sitting in the car while the cops slowly drove us through town, We could barely see over the window sills, but watching the buildings go by was pretty scary. We had no idea what was going to happen. They took us to the little jail building that was across from the fisherman’s wharf, hauled us upstairs and put us in a cell. Now things were getting damn frightening.

It wasn’t often I would guess that they had children in the jail, and I think in all likelihood, we might just have been small enough to squeeze through the bars. After locking us up, the police called both our dads to come down. Our dads arrived, and they were pretty upset, not at us being in jail but for why we were there. My dad frowned on stealing. I knew I was in for sound beating once I got home as Dad told me as much from the other side of the bars. Our dads and the police had a long chat just outside our cell. We were listening with all ears. The police were saying that they needed to keep us locked up for the crime we had committed. As stealing a flag was a federal offence with severe penalties. Our dads were telling them that if they released us into their care, they would make sure we kept our noses clean. The conversation went back and forth for quite some time. We sure were hoping our dads would be able to get us free in the end, beating or not. After some deliberations, and agreements from us to keep our noses clean and to not steal again, our dads convinced them to let us go, and we were released. Of course, it was all a ploy to teach us to behave, and you know what, it worked for a while that’s for sure. When I got home, Dad pulled his belt off and beat me for stealing. 

The Day I Almost Drowned

A nice family was living across the street from our house in Campbellton and I occasionally hung out with their boy who was my age, we were both 9 years old. He was an only child, a bit spoiled and his parents fiercely protected him from all dangers. Whenever he was injured, even if it was nothing more than a bump, he would run home crying that he had broken something. He was a bit pampered, so different than the way I grew up.

One day this family invited me to go swimming up at Echo Lake with them. There was one stipulation and that was that I needed to be able to swim. I could not swim, but I assured them that I could. Getting to the lake was fun, the old general hill was steep and quite curvy, we finally arrived and set up just below the old Echo Lake Lodge, this lodge was at this time a private residence. One of my schoolmates lived there. I have tried to find information about the original lodge, but have not been successful. It is no longer there, not sure when it disappeared, maybe heard it burnt down.

The lake is a very pretty lake surrounded by forests with some mighty big trees along the east side where the highway runs. This was not always so. When Elk River Timber’s camp 8 was going full steam, the west side of the lake was logged right to the lake. Rail trestles were crossing the lake and the camp was on the northwest shore.

This was a big camp that even had a school. By the time I was a lad, all the crew accommodations and infrastructure were gone, or at least most of it. The only stuff left were the offices and mechanic shops. All that was left of the trestles were some pilings that still remain to this day, the forest has grown back around the lake. Nature has begun the journey to heal the land around the lake.

Echo Lake would freeze up in the winter and when I was a teen, we used to go ice skating there. Sometimes it froze so thick that you could drive your car out onto the ice. We had a steel barrel that was cut in half and we would set this up on a log support and build a fire in the barrel, we could skate over and warm up when you got cold. Someone would have an 8-track stereo blasting out tunes. It was lots of fun. We could camp at the lake in the summer and we would catch some good size trout. There is no camping allowed now but the fishing is still good and there has been a fishing float added that is wheelchair friendly. Echo Lake is fed by numerous springs that bring in nutrients. It’s not a big lake but trout up to 15 pounds have been caught there.

At the lake, my friend pulled out a snorkel, mask and flippers that he said I could use, he had 2 sets. I had never used these before but found that with my face down and breathing through the snorkel, I could just float around. I was fascinated with the wonders that were visible to me for the first time. The dark green colours amid the shadows, and the incredible array of life. Seeing this breathtaking underwater world was beyond awesome. The bottom was covered in sunken logs from the logging days and you could see fish of all sizes swimming among them, to my surprise there were also a variety of insects both at the surface and within the water column itself. I was swimming in water that was over my head for the first time in my life and it all was very exhilarating.

Then, all of a sudden I dipped the snorkel end into the water and with water flowing down my throat, I began to panic. Reality came rushing back and I became hysterical. I called out for help as I struggled to keep afloat, but they were just looking at me. Suddenly,  the realization that no help was going to come and whether I drowned or not was going to be up to me. I got hold of myself, held my breath, put my head face down, and swam for all its worth and made it to shore. Once there, my friend’s parents were quite angry with me and were saying what if I had been really drowning and not just pretending, then where would I be? I said I was sorry. I almost drowned that day, and no one but me knew it. They never took me swimming again.

Tiny Nightmares

In 1965 we moved back into town, into a house with central heating. Just move a dial on the wall and no more cold mornings. Another bonus was that Elm School was right across the road. I would head to school when the bell went off and always ate a warm lunch at home. Out behind our new house, there was a small woodland of trees, it was a great place to hang out as a kid. These trees were pretty big and it felt like one was out in the forest. One day I was playing in this forest with a friend. We found an old overgrown logging road that we had never noticed before. This road went through the forest right about where the courthouse is now.

On this old road, we found a real ancient logging truck. This truck was pretty old, I mean it was mostly rust held together by moss and vines, To us boys though, it was a majestic log-hauling machine. One could just imagine this truck when it was shiny and new, and how thrilling it would have been driving it through the giant coastal trees as you made your way to the log dump.

It seemed to us to be a good idea to climb in the cab and pretend to be logging truck drivers. The doors were closed and jammed pretty tight with rust, and we struggled to open them. We looked around for something to pry them open with. We found an old board and by pulling on the handle and prying with the board, we got it to open, at least we opened the passenger door this way. We could not budge the driver’s door. It took both of us pulling and pushing on the passenger door to open it wide enough for us to get in, the hinges were so rusted up. It made a hell of a squeal but we got it open. The truck windows were broken and we could have gotten out through them if we had thought of it.

We got in, forcing the door closed again, I was in the driver’s seat. We began to bounce up and down on the old spring and horsehair bench seat and act like we were travelling down a bumpy logging road. This activity was very upsetting to the wasp nest and its inhabitants that were attached to the underside of the seat springs. If you have ever had an encounter with wasps you will know what happened next. They came forth like an angry mob, they were like tiny little demons banishing thin blades that dripped poison, stabbing you over and over again and again. Before we knew it, we had hundreds, if not thousands of them stinging us everywhere. It was like a horror movie.

We sure had a tough time getting the door open again, and by the time we got out, we were screaming in pain. You could hardly see a spot on our bodies that was not stung. I was stung on my lips, eyelids, in my nose, everywhere and it hurt. It felt like fire. Once out of the truck, we had to run brushing wasps out of every spot they could be, they were even in my shorts. I was spitting them out of my mouth. The angry terrors from hell chased us halfway to my house. By the time we got there, my eyes were nearly swelled shut.

My friend’s parents were called and they came and picked him up. My mom then ran a bath with oats and salt in it and had me soak for an hour, it helped. I looked like hell and missed a few days of school. Mom took me to see  Doctor Margetts to be checked out and all was normal considering. At least I found out that I was not allergic to wasps. To this day, I still have a huge respect for wasps nests of any size. I give them a wide birth during any encounter.

Paddy and Hazel of Paterson Lake

One of the great things about growing up in Campbell River was the amazing fishing opportunities found here. Dad would take us out to lakes, rivers or out on the chuck as often as he could, he loved fishing, and all of us boys got the bug. When I was a young man, I was known to quit jobs just so I didn’t miss out on a fishing trip with my buds. Fishing was a year-round activity in our family.

Not long after arriving in Campbell River, my mom and dad met an old couple who had first arrived here back in the 1920s. His name was Paddy, and his wife’s name was Hazel. Paddy took a shine to us all and began to take us to his hidden fishing holes. One of those fishing spots was up on Gooseneck Lake. The road to reach the lake was the old Argonaut mine road, it was pretty rough going with washouts and huge potholes, but this was crucial to how good the fishing was, not many fished here due to road conditions. The washouts along this road, (and there were quite a few), could be pretty big.

I can remember my brother and I would stack rocks up to allow Dad’s car to get over. Then my dad would drive across at high speed, bouncing over to the other side. Sometimes his rear wheels would be caught on the edge and Dad would just gun it. He would get across mostly from the momentum of high speed. I sure miss those days of such grand adventures with my dad. Sometimes, he was the best dad ever.

One day Dad bought my brother and me new rods and reels, these were pretty nice setups. Then we headed out to Gooseneck for a day of fishing. These new rods allowed us to get our bobbers quite far out into the lake. Dad on the other hand had his old rod, and he was getting disappointed at not being able to reach as far as us boys. So he gave it his all with a mighty cast. It was a herculean effort, but as the hook ran past my dad at a high rate of speed, it caught him in the ass, and it went deep. Dad was dancing on the trestle, growling like an old grizzly bear, holding onto his butt cheek. We tried to remove it but could not get it out. So into town, we went, but as my dad sat in the driver’s seat, he realized that he could not drive. So my brother at 13 years old, had to get us into town and get Dad to the hospital. He was not a good driver, grinding the gears on Dad’s 58 Chevy. We were flying down the logging road like some rum runners in the 20s, hardly slowing down for the washouts. My brother could barely see over the dash. Dad was lying in the back seat yelping in pain with every bump and I was riding shotgun and hanging on for dear life. We arrived alive, Dad got the hook removed, and all was good. He bought himself a new fishing rod and reel before the next fishing adventure on the trestles of gooseneck.

Not long before we arrived in the area, this lake was being used as a booming ground, there still were train trestles running all along one side of the lake. The old wharf has mostly crumbled into the lake now, but back in the 60s, you could drive right out on it and fish right beside your truck. There were two wharves on the lake. The first one was used to offload the logs from trains into the lake. After offloading the logs, they would be sorted into booms and towed over to the second wharf where they would be loaded back onto trains all sorted and sent to the mills. You could still see the remains of one of the old steam boilers on the wharf and the remains of shops on the shore.

Most log hauling on the island was done by train back in the day, steam was the power that drove not only the trains but all the other equipment that was used. Steam donkeys for logging were phased out in favour of fuel-driven engines before my logging days, although my older brother worked on one of the last in operation, out in the Port Renfrew area.

Back in the early ’60s, when we met Paddy, he was the gatekeeper up at the upper Campbell Lake trestle. If you were travelling on this road between 6 am to 6 pm, you had to get a pass, and it was Paddy who gave them out. This logging road was the only road to the north island, as the new highway 28 that ran to Gold River along the eastern shore of the lake would not open until 1970. The inland island highway from Sayward north would not open until the late 70’s. So in the 60’s you either took the logging road that went through Gold River and then, back across the island to Woss or you took the ferry out of Sayward that took you to Beaver Cove to reach the north island.

When you took the ferry, you would go right by Robson Bight where Orcas would gather to rub on the beaches. Sometimes you get to see them enjoying this activity. This behaviour is only observed in the northern resident whales. It would appear that it is a social behaviour passed on from generation to generation. All the various populations of these Orcas along the western shores of North America have their distinct languages and do not communicate with other populations in any meaningful way.

On the logging road route you can fish, and there are plenty of spots to fish and camp. The scenery is quite impressive. The trestle that crossed Upper Campbell Lake was pretty cool as well. This bridge and logging road are now closed and are impassible, you must take the highway to Gold River now. The road from Gold River to Woss is still open and is labelled as a highway, although it is a gravel road. There now is another logging road from Gold River to Sayward that is open but can only be travelled during the summer months due to heavy snowfall from winter storms.

I remember the first time I travelled on the Campbell River to Woss logging road. I was with my favourite cousin Jack, who was on his way to visit his son John who worked in Port Alice. I was 14. As we drove along we came upon a forest fire that was burning on both sides of the road just past Muchalat Lake. We were required to follow a pilot truck to get past the fire. This was my first closeup of a forest fire, there were flames right up to the road. Occasionally we would see the fire crews at work. It was all quite exciting. I thought it would be a magnificent job, and years later I would work for the BC Forest Service as an initial attack crew lead for 13 years. It truly was a magnificent job.

After we finally arrived in Port Alice, we got to watch Neil Armstrong walk on the moon. The Delta Hotel manager had pulled a TV into the lobby and everyone gathered around to watch this amazing event. It was July 24^th, 1969. All in all. Quite a day for a young man.

Paddy would stay in the gatehouse located close to the trestle from 6 am to 6 pm, Then head home. They had a sweet cabin over on Paterson Lake where they lived. Paddy had an old truck that he used to go back and forth with, this was an old truck, a 1940s corn binder. It had a split windshield, fold-up engine covers and headlamps on the fenders. Hard to tell if it had started life as a green or red truck, both colours were present. A few times I got to ride with him to the cabin. The drive over the Greenstone road was always epic. I loved to visit them at the cabin with my family, and fishing was always good at the lake.

The drive into the cabin was always without fail an adventure where we commonly saw deer, black bears, and many smaller creatures. I never grew tired of the trip. After a day of fishing, Hazel would fire up an awesome meal on the wood stove, then paddy in the light of the lanterns would spend the evening telling us stories of the pioneering days of living on Vancouver Island. At times you had to wonder where the truth stopped, and his passion for storytelling would take over. It mattered not to me though, I could sit for hours listening to his tales.

Quite often I would fall asleep in front of the fireplace, as I imagined living through the times of his stories. Paddy’s health had begun to deteriorate over the time we knew him and eventually, they had to move into town. They still spent lots of time out at the cabin though and they gave us a key so we could use it as well. It was 1965.

The Lake is like a jewel, with a big island set in the middle where another home was located. I have explored this area for years and hiked in the high country above this lake. I have found many caves to venture into. At the time of this story, the lake was surrounded by giant trees and plants of all descriptions. When you were walking in this vast forest of green, you could just imagine how it was before first contact, it was still possible to feel the oldness of these incredible giants and you could not help but be in amazement at the glory of this. The forest was filled with wildlife, and hiking here was awesome.

One time we had gone to the paddy’s cabin to do some hunting and fishing. This cabin was quite old, it had been built when Paddy was a young man. It was like two cabins really, there were 2 sections with a deck that was covered by a roof between them. One side was where Paddy and Hazel lived and the other side was where they kept their gear. It was right on the shore with a well-built dock that went out into the lake. The cabin was on the eastern shore of the lake. It was beautiful.

After we arrived at the lake, Dad and my older brother went hunting, leaving me alone at the cabin. I was given very specific orders from Dad to not go anywhere, if I wanted to fish, I was only to fish from the wharf. He made me promise. But you know, there was this boat and motor at the wharf, and as the fish were not biting here, that boat and the motor began to look pretty good. I figured that I could go down the lake and find some fish, and get back before my dad and brother did. So into the boat, I hopped, fired up the motor and headed down the lake. I got to a favourable-looking spot, anchored the boat and sure enough, the fish were hitting my line with every cast, I nailed a couple of nice ones.

I then decided to head back to the cabin. I started the motor and quickly realized that for some reason the motor was stuck in one position and all I could do was go around in big circles. I tried everything I could to get the motor loose to no avail. Eventually, I found that by tying one of the paddles to the side of the boat and sticking it into the water, I could steer the boat somewhat to get it going in a sort of straight line, it was slow going, and it had been quite some time since I left the cabin. When I came around the corner I could see my dad and brother standing on the wharf, and knew I was in shit. Dad was pretty mad, it seems Paddy had told him there was a problem with the motor getting stuck sometimes and said that we should not use it.

Dad gave me a talking to then and there, later my brother told me that Dad had been very worried about me being out in that boat. He also told me that he was impressed that I had figured out how to get the boat back, this helped cheer me up. I was 10 years old.

My Mom

When I was born, I was only just over 2 pounds and everyone thought I was not long for the world. I was placed into an incubator where they continued to grow me for 6 more weeks. From what I was told, mom only left her position at my side, which was to feed and care for my twin sister. Throughout my childhood years, I was a sickly boy with many return visits to the hospital. My mom was always there, like an angel looking after me.

There was something about my mom, something innocent. She emanated goodness and treated everyone with kindness. I could not have asked for a better mother.

My mom was prone to having heart attacks, it was a result of something that had happened back during the war years in England, where my mom was a wartime ambulance driver. She would go out after the nightly bombings to help those who were injured in the raids. While doing her duties, a bomb landed fairly close to Mom, throwing her against the ambulance. The force broke her jaw and knocked out all her teeth. The blow also took one of Mom’s lungs, and this was the cause of her numerous heart attacks. After she healed, she went right back at it. My mom for all counts and purposes was a badass. My mom and dad met during the war years when my dad was stationed in England, seems my mother loved to sing and one evening, while she was singing in a local tavern, in walks my dad. They fell in love and married.

Mom was one of those people who loved everyone and always had a kind word or a helping hand for friends and strangers alike. She was highly respected within the community and this was well deserved. She was always baking goods for one fundraiser or another and she could bake all those little English cakes and tarts. I enjoyed her treats. They always were the first to go at these events. The funny thing is, she was a bad cook, and her suppers were bad, can’t believe I am saying this, but that is how it was. So during the week, we suffered through hard potatoes and leather-like liver. Potatoes mashed with turnips, god I hated that, never understood why she did it. Her timing was always off, meat cooked and vegetables just starting to boil. On the weekends though, my dad took over the kitchen and we ate like kings. We fished and hunted for most of our meat and Dad would cook up something wild like a goose or deer roast, mashed taters, vegetables from our garden and the best gravy ever. My dad made the best-baked beans hands down, he would bake them for 9 hours and man were they good. I always looked forward to the weekends and always helped my dad. He taught me to cook.

Mom was pretty cool in other ways, she taught me how to knit and I would make my toques and scarfs, this was something I kept to myself though. I think my buds would find it a strange thing to be doing. Odd or not, these became cherished memories for me.

Mom was always knitting blankets and outfits for all the new family members from my older brothers and sisters, and when she had time she would make them for other families. My mom loved kids and would always break out with joy when she would hold a new baby in her arms. She had a soft spot for young mothers and was always helping them out. Mom had 7 children of her own, plus 22 grandkids. Somehow she made us all feel like we were her favourite one.

Mom and I did all the gardening, and she was quite capable at canning. We had a big garden and I would help mom look after it. She would spend weeks during harvest, jarring all kinds of stuff that would last us all winter. Mom was pretty awesome. Her jarred pickled beets were my favourite.

When you walked into our larder you would see shelves stacked high with jarred goods. There were vegetables and fruits. Plenty of dried products were included. Spices hung from racks and containers of dried beans and onions were on a table in the middle.

Families don’t do this anymore and I think that is a real shame. Mom and I bonded as we cared for the garden, she taught me so much about building up soils and when to plant. These lessons have been passed down through the generations. Thanks to my mother,  I have always found enjoyment in gardening.

The Big Black Car

When I was 10, my mom suffered another heart attack and was in the hospital. I was being cared for by my oldest sister Peachy who had come down from Sayward to help. My sister Peachy was so much older than I that she seemed more like an auntie than a sister. When I was very young, she was more like my mom and was pretty much my primary caregiver. Our mom was busy looking after our home, my siblings and working a full-time job. My sister was born in 1940 in England during the war years. She was my favourite sister. By the time I was 6, she had married and was living a life of her own. I missed having her around. It was delightful to spend time with her again.

One afternoon, I was playing in our alley just up from our house, where there was a great big willow tree. This tree played a major role in my growing up, it was in an empty lot surrounded by a sturdy wooden fence. All the neighbourhood kids hung out in this lot. There were fruit trees and raspberry bushes that we all ate from. The weeping willow tree was growing close to the fence, in the corner and was gigantic, the branches cascaded right to the ground and it was like a fort within the confines of this beautiful old mother willow.

The fence was well built and we could run down the top of it, holding onto the willow branches, then as we reached the corner of the property where the fence ended, we would swing off over the alley and back down to the ground. It was great fun, anyway, there I was, running along the fence top, when just as I reached the end, I noticed a car, a big black car, rolling slowly down the alley. There was an old guy at the wheel. I thought it would be fun to see if I could swing right over his car. Things were looking great, and I was really getting some height, when all of a sudden, the branch broke, and I was heading straight at the car. When I connected with the windshield, my right leg went right through, hitting the old guy in the face, my leg got sliced open right to the bone. I pulled my leg out, most likely doing more damage, and half ran, half crawled the short distance to home. I was a ghastly mess, I was in shorts and as I looked at the wound, I could see the bone.

My last sight of the old guy showed he was stopped, the car stalled, and he was blankly staring out through the hole in his window. I hope he got over it all. It must have been quite a traumatic experience for him.

By the time I got in the house, I had bled pretty bad, and was covered in blood, my sister screamed at the sight of my leg. Then she just wrapped my leg in a big green bedspread, scooped me up and rushed me off to the hospital. She was pretty upset and worried. I bled all over her car.

At the hospital, they were taking me directly into the O.R., but my mom was also in transport from one hospital area to another. The hospital was not very big. Dr Margetts, our family doctor hoped to avoid running into her, and having her see me covered in blood. I was bleeding so badly that there was blood flowing off the gurney, leaving a red trail behind me. Well, we ran into my mom in a hallway, and she saw it was me. They whisked me right past her, and all I can remember hearing was her screaming my name. The doctor got all the glass out, connected the arteries and stitched me up. Luckily I did not sever my femoral artery or I might not have even gotten home. I did require a transfusion to replace the blood I lost. All ended well with Mom and I going home together a few days later.

The Camping Trip

I loved fishing, hiking, caving, canyoning, canoeing, kayaking and mountain hiking, spent most of my youth doing those activities. One time, a friend and I had gone to Gooseneck Lake to camp for a few days, we were both 11. My dad drove us up in the morning, and helped us set up our camp before he took off, we spent the day fishing and hiking about. We found a bunch of old railroad ties that we carried back to camp. We set them around the fire 4 high and used a couple more for seats. As evening was setting in, our thoughts turned to supper. It consisted of beans, corn, and trout, cooked on the fire in our improvised outdoor kitchen. A bit after dinner, I started to feel sick with nausea and had a bad pain in my tummy. Then I began to vomit. I told Jimmy that I needed to go to town. It was just getting towards dusk. There happened to be a man fishing at the lake, and we caught him just as he was ready to drive out. I asked if he could take us into town, and he agreed to give us a ride.

We left the gear there thinking maybe we would be back out tomorrow. The man took us home and I am always so grateful for that ride. Later that night, as I was lying in my bed, sometime around 3 a.m., I started to hurt. My mom and dad came into my room to see what I was moaning about. My dad pushed in my tummy slowly, then released the pressure quickly, the pain was agonizing, but my dad knew what it was and rushed me to the hospital. Our family physician, Dr Margetts was on call when we got there, he took one look at me, and immediately told the nurses to get me ready to operate on. I did not quite make it into the O.R. before my appendix ruptured and filled my gut with poison, I spent the next 2 weeks in the hospital. If I had stayed out camping, I would have died with Jimmy looking on, helpless to do anything.

Jimmy and his mom Betty went out to retrieve our gear the next day. For some reason, Betty lost my tent. This was not a big deal, we had others. The funny thing though is that in 2021. Betty and I reconnected in a grocery store lineup. Betty informed me that she had found that tent again shortly after she lost it and had kept it for 55 years, waiting to see me again. She gave me the tent. It was funny to see that old tent again. One day I will write a full story about this tent.

This was not my first bout with my appendix though, the past year, when I was 10, my parents had sent my sister and me to a summer camp in Nanoose Bay. It was a church group that ran this camp. A few days into the 2 weeks I was to be there, I woke in the middle of the night, with a bad ache in my tummy and began to vomit on the floor. The camp head guy was summoned and he said he would take me into Nanaimo, to the hospital emergency ward, but only after I cleaned up my mess. So there I was, on my knees, at 3 a.m., wiping up vomit, feeling pretty sick and in pain. After the mess was gone, off we went. He made sure I knew how mad he was for getting him up in the middle of the night as we drove to the hospital. When we arrived, they took one look at me and admitted me right away, acute appendicitis. My parents were called, and after they arrived later that day, I told Mom how I was treated by the camp leader. On our way home, she had Dad stop at the camp. She gathered up our stuff, collected my twin sister and then went into the office to chat with this head guy. When my mom was mad, she was a formidable force, and I am sure that he knew how mad she was. She was in there for quite some time and was pretty red in the face with anger when she came out. My understanding is that they said they would fire the head guy and refund Mom all the fees my parents paid. Never went to summer camp again. This suited me fine.

Fish and Bears

There were many lakes that we would fish in during my youth. One such lake was Fish Lake, (probably not its real name). This lake was named appropriately, as the fishing here was incredible, it is located in the Sayward Forest. The road was very rough and this kept most fishermen away. From where we would park, you still had a fairly long hike over a hidden trail to reach the lake. As a young man, I just loved fishing here. It was a beautiful little lake, it had two big sections with a narrows in between. The far side of the lake had some impressive rock bluffs.

I remember one time when we were hiking in to do some fishing, I was running ahead and had reached the lake before my dad and brother. I took off along the trail that followed the shore. This path led to our favourite fishing hole. It was right at the narrows. Fish travelling from one part of the lake to another had to pass through these narrows. Part way down this trail, there was a small hill, not much higher than 3 or 4 meters. The brush at the top of the hill was pretty thick. I was running up the one side, going full tilt. I was unaware that there was a young black bear, also running up the other side, full tilt. The bear must have heard our sounds echoing on the bluffs on the other side of the lake and was running away from it. We met at the top of this little hill, as we slid to a stop we were nose to nose with just our heads sticking out of the brush. We both took one long look at each other, and then turned, and ran in the opposite direction.

My dad and brother could only see us from the shoulders up. They could not stop laughing at this. On the other hand, I had almost soiled my shorts, and it took me a while to find the humour in the whole affair. It must have looked pretty funny though.

Tahsis

I had a dog when I was 12. His name was Boots, he was a Pomeranian who thought he was a wolfhound. Me and Boots were connected at the hip and I went nowhere without him. He would think nothing of facing off a much bigger dog to protect me. Sometimes he could get aggressive with people he did not like. He had bit a few people. I felt most of them deserved it. But I might have been a bit biased as he was my best friend. One day, boots bit a girl, and she had to get stitches. She had taken a swat at him for barking at her and he caught her finger as it went by. Understandable, her parents were pretty upset. She told them she had only tried to pet him. Perhaps she had, I can’t say for sure. A few days after this, my parents sent me on a trip out to Tahsis to visit my sister Peachy who had recently moved there from Sayward. I asked Mom to please look after Boots while I was gone and she assured me that she would.

I enjoyed the flight in, it was on a Grumman G-21 Goose, which had seating for 8 passengers. It was like a flying boat.  These planes were first put into production in 1937 and they were Grumman’s first commercial airliner. They are still common on our coast. We took off on a runway at the Campbell River Airport, but we landed on the water before driving up a paved ramp for disembarkation in Tahsis. The water outside the window was halfway up the sides of the plane as we landed. It was a very loud and slow plane, and that allowed me to take in the sights.

The island was much larger than I had thought. I observed many lakes and rivers from the plane, each one more enticing than the last. Where there wasn’t water, there were forests of giant trees growing up sides of mountains topped by rocky, snow-covered crags. This primeval forest seemed to go on forever and it was beautiful. This influenced my love of the island backwoods in such a grand way. I would spend my life hiking the backwoods and high country of our incredibly diverse and wondrous island.

After leaving the small Campbell River Airport, we flew up along the center of the island until we reached Woss Lake. Once we were over the logging camp at the community of Woss, we turned left to fly above the lake and onward to Tahsis and the west coast.

Woss Lake is about 11 km long and is set in a narrow valley that is no more than 1 km wide. It is a deep lake. From the west end of Woss Lake, it’s just a short run into the town of Tahsis. In 1995, the southern end of the lake was made into the Woss Lake Provincial Park. This is a total wilderness park where the only access is by trail from Tahsis or by boat on Woss Lake. To hike the trail from Tahsis, you drive up Tahsis road as it follows the Tahsis River until you reach the trailhead, It is only 12 km from there to the lake. Most people go this route and come out the same way.

It was amazingly scenic as we flew between Rugged Mt and Mckelvie Mt, both located in the Haihte Mt Range. The Haithe Mountain range is referred to as Patagonia North. The pass between these mountains is only 500 meters above sea level. You could see the ocean and Tahsis from the mountain pass. I could see it was a beautiful little village. It is located on the west coast of Vancouver Island, at the head of the very long Tahsis inlet. There is a fairly well-maintained gravel road from Gold River that runs into town now, but when I was a boy there was no road, the road from Gold River did not open to the public until 1972. To get there, you either flew in or took the Uchuck Freighter that sailed from Gold River. The Uchuck was a cargo boat that served the communities and logging camps from Gold River to Fair Harbour. Many times I sailed on her as I went to one camp or another.

An interesting fact about this boat was that the Uchuck cargo hold had a rather small opening and when someone wanted to transport a vehicle to Tahsis, it had to fit through this opening. Otherwise, it needed to be barged from Gold River which was not cheap.

There was only one brand of tiny car that fit in the hold that was available in BC. They were tiny German-made cars. There were many of them in town. None had licence plates as the roads were private and there was no way to leave the area. Hell, you did not even need a driver’s licence to operate them. I must admit, I was taken aback by these little bubbles of transportation. I still laugh about them today. The horn on these cars sounded like a circus clown horn.

When you talk to people who live in Tahsis today about these little cars, most have no idea what you are talking about. It’s funny how something so iconic could disappear from the memory of the world. I remember them. I thought they were awesome.

My sister and her husband Pete had found their way here via Sayward. Pete was in culinary school in Vancouver when we first moved to Campbell River. Not long after that, he finished up at school and took a job cooking in the M & B camp located on the shores of Kelsey Bay. It was a big camp and Pete worked his way up to head cook. There were several 3 story bunkhouses where the loggers who came here to work were put up and they all ate in camp. Back in those days, you paid 2.50 a day for room and board and this got you accommodation and food, and when I say food, I mean food. Loggers ate like kings.

As more and more of the loggers began to buy homes in the village being built just back from the bay, and production began to slow, the camp began to wind down. The old bunkhouses are now gone, leaving an empty lot where they once stood and the cookhouse is no more.

In 1966 Pete was offered a job as head chef in the new Delta Chalet in Tahsis. The hotel flew them in and put them up for the night so Pete could decide on accepting the job They saw it was such a pretty little town, and it would be a great place to raise their kids. Pete took the job.

After I arrived in town, I began exploring the area, at least as much as a 12-year-old kid could. Mind you, I was pretty independent even at that age. There was so much to see,  the Liener River estuary was a wonder to behold. I did have a good time. Tahsis is such a beautiful area.

I spent as much time as I could with my sister’s girls, Ronny (the oldest) and Theresa, they were pretty awesome. The youngest was a pretty cool kid, she was so much like me. She was pretty young but as she grew older I remember how she would hop up on my lap and say “When I grow up Uncle Bud, I want to be a hippy just like you”. I lost track of this little one when she was about 10 after my sister and I had a falling out.  Have not seen Theresa for close to 50 years, but I do search for her on occasion. One day I might just find her.

The wildlife in the area was stunning, you could see black bears, cougars, wolves, deer, elk, raccoons, pine martin and mink in spring, summer, and fall. I was enthralled with this abundance. Plus it was awesome to spend some time with my sister and her family.

After a week though I was missing the rest of my family and was very much looking forward to going home. As I got on the plane, I could hardly contain my excitement at the thought of seeing my pup again, I had missed him a lot.

Mom and Dad met me a the airport, and the first words out of my mouth after not seeing my pup were “Where is boots”. Mom’s face went ashen before she told me that the day I flew out, boots had leaped out of her arms and ran after the plane, they watched him disappear down the runway. She told me they looked all over for him but he was gone. She told me I should be proud to have had a dog that loved me that much.

It was not until I was 64 yrs old that I had an epiphany about the whole damn thing and realized that she had lied to me. Sending me to Tahsis was the way they could put boots down for biting that girl without my knowledge and my sister was involved. I can’t believe it took me all those years to figure out the truth. I have had many dogs and cats since then, but Boots still holds a special place in my heart.

School

School was not a place I liked to be, it seemed I was always in trouble, and then I would find myself sitting in the principal’s office waiting to get the strap. For those who do not know what that is, it was a heavy leather strap about 12 inches long, and 3 inches wide, that had a wooden handle. They would make you hold out your hands while they swung it hard numerous times against the palms. Hurt like hell. Never flinched. It always seemed to be one thing or another at school.

One day in grade 4, I was walking out to the backfield. When unknown to me, someone had bounced a super ball onto the school building roof. These balls were made of a very hard rubber with spectacular bouncing ability. One of the boys had climbed up to retrieve it, he threw it hard onto the blacktop below and it went out in a great arc towards the backfield, right towards me. The other kids began yelling at me to run and run I did, not knowing why though, and I ran right into that damn ball, it hit the top of my head with such force that it drove my head into the ground where I received a split lip, bleeding nose and two eyes already turning black. This seemed to be very humorous to the whole damn school. Like I said, I did not much like school.

Never did too well in school, not because I was not smart enough, you see, I stuttered badly. I failed grade one because of this. While In grade one, they sent me to a place in Vancouver to check me out. They thought I might have developmental issues. They ran a series of tests that showed my IQ was above normal.

My stuttering was so bad that the teachers would make fun of me and all the kids would laugh at me. The following year I was tested again with the same results. Yet all through school I did badly. When I was talking to teachers, my stuttering was really bad and you could tell they just wanted to slap me to make it stop. This just made me stutter worse. At home where no one could see me, I would stand in front of a mirror and practice talking without shuttering, I found that by tapping my fingers on my leg and pulling at the material of my pants, I could control the problem. By the end of grade school, I had my stuttering under control and no longer needed to use my finger-tapping. My grades had improved as well. These incidents with teachers did create a problem with a dislike of authority though.

After moving up to junior high, and grade 8, I was in academics but during my first month, I argued with a French class teacher about talking in class. He threw a book at me, with it hitting me in the head. I first thought about his actions and what a dick he was. I then picked up that book and threw it back at him, hitting him in the head as well. This teacher dragged me down the hall and into the office by the scruff of my neck screaming at me, he was brutal, but seeing that book hit him in the head made it all very much worth it. The principal gave me 2 choices, move to the vocational department of the school or leave. So I did a stint as a student in vocational. I learned the basics of carpentry, auto shop and welding skills during this period. These skills were the best schooling I got. I would put them to use many times over the years.

I had one teacher who wanted to see me succeed, but I did not listen to him, his name was Bill Mountain, and he only had one eye, I remember how, when he was talking with you, he would pull it out to polish it. He saw something in me that was not visible at the time, I regret not listening to him. I was in the occupational until I had another altercation with a teacher, with the outcome being the teacher needing to get stitched up. They kicked me out of school.

Hobbit Loggers

I started working as a logger when I was just 14 years old. I took a job logging for Elk River Timber along with another lad who was of the same age and had been kicked out of school as well. He and I were hired on as one man, and we had to split a paycheck. Worked out to about $1.50 an hour each. They just called us the kids, all you could see of us were our hardhats as we moved through the fireweed.

We were quite small, this other lad and I. We were like a couple of hobbit loggers, but we were hired for the job because of our small size. You see, the company had fallen trees right into the Elk River and fisheries wanted them removed. They hired us because we were light enough to get out on the logs in the river to set chokers. I never really thought about the dangerous aspects of this job, was happy to have a job. The camp we stayed in was called Camp 10, it was just past Drum Lakes, heading towards the north island. I swam in these lakes many times after work.

I owe a lot to this logging company for giving me that first job. The work was tough but it got me into logging. I bulked up over time and became good at my job. I spent more time in camp than I did in town, but even on my days off, I was hardly ever home. I would only come home to see my mom, give her some money and, make sure she knew I loved her. I quite often booked a room at the Rainbow Motel. It was good to be on my own.

Over the next couple of years, I logged for various outfits up and down the coast. I went from being a snot-nosed kid to being well on my way to becoming a man. Seems I was raised by loggers. I learned what it was to be a rigging rat. and loved the job. They taught me to drink and fight. I did like a good fight.

Our family was a logging family. My 3 brothers all became loggers, even my brothers who were in the military became loggers when they left the service. One of my sisters was married to a camp cook. My other sister was married to a logger who died on the job up in Call Inlet.

My Dad

There was a good reason for my need to be on my own. You see, my dad drank quite a bit and would get to beating on us boys when he was drunk. Now, my mom was a wonderful lady, and sweet as pie. She always had a smile for, and treated everyone as if they were the most important people in her life. When my dad was drinking though, she was like a sow grizzly bear, protecting her young from harm. She could stop Dad in his tracks, with just a look. But my dad drank a lot, and my mom was not always around to look out for us. So, once in a while, Dad would lay a beating on one of us boys. Even from a very young age, I had been looking forward to leaving home and getting away from my dad’s bouts of drunken anger.

When I think back on how life was during my home years, I always seem to remember those times of celebration, Christmas, Easter, birthdays and so forth. They would start as joyful times but after the beer and whisky got flowing, Dad would start up fighting with one of my brothers and it would become a brawl of fisty cuffs with tables overturned and things broken with my mom sitting in a corner crying. I would run off and come home after the fight. I can tell you, there is not one time that I can remember when there was no fight. Every bloody time it was the same damn shit.

I’m not here to bash the dead though, and to be fair about it all, I must truthfully say that when my dad was sober, he was OK. Everything I know about the bush I learned from him. He would take us boys fishing and hunting all the time and was always teaching us about the ways of the animals. My dad had such an understanding of the forest and its inhabitants. It was amazing how he could just look at the forest, and tell us whole stories on what he was seeing. He would say it was like reading a book, written in another language, all you had to do was learn the language. He had such a knowledge of the plants and animals, and how they lived. He knew many of the healing plants, and just how to use them, when to harvest, and how to prepare them. When you were in the forest with him, he was always telling you what was good to eat and what was not, or what could be used for medicine. I still remember how our table at home was always full of meat from hunting along with my mom’s reserves.

Dad’s mom was Mohawk, I only met my grandma once, and I truly remember very little of her. I do remember that the year after I married Georgina in 1985, I received a phone call to inform me of her death. She was 105 years old. She was born in 1881.

My Grandfather was a tugboat Captain on the St Clair River when he met her. She lived on the river. He fell in love with this beautiful lady and married her. They had quite a few children. I think there were 8 boys and 4 girls. My great-grandma Anna from the Logan side of the family helped raise the boys when Grandpa and Grandma were out on the tug.

When Dad was not quite a teenager yet, he worked with his dad on the tug, it was the start of a lucrative decade for tug boat captains. Prohibition in both Canada and the USA had just begun. In the states, alcohol was deemed illegal and could not be sold or even brewed. It was illegal in Canada but could be brewed and sold out of the country. The tugboats of St Claire River found new customers, the Americans. The American border was the center of the river. All they had to do was run across the river in the dark of night, drop off the load and get back to the Canadian side before the feds got you.

It all started in the 1920s, at first, it was a free-for-all, but in February 1920 the North West Mounted Police set up a headquarters in Sarnia to get control of these rum runners. The Americans also created a special force to hunt down these smugglers. They brought in six boats for patrols. These boats were the fastest on the river they declared.

The money was good so Grandpa set about being what they called a rum runner. My dad worked the boat with him. After the patrols were beefed up, the price per load was increased, and my Granddad would be the owner of several tugboats by the time this all came to an end. It was all very exciting for my dad and his brothers.

My dad came from a very different time than I did. He came from a place in time where you hunted for your meat, grew a big garden, and your medicines came from the forest. He gained much of his knowledge from his mom and grandmother when he was a boy. They taught him everything from animal husbandry to the gathering of edible and medicinal foods and plants. Sometimes it seemed you could sense their presence as you walked in the forest with my dad. It was a comfortable feeling.

My dad without knowing it, was an environmentalist. On our walks, he would tell you to stop, and put your ear to the ground, then ask you what you hear. It was always the sound of a drumbeat. As you listened, he would say that is the mother’s heartbeat, look after her and she will look after you. I was young and impressionable then, and now realize that it was my heartbeat I was hearing echoing in my ear. Long before we knew that the mother needed protection, my dad was instructing us to do just that. That is pretty awesome. I do try to look after the mother.

Roberts Lake

Due to a snowy spring, I had not been called back to work. So I contacted some buddies to see if they wanted to go camping at Roberts Lake, it was early March. We planned on being there for a week or 2. My dad gave me the big bell tent we had used when we drove across Canada. It would fit us all with room to spare. The center pole had come up missing so we tied a long pole between two trees and threw a line over it to hold up the tent. Having no center pole was great. We built a stone ring in the middle of the tent and would pile up rocks we had heated up in the fire outside. These hot rocks would last most of the night.

During our first week there, we all hiked up Menzies Mountain, it was snow-covered, the type of snow that has a very hard crust on it, allowing us to walk on top. It took us 7 hours to reach the summit. We had wooden staffs that we used on the way up.

When it came time to head down, we came up with a plan to slide down on the hard-packed snow. We took our day packs and put our legs through the straps with the pack now acting like a seat, then with our staffs used as a rudder. We began to slide down the snow-covered, steep mountain at a high rate of speed and it was frightening and exhilarating at the same time. For brakes, we used our feet, on one occasion, my boot dug in and I did a complete somersault, landing back on my pack as if it was done on purpose. Once in the timber, we had to swerve around trees and rock bluffs using our improvised rudder system. It took us about an hour to reach the bottom of the snow-covered areas. It was so much fun that over the next few weeks we did it several more times. Eventually, the snow melted.

We had planned a short camping trip but sometimes plans just go awry, we were enjoying ourselves and before we knew it, summer was on us. We had outgrown the army bell tent and had built ourselves a temporary home made of logs, driftwood and plastic sheeting, with a wood-burning 45-drum stove and homemade furniture. We kept the bell tent up and friends who would come for a few days could use it.

One of my buds and I found a vein of gold on the backside of the mountain, or at least we thought it was gold. We spent a week digging it out and gathering it up, thinking we going to be rich, instead, we were just fools, as this yellow stone was nothing more than fools gold. I still look for gold wherever I go and think that one day, who knows?

We hiked every inch of that mountain, gathering wild onions and other herbs and edible plants. We explored the lake by canoe, gathering up wood that we used to build a wharf that we could fish from, and the fishing was awesome. Grouse were plentiful and very tasty. We often made freshwater clam chowder, gathering the clams by diving into the bottom and grabbing them by the handfuls. Did you know that freshwater clams can live for more than 100 years, I did not at the time or maybe I might not have eaten so many.

Roberts Lake is just north of Campbell River on the North Island Highway. There was a nice little store and restaurant there that used to serve awesome food and pastries. This is now closed. There are still several cabins that you can rent. When I was a lad, the old guy who owned it had this gravity fuel pump, you would tell him how many gallons you wanted and he would operate a hand lever on the side of the pump to load up the glass container on the top, it had gallon markers on it, he would then put the nozzle in your tank and open up the tap allowing the gas to flow into your car. Although no longer used, the pump is still outside the store to this day. His daughters worked in the store and  tough young ladies they were.

Nootka Island

After leaving Roberts Lake, I was offered a job right away logging for an outfit up 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 for myself and a few other crew members. The flight in was uneventful and after a bit, we arrived at camp. As the guys grabbed their gear and headed up to the bunkhouses, the boss came down onto the float and said, leave your gear beside the covered boat that was tied up to the float and head up for lunch at the cook shack. Beside the boat, there was a bunch of boxes filled with food. I placed my bag there and saundered 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. Just then the boss came in and said to head down to the boat and load my gear and the food boxes on board and he would join me in a minute. I got everything stowed away on board. We boarded the boat and headed out. I asked him where we were headed, he said they had a small camp on the edge of a huge tidal flat, on the outer shores of Nootka Island.

The island was quite beautiful, with lots of big trees and rocky shores along with incredible sandy beaches, we rounded the corner at Yuquot and were now looking straight out into 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 tried to level it off, but with not much success. Out from 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 the waves and with some powerful pulls on the oars, he beat his way through the waves. 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 hop 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 got myself. I felt like I was on the edge of the world.

We packed up the supplies and my gear to 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 bottom side of your room and pulling your mattress part way up the wall a bit, it was not too bad for sleeping. One end of the old shack had our rooms and the kitchen, wash area and dryroom were on the other end. There was the cook, our hook tender, the tower operator and myself 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 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. When I looked out to where the rigging was going, I saw it ran through the middle of the lagoon which was high with the coming tide 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 where he hopped off, 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 small. 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, eventually he just lowered the rigging down until I had no choice but to fall in. This was something they did to all new guys, it sucked at first but it was quite hot and 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 there to 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 until we had enough to fill a boom. There were about 10 feet between the logs and the water, the water was pretty calm and I sat against a big log butt and pulled out a book I was reading, it was Dune. The sun was shining and there was a warm breeze blowing, it was a beauty of a day.

All of a sudden it was like the kracken 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. 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 him. Once you reached 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. 

Did you know that when Dune was published in 1965, it was not put out by a regular 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.

The Doe Eyed Girl

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.

As I got older, I can remember running into her room 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.

When my parents lived in Campbell River, my mom had befriended a young First Nations mother who worked with my older brother Bob. They both worked at the fish processing plant that was located at the bottom of Peterson Hill. Mom took her under her wing and helped her with life issues. She took many young ladies under her wing. My wife remembers my mom and how her mother would always send her down to see my mom (Dot) who would help her shop for new clothes. My mom worked at Robinson’s clothing store at the time and many people loved her for her kind ways and friendly smile.

On my days off from Nootka Island, I was home visiting my mom. she asked me to check on a young 6-year-old girl, Georgina, whom she was babysitting. She was in our backyard, and mom just wanted me to check and see if she was OK. When I stepped out on our back porch, she was on our swing, but not swinging. Her head was down and she was shuffling her feet on the ground, as I looked in her direction, she lifted her head and it literary touched my heart with such sorrow as I have never felt before. She was such a forlorn-looking little thing, she had big doe eyes that you could see had just been shedding tears with some still running down her cheeks. I felt a connection to this child, almost like she was someone I knew, it was quite disconcerting. As she looked up at me with those sad eyes my heart went out to this child. Her tear-covered face was forever imprinted on my memory. It was the first time that I had felt such empathy for anyone. For years that image of her on my swing haunted me, those dark eyes holding back tears got to me. I walked back into the house and asked Mom what was going on.

Mom then told me that her parents were divorcing in court that day, and that was why the little one looked so upset. She told me that the mom had been beaten almost to death by her dad in a drunken rage, right in front of the child, and the little one was confused, frightened and feeling lost. She had to run to the police station, which was several blocks away, to get them to come and save her mom. This child of 6 watched her mom get loaded in an ambulance and taken to the hospital with lights and sirens blaring. While her dad was put in cuffs and hauled off to jail. As my mom was narrating this story to me, she started to cry with tears running down her cheek. My eyes may have shed a tear or two as well. 

The Fire

I worked up on Nootka through the winter and spring, right up until logging had been shut down for fire season that summer. During this time, I booked back into my parent’s home. It was a Friday night and I had come home around midnight. I had been drinking, and my dad was passed out drunk in the living room, my twin sister was in bed sleeping, my mom was in Vancouver and my older brother Howard was still out. I was hungry and decided to pan-fry some chips, so I loaded up the pan with oil and sliced some spuds. While I was waiting for the oil to heat, I went to the washroom, got seated down and started to read a magazine. I forgot about the oil and was only reminded of what I was doing when my twin sister started screaming. The house was on fire she was yelling, I quickly ran out and sure enough, the pan was in flames and the cupboards above the stove were burning. I told my sister to call the fire department and then get out while I went to wake Dad. Funny, but I seem to have sobered up and become clear-headed.

I could not wake Dad, and as he weighed close to 300 hundred pounds and I was a bit over 120 pounds, there was no way that I could carry Dad. So I pulled him from his chair onto the floor, flames were now in the room and the smoke was burning my eyes, and causing me to cough.

I grabbed my dad by his wrists and started to drag him across the room toward the front door, the flames were all around us but I was not leaving my dad. I was struggling to get him across the room. Just as I got him to the door, the windows blew in and all hell was unleashed into the house, the ceiling tiles came crashing down, all except right over us at the door. The past winter we had sprung a leak there and Dad had to replace a patch of tiles in that spot, these stayed up, giving me time to get the door open.

Flames were shooting out the door just above my head as I crouched down to try and get my dad out the door, but I was having a hard time trying to get Dad over the sill. My hair, face and arms were getting burnt, the heat was very intense, the air was hot and it was hard to get a breath. Just then I heard a car come to a squealing halt and a young man of 19 came running up to the door and took hold of my dad with me and we half carried, half dragged my dad to the other side of the street. My dad had some burns but thanks to this teen, he was saved. This young guy’s name was Fred. I still see Fred now and then and we chat about the fire. This was August 1971.

Just as we got my dad across the street, my brother came home and not realizing that dad was safely out of the house, he tried to enter. Police and firemen were holding him back but he was fighting to get free and into the house, some of the police and firemen sustained black eyes and bloody noses before I was able to get through to him that Dad was safe. At this point, we were able to calm him down. No charges were brought against him as he was just a 22-year-old man trying to save his dad.

Mom was going to be home the day after the fire, we had no way to contact her, so we waited for her to pull up. She never fully recovered from the loss of all her memories and I still feel the pain of being the one to have caused it all.

Later that week, Tony Simnett, editor of the Islander Newspaper ran a full front-page story with the title in large print that said “sixteen-year boy dashes through raging flames to save sleeping father” It would have been more honest if it said, Drunk son starts house on fire and nearly kills his drunk father. I was no hero that day, but Fred sure was. Quite often I have nightmares about the fire and how I almost lost my dad that day.

The Accident

During the 72/73 winter layoff, I took a room with the parents of a buddy. (Lots of loggers would room and board in homes.) Another friend of ours came over one day to invite us out for a logging road trip in his 64 Ford Meteor. He had just done a brake job and wanted to test them out. This sounded like a good idea, so 5 of us plus the driver all piled in the car and off we went. It was Dec. 1, 1972. We had fun, smoked a few joints, and had a few beers, while we raced around the logging roads behind town. Then on our way back into town, on a downhill slope, the brakes failed. We were whipping along pretty fast when we noticed an off-road fatboy logging truck coming up the hill toward us. We met him on a one-lane bridge, we were doing about 60 when we hit him head-on. We went right under him, the car was crushed pretty badly but all 6 of us survived, 3 of us not so well, and 3 almost walked away. I broke a few bones, shattering my left leg in numerous places, along with serious compound fractures, I was pretty messed up. Another buddy broke his back in a few places and the driver dislocated his hips. We were lucky that it was a fat-boy truck, if it had been a highway truck, we would all be dead I suspect. More room under the fat boy.

They had a hell of a time getting us out of the car as we were lodged between the front wheels of the truck, and the truck was loaded. Once we were extracted, they stacked us up in the ambulance one over the other and off to the hospital where we went. Three of the boys were released at the hospital. The other two got out of the hospital rather quickly, but I was there for quite some time. I was the last to get out. At one point, I was put in a 2 man room beside a taxi driver whose feet had begun to rot. He had black wounds all over them. It was a staphylococcal infection. I had open wounds under my cast that were open to the bone. I got the infection and it went into my bone marrow.

I did not know I was infected until the gland at the top of my leg swelled up like a baseball. I called one of our young nurses to come check out my swollen gland, as I began to pull my blankets down so she could look. She ran out of the room, not sure why until the head nurse came in, she was a real battle axe lady and she began to yell at me about the whole thing, it seemed they thought I was being rude until I finally got it across about my gland. Everyone had a bit of a laugh. They then brought in a bone saw and cut a window into the cast to take a look. As they pulled the cut out away. you could smell the infection, my leg was rotten. The flesh had to be removed right to the bone in the worst area, this was done to stop it from spreading. I was put in isolation and on heavy antibiotics being administered intravenously for weeks. After getting out of isolation, I had to take medication orally for more than a year to stop this infection that had moved into my bone marrow. Never understood why they would put me into a room where this type of infection was. Slowed my recovery.

The memory of the accident was mostly blank for quite some time, even after I came out of the coma I was in after my operation to repair the damage to my leg. When I came out of the coma, it was quite disconcerting, I found myself standing in a hospital hallway. I must have come to and in a daze, ripped the IV out of my arm and there I was, walking down the hall, wondering what the hell was going on. The last thing I remembered was watching TV at my friend’s house and then it seemed like I blinked and the next moment I was in a freaking nightmare, I had a cast on my leg, and I was covered in blood. Then I looked down the hall and all I saw were doctors and nurses running towards me. It was like some old horror flick. It took me a while before I was able to remember the accident.

My coma had been created from being under so long on the operating table, it took 3 doctors 6 hours to put me back together again. I got out in the early spring and spent another 16 months recovering from this accident. My leg had a terrible bow in it and was an inch shorter, but heck, I still had it. Having one shorter leg wasn’t so bad, as long as it was on the uphill side of a logging setting. My leg was never the same after this, but I made due. Before the accident, I loved to run but this was gone now, it was like having a flat tire. I did most other things just fine though. I could still climb mountains so all was good.

Dads Passing

My parents had moved to Vancouver after the fire, and my twin sister left with them. My brother and I stayed in Campbell River. When my dad passed away in 1974, I was logging up at the head of Bute Inlet for Butler Brothers Logging. Dad passed on in the fall and due to inclement weather, I was unable to get a plane into camp so I could get to Vancouver in time for the funeral.

It was a cold October and there was snow up on the hill, down at camp it was raining heavily and the wind was screaming through the trees. It was a big camp, up along the Cumsack Creek, just below Mount Waddington on the BC coast. Cumsack Creek flows into the Homathko River just up from the end of Bute Inlet. There were over 250 workers in the camp.

The head foreman did his best to get a plane into camp for me, but Bute Inlet is a pretty dangerous place for a plane during a big storm, a pilot did give it his best shot but could not make it in. They managed to get a plane in the next morning but by the time I got to Campbell River, the morning flight to Vancouver was long gone and I needed to wait for the next flight. I missed Dad’s funeral.

My brothers and sisters were pissed at me and they started into me right away about missing Dad’s funeral, they all said I did not try hard enough. I left after spending the day with Mom, I went back to camp. I told Mom I would visit her soon. She knew I was the black sheep who always seemed to come up short when my siblings compared me to themselves, at least in their eyes. 

I did write a story to honour my dad.

“Spirit Island”

A time of sadness had come to my village. A respected Elder had set his prints on the spirit trail. He had been a wise and honest man. His kind and generous ways had earned him many true friends, who would mourn his passing. Myself included. For as long as I can remember, he has taught me the old ways and customs. I had thought we would be together forever. Now he was gone and he had left me with a void that will be hard to fill.

I contemplated that as I stepped out into the early morning light, and looked upon the sea. There was not a breath of wind, and the water was as smooth as jade that had been polished by the timeless tides. The dawn’s mist shone with a golden light in the glow of the rising sun. One might think the Great One himself was present today. As I glanced at the forest it seemed, for just a moment, full of shadows slowly moving among the giant coastal trees. They seemed to be spirits of my people coming to guide one of their own back home. But as I watched, I saw it was but the morning’s mist rising with the coming of the day’s warmth. I turned my eyes back to the sea and searched for the Island that was out in the bay in front of our longhouses. By squinting, I could just make out the giant trees that stood facing the village from the island shore. The swirling mist made them appear to come alive and dance.

The Elder was at the beginning of his greatest journey, for today we would take him to the Island. I was to be honoured with saying his farewell. I could see the canoes were loaded and the men were patiently waiting for me as I walked down to the beach. I reached the Elder’s canoe and was placed in the bow at the head of his cedar box. I shed silent tears during the passage to the Island. My mind was full of thoughts about this Elder, and all the things he had taught me during the time we had spent together. Including the stories and the legends, he had told me. The healing plants we had gathered together. The endless days during which we had studied the ways of the animals.

The last words he had spoken to me from his deathbed were echoing through my mind as we arrived at the Island. He had reached up from his bed to take my hand, and said, “Always follow your heart, for the truth lies there”. “I will try”, I had replied, then he was gone. The Elder’s box was lifted from the canoe by six of his sons and carried to the highest tree on the Island. They placed him there, among those who had come before him. They each then placed a gift at the foot of the tree. It was now time for me to say farewell. As I went down on one knee and bowed my head, I silently placed an eagle feather among the other gifts to aid his flight to the forest of the Great Spirit. I sang a song of goodbye to this elder, and as I looked up through my tears at his place in the tree, a great sorrow overwhelmed me, and the farewell words flowed from me like a river rushing to the sea.

I tried to honour him with my speech, though in truth I had little knowledge of what I was saying. All I could think of were his last words, “Always follow your heart, for the truth lies there”. The mist was in my eyes, as I spoke the final words of my speech to him. “You are in the forest now and my heart is with you. I will miss you, I will always honour you, Father.”

I was still a teen and he left far too soon. I do miss my dad. I still get teary-eyed when I read this story as I wrote it from my heart.

When I was back in camp, I did a lot of thinking about my dad. At first, I was mostly thinking about how Dad would beat on me and how even though I always tried to live up to my dad’s standards I always failed miserably at this. I remembered how he would always say “Why can’t you be more like your brothers”, or how he would say to me whenever I screwed up, “your never going to amount to nothing” and it was bringing tears to my eyes.

Eventually, as I lay on my bunk thinking of these things, I came to understand that they were not just tears of shame but that they were also tears of loss, the loss of my childhood, and the loss of my dad.

I began to remember all the good things about my dad. Right from the time I was a toddler, my dad would take me out and about with him and always introduce me as his little buddy, thus my nickname. Sometimes he would take me to the horse races and tell me if I was able to stay small, I could become the greatest jockey in the world. This was a real dream of my dads. He loved the track and I loved horses. But to our dismay, I just grew too big. Even though I never became that famous jockey, I did cowboy for years and made a living from the back of a horse. I think my dad, if he was still with us, might have been proud of me because of that, who knows eh?

My dad was only mean when he got into alcohol, I will admit that was pretty common. But there were all the other times when he was sober and teaching me about the forest, about medicine, about the animals and about who we were. It instilled in me a true sense of our history, about our ancestors, about our family lines and this was truly a gift he gave me. When he talked about the animals, plants or medicines, it was always fascinating and he would tell me the other kids had no appetite for this learning and how I always seemed to absorb it with great anticipation. I wish I could have been there for his funeral to say goodbye.

Gilford Island

I left the Bute Inlet camp in early November after my dad passed. I had a problem with the timekeeper. It was over something stupid and I threw away a good job over it. The job had another employee and I running a chokerman school using a mini tower, they were hiring so many green guys that we needed to teach them the basics of logging before sending them out. It was a good job.

The Sumner Bros offered me a job on the rigging up in Echo Bay on Gilford Island. They were good guys to work for. It was a small operation and a decent camp. I was a rigging handyman.

The crew was always joking around. We all got along well. One day, I was working as the landing man, it was a wet and windy day and I was soaked, I was tight up against the yarder that Jim was running, trying to stay out of the driving rain. As I was huddling there, I saw there was a golden fluid hitting my hard hat. All I could think of as I leaped away was how Jim would come out and take a piss just about where I had been pressed up against the machine. I looked up in horror to see Jim holding a half-full cup of tea that he had just been slowly pouring over my hard hat, grinning a big grin. 

Earlier in the day I had to trim the ends off some 7/8s wire that had been cut with a torch. I needed to get Jim back. So I started fooling around with one strand about 4 inches long, I spread the strands out and it started to look like a spider. Jim hated spiders. So I took some threat off my coat and tied some cedar bark on as a body and damn if it didn’t look like a big scary brown 7-inch spider. The lunch kits were in the crummy so I took Jim’s and put this spider in it and closed it up again. Come lunchtime when we were all in the crummy staying out of the wind and rain, I watched Jim out of the corner of my eye, he lifted the top off his box and for about 10 seconds sat there just looking at his lunch box before, all of a sudden, he throws the lunch kit up and jumps back before realizing it was not real. Payback is a bitch.

Partway through a shift, one of the guys had to go to town, so I was put pulling rigging on the sidehill. It was early morning. I was standing on a small bluff fighting a big cedar hangup. As I turned to say something to my chokerman, the debris I was standing on slipped over the bluff. I went down with it, catching a rock outcropping with my left knee. The pain was so intense that I was feeling dizzy and felt like throwing up.

My chokerman ran down to see how badly I was hurt, I told him that I banged my knee and would need to take a rest for a few minutes. I asked him to help me up the bluff, as I put my arm around his neck and went to take a step with my left leg, the pain was excruciating. That’s when I blacked out.

There was a faller in camp who was a big Norwegian. He was 6.6 and twice as broad as me at the shoulders. When I came too he was packing me in his arms up to the road, he was saying “Hang in there little buddy”. He was packing me like a child. When he got me to the road, they put me on a stretcher, loaded me in the ambulance and raced me down to camp.

Once in camp, they took me from the ambulance and tried to get me into the first aid shack. There was a door with a porch going into the shack, but it was a 90-degree entrance and they almost dumped me trying to get the stretcher around the corner. The stretcher could not make the turn. So they took me into the cook shack and laid me out on a table. A plane was called and a stay in the hospital ensued, and a knee operation would be required. They booked me with the bone doctor. Dr Leet said it was going to be the spring before he could make it happen.

Fast Cars and Shotguns

I was going to be off now right through next spring. Once I was out of the hospital, I booked in with a friend at his parent’s house. They were such nice folks. They were quite outdoorsy and loved to fish and hunt. They also loved shooting traps and after trying it, I was hooked. I went out and purchased a nice browning pump action 12 gauge shotgun. Then we all chipped in on getting a reloading kit and I started to reload shells that I gathered after gun meets. I would sell half of our boxes of reloads at shoots and this covered buying the shot, powder, casing, wads and primers.

I rigged up a shop out in the backyard and set up a reload station where I would sit for hours loading shells. I kept all the stuff out there and could go anytime I wanted and reload. The more empty shells I had, the more boxes I could load.  They would all sell at the meets, as I charged half price for them.

Shooting trap was a blast and when you were at a meet, you could have your abilities recorded. During a competition shoot, you would shoot a total of 100 shots. When you hit 100 clay pigeons out of 100, you get a pin saying you accomplished this. I got 99 out of 100 so many times without getting the elusive 100 pin. All in all, though, it was such a fun pastime and you would meet so many other folks.

5 concrete sidewalks fanned out towards the pigeon launcher building. Each had four spots for shooting, each 5 feet further back from the pigeon launcher. The first round was shot from the closest end, you would shoot 5 times then move across to the next sidewalk until you shot from all the points, you then move back and do it again. When you had moved through all the stations and distances, you would have shot 100 times.

When we were not at a meet, we would go to the range and practice. We had clay pigeon hand throwers made of metal put out by Winchester. Today they use rubber throwers but back then a was metal thrower attached to a wooden handle was used. My friend, his dad, his little sister, and I were up at the gun club one day practising, there was no one else around.

I was throwing pigeons as my friend took a turn shooting. He turned towards his dad and sister to say something, with his gun pointing down. As he turned his trigger came into contact with a set of keys hanging off his belt. The gun went off, hitting the concrete and then ricocheted up into their legs. They went down and then the dad jumped up, grabbed his daughter in his arms and started to run to the car, my friend was in shock until he saw his dad fall on the way to the car. Dad was unaware that he had been shot as well and it was adrenaline that took him that far.

I picked up the girl and my friend grabbed his dad and we got them to the car. They both were bleeding quite badly. My friend had a pretty hot car that went like stink and he just hit the gas. He had no concerns about speed limits. Right away, he blew past a cop going in the opposite direction, who pulled a U-turn and started to chase us, and then we began to pick up more of them as we flew through town. By the time we reached the hospital, we had a long line of police cars, lights flashing and sirens screaming behind us. It must have looked pretty wild, like something you would see in a movie. Our town was not very big and this was not something you would ever see. All in all, even though it was terrifying, it was pretty exciting.

When we turned into the hospital, they realized there was a reason for the high rate of speed. My friend jumped out of the car and ran into the emergency ward for help while I talked to the police. They were pissed off and blasted my friend for driving so fast, but they did not charge him with anything. Dad and daughter both had some of the pellets removed and wounds wrapped at the hospital before being sent home. They picked more pellets out of their legs for quite some time. They both had full recoveries, although they did have scarring in their legs.

Darcy Point

That winter, I was dating a girl who was pretty, adventurous and maybe a bit wild, kinda like me. I thought her dad had a dislike for me until he offered me a job as a camp watchman at Darcy Point, up in Loughborough Inlet. I was still waiting for my visit to the bone butcher and this was something I could do with my bad knee, so I took it. The thought of spending the winter holed up in a coastal camp with my girlfriend was cool.

He flew his daughter and me in and we got the gear and food offloaded, he showed me the diesel generator, and a big freaking engine and told me to make sure I fuelled it up at least once a week, it had a big tanked right beside it. We filled up this tank as the generator had been running for several days. There was a hose running from the main fuel storage tank and he showed me how to use it to fill up the generator.

The camp radiotelephone and heat were electric and if the generator ran out of fuel, there would be no contact with the outside world and no heat. It was a big diesel that would need to have all its pistons primed to start again if it ran out of fuel. So I would be on top of this for sure.

He took me up a trail along the creek to show me where the water line was located and how to keep it running. We fired up the propane stove and then he called his daughter and told her it was time to go. For some reason, I had thought she was going to stay with me, I stood there watching them fly off and then I was all alone, just the camp cat and I. I now know it was his way of keeping us apart.

At least I had a truck, 30 miles of road, my gun and a fishing rod. I took a drive that first day to see if there were any lakes, rivers or creeks that looked like they might hold some fish. From the moment I fired up the truck, I realized there was a problem, there was about half a turn of slack in the steering wheel. The roads were never level, as they twisted and turned, the slope would go from one side to the other and you would need to catch the slack by turning the wheel quickly. I found by reading the road ahead I could keep the truck going straight, sort of. It was no big deal as I would be the only truck on the road all winter anyway.

I got back to camp and proceeded to look over supplies and put things away, my food supply was awesome, had several deep freezers filled with frozen veggies, various types of meat pies, ice creams and as much meat as I could eat. The cupboards were stocked full of everything else. On the kitchen counters were huge containers of various flavours of cake mixes, pancake mixes, and gravy powders. There was a camp cat but no cat food. Jack had said to just feed him from a case of canned sardines. I fixed up a meal of steak and eggs and then headed down to the wharf to sit back and watch the boats go by.

Right away I saw a guy I know from Quadra Island, he owned a converted tugboat, called the Widget. He seemed to be heading my way, and as he came up on the dock, he noticed it was me, he tied up and we had a good chat, seems he was contracting with fisheries, he would stop at all the creeks to count how many spawners he could see. When he found out I was to be here all winter, he asked if he and a few others I knew could stop by for showers and rest and I said for sure. The following week Dev and his wife who were the original owners of the homefree commune on Quadra Island dropped by on their sailboat for a few days. Dev’s wife baked bread and several pies for me and a load for them. She also made me a big cake. I was sad to see them go but they said they would be going by every couple of weeks and would stop in for a few days.

When we flew in, I noticed an old cabin about a mile down the beach from camp, so one day at low tide, I took a walk to investigate. It was an old loggers’ shack, out the back was a wooden logging road that headed off into the forest with a very old logging truck sitting on it. It was so old that it had solid rubber tires. This truck was being taken over by nature. It was a GMC from around 1910-1920.

There was a door in the back of the cabin that I had trouble getting open, as I dragged it through the duff, it rolled up a grizzly skull and bones. It was then I saw that there were a couple of bullet holes in the door.

In the cabin, you could see stains on a counter where sandwiches had rotted right beside a couple of old leather lunch kits, There were cross-cut saws and other logging tools scattered about. Looks like they were having grizzly problems and had to shoot the bear through the back door, then just left out the front door and never returned. Looks like I was the first person to visit the cabin since this event. About 15 years later, I was back at Darcy Point working for the BC Forest Service. It had been logged where the cabin once stood, and there was no sign of it or the truck now. A coastal story that almost remained untold.

The winter rains came and the creek got flowing pretty bad and it washed my water line down and tangled it in a bunch of flotsam. Took me forever to get it loose again. I had to lay it out and up to where I could reset the gravity bag. Once I had it all laid out and hooked up, there still was no water. Had no idea what the problem was so I had two connectors along the line, I thought maybe one line had stuff plugging it, as this is PCP black waterline the only way to check was to undo each connector. So I undid the one closest to the gravity bag, water was flowing there and I got soaked hooking it back up again. Move on to the next one, when I pulled it apart, there was no water, but I could hear water up the line. Then it came out hitting me in the belly, soaked again. It was tough to get it hooked up again. But still no water in the cookhouse. So undo the line where it goes in under the cookshack, soaked again. After that, we had water in the cookhouse. Noted the need to get shutoff valves for these connections.

The camp cat was giving me trouble, he was always letting loose with a runny shit in the cookhouse and no matter how many times I would rub his nose in it, he would just do it again. I had no idea why until I tried a can of those sardines. I quickly got sick, and could not even get out of bed except to get into the washroom, sometimes I had to crawl through the snow to get there. Then the generator died. It had run out of fuel. I was in and out of delirium and I am not sure how many days it had been since I ate those sardines. I was still getting sicker. I tried to call someone but could not get a connection. I knew I had to get to town. I took the truck down to the wharf and when a tug or fishboat would go by, I would use the lights to signal S.O.S.

l had learned how to do this from being in sea cadets. But it was to no avail, they would just flash their light back at me as if to say hello.

I figured my only hope was to get the generator up and running, it was tough but I did it. I then used the radiotelephone to call a friend to come and replace me while I went to town. Had our pilot bring him in and then he flew me out. They kept me in the hospital for a few days, a bad case of food poisoning. I lost a bit of weight but made it through the ordeal. When I got out, I headed back to camp, and I took a big bag of cat food with me. The cat recovered as well and all was good. My knee operation happened in the spring and it went fine after a few weeks, I was able to return to work. In the meantime, the boss’s daughter had found a new love and we were done.

Hardwicke Island

By the fall of 75, I was employed by a logging company on Hardwicke Island. The camp was pretty cool, it was old school. In the wash house, there was one set of taps. Then there was a long wooden counter that ran down along the wall. There were round holes cut into this countertop with mirrors on the wall above. On the other wall were metal wash basins hanging. You take one down, fill it at the taps and move to the hole in the board that fits these basins. When you were done, you poured the contents down the drain at the taps and rinsed the basin before hanging it back on the wall. Our bunkhouses were big round rooms, all the bunks were on the outside by the walls with tables and chairs spaced around a center stove making up the inner part of the room.

I remember one day as we were heading up the hill to go to work, the fellers came careening around the corner hell-bent for leather and came to a sliding halt beside our truck. Your donkeys on fire one was hollering, so we picked up the pace and got up the hill as fast as we could, and sure enough, there was our yarder, burning out of control. The chaser had built a fire the day before in the landing to keep warm and although he had put it out before we left the site, it must have gone underground and come alive during the night. Landings were usually just pushed up wood and dirt. It was a total loss, but instead of laying off the crew, the company just moved us around to other jobs.

I was put to operating the rock crusher at the pit, this crusher could crunch up rocks as big as trucks and put out any size of gravel that was needed with just one adjustment. It was a scary old machine built back in the days of crank starts. The first thing you had to do in the morning was start an old model t motor by cranking it over by hand, now this crank could take your arm off when it kicked back and the crank handle sometimes would come flying off and bounce around in the engine room, and it was always tough to start. Once it was running, you would use it to turn over the big diesel engine that ran the crusher. There was a small pulley on the diesel engine and a big pulley on the model t, there was a belt between the two that was slack until you used a tensioner pulley that was on a lever, you would hold it tight to turn over the crusher motor, pretty cool system. After getting the big motor running, you would slacken the belt and turn off the model t until the next day, when you do this all again.

If a big rock got stuck in the jaws, I would go out to the bin and using a full-length rock drill steel, I would move the rock around until the jaws started to grab it. You had to do this quite often. Most times it was uneventful. There was one time when I was doing this, the jaws caught the steel and threw it and I forward where my fingers got caught against the edge of the hopper. As I let the steel go in pain, it came back and hammered me in the forehead, damn near knocking me out. My hard hat went through and was pretty flat, it was my favourite tin hat. Like I said, this was a scary old machine.

A road-building contractor who was working for the logging company asked me to come to work for him on his rock drill, this would be an awesome job. Drill holes for a few days, load with powder and blow the shit out of stuff, always did enjoy blowing things up so this appealed to me. So I jumped right at it. Over the next few months, I got pretty good at it. Blew up a lot of rock faces. Built a lot of roads. I can remember sitting out on the boom which was extended out and up, right against the rock face where we had drilled holes. I would have several cases of dynamite between my legs, and blasting caps in my mouth as I loaded and wired up holes to blow the rock away. It was a pretty awesome job. I worked there until winter shutdown.

Haida Gwaii

In the spring I went back to logging, I returned to logging and spent some time rigging back spars on grapple yarders, it was tough work, but I liked it. By the time I was 19, I was working up on Haida Gwaii in a place called Juskatla. I was throwing tongs on a chunk truck. I still remember the first day I arrived at camp, I was standing in the door of my room in the bunkhouse as the crews came home, looking to see whom I knew. One would always find others that you have logged with in other camps. Across the hall from me was a big fella, a Haida man, he was about 6 ft 4, and as wide as a house at the shoulders. As he ducked to enter his room, he asked me my name and after I told him I was Bud Logan, he said, any relation to Howard, and I said ya, he’s my brother. Now it turns out my brother had been working here just a few months before I arrived, he had got into an altercation with this Haida man and my brother had to use a 2×4 on him, beat him pretty well was the word in camp. Thankfully, the man did not decide to take it out on me, and we became friends. His name was Tiny.

Juskatla was a big camp, more like a small town, with large married sections with houses and bunkhouses for those who were single. Huge cookhouse and we ate like kings.

The scenery here was fantastic, the deer were so plentiful that there was no limit to hunting them when I arrived on the islands but shortly afterwards, they put a limit of one deer a day. These were Sitka deer and were about as big as a mid-sized dog. But there was another animal that was hunted here, one you could only get 1 tag a year for, one that could fill your freezer. These were Scottish long-haired cattle, or as I liked to call them, hippy cows. It seems that at the turn of the century, a man attempted to start a cattle ranch on Haida Gwaii to raise beef for the sailing ships that stopped here. It was a complete failure and was soon abandoned, however, the cattle were left to fend for themselves and over several generations, had become wild. Now they could be hunted as food, could you imagine, a whole beef once a year? The people ate well. Not sure of the status of these cows now.

When my 2 sons became men, they were both compass men on timber cruising contracts, they worked up on Haida Gwaii and I got to see the islands again through the photos they sent home. I enjoyed this.

The Explosion

In the winter of 1975/76 a few friends and I rented a house in Campbell River, we were all working in the bush. I was logging for a small Gypo outfit up in Smith’s inlet. This area of the coast is not for the faint of heart, it has to be the steepest ground I ever logged on. It is a long flight to get there and if you get on the milk run, it is an all-day trip. The worst thing about Smith’s inlet was the black flies. These guys are hungry. I know that after this I would never hire out to any camp up there again.

My boys both got the chance to experience Smiths Inlet and they both feel the same way about this coastal hellhole. My youngest was so badly bitten that his face and neck were dripping blood. Even though he was wearing a bug face and neck screen.

One time between shifts, I was in town and had gone out to the bar for the evening and was pretty drunk by the time I got home. I flopped on the couch and passed out. Not sure why, but during the evening, there was an explosion and it blew the back of the house to smithereens, and a blast of flames came down the hallway hitting the couch where I was sleeping, throwing it across the room with me on it. I woke up from my nap as I was flying through the air.

I landed on the floor by the front door, and  I saw the flames go back down the hallway and then they came back as I was diving out the door. I had lost everything I had. The flames were kissing my butt as I landed on the grass. I had to run across the road and down to the public phone at the Duncan Bay store, shirtless and with no shoes. 

At the time of the fire, I had no idea what caused it and when the fire department arrived I told them that it could be my roommate who was the cause and he could still be in there. The others were in camp. As they were fighting this inferno, I realized that if he was in there, he was toast, no pun intended. But not long after this, he came home.

The fire left me with nothing, not even a pair of shoes. I borrowed a pair from a friend but they were 3 sizes bigger than I needed and looked like clown shoes on my feet. With no other choice, I headed into town to see if welfare would help me out. They said no. The funny thing was is there was a man next to me at the counter who was getting a voucher so he could buy his dog food. Now don’t get me wrong here, I am not mad that he was going to get food for his dog and thought it was awesome, it’s just that here I was, completely destitute and they said no.

I phoned my lawyer to see if he could do something to make them change their minds. He just told me to come to his office where he gave me a check for 1000 bucks and said to get some clothes. Gerry Sinnote was a pretty awesome lawyer.

I went shopping, got some new duds and shoes, ate and paid for a week in the Quinsam Hotel. I still had 500 left to eat with, so it was OK. Things always get better and they would this time. My brother came by to see how things were going and said maybe we should go on a road trip. I said to him that I was in.

Road Trip

My brother along with myself and a couple of other friends got to talking and we decided to head up to the northwest territories after the fire. It was a trip where we wanted to just get out and see more of our Country. The journey was awesome, the scenery was beautiful but it was cold, it was still late winter and the land was frozen.

The second night found us staying in a fancy hotel in Edmonton, out on the white mud highway. We were interested in having a sauna, so the desk gave us a key to unlock the door. A man, an older guy about 70 came in and joined us thinking it was an open for all sauna. My brother and the others decided to leave and as a joke, my brother locked the outer door. The older guy was in the process of leaving while I stayed in the sauna, about 10 minutes later, the guy came flying into the sauna from the changing room screaming that we were locked in. Not a big deal to me, someone would let us out. The other gent however was claustrophobic and went into a panic, by the time someone heard his pounding on the door, and his screaming, he was in bad shape, and I thought he might up and die. When we got out, he followed me to our room where my brother was. He was pretty feisty for an old guy and attempted to fight my brother. The police were called and we got kicked out. We went to another motel and slept the night. The next day we continued our way to the Northwest territories.

Just after we crossed the border from Alberta into the Northwest Territories, we stopped at the Alexandra Falls trailhead on the Hay River and hiked in to see these falls. The falls drop about 33 meters straight down into a deep straight-walled canyon that runs as far as we can see. Now in the summer months, these falls are pretty impressive but the best time to see them is during the cold winters. What we saw was a river locked in ice with the falls shooting out of a cone of ice that stuck out over the falls by at least 15 meters, the river was coming out the end like water from a hose. It went out and down in a big arc and shot into what looked like a large ice volcano, disappearing back under the ice to continue its run to Great Slave Lake.

It was bloody awesome. After seeing the falls, we headed into the town of Hay River, a small town right on the shores of the lake, not much to see when got there, but one thing that stood out to us was when we attempted to purchase some beer, we had to sign an affidavit stating we were not first nations, we lied, got our beer, but thought this was pretty strange. We then headed towards Yellowknife, but the ice road was starting to deteriorate and was shut down. The ferry that runs during the warmer months was not able to operate as yet because of the ice. This happens in spring and fall, there can be weeks with no access to Yellowknife. So we turned around and headed back south. After we got back into Alberta, we headed towards the Peace River area and back to BC. Then we headed south.

The trip south was fun, we stopped at many places, McKenzie, Prince George, and Quesnel and then we arrived at Williams Lake, and for some reason, this town appealed to me. This could be because cowboys have always fascinated me, and Williams Lake is a true cowboy town. I was an avid reader of Louie L’Amour books, and like most kids, the life of the cowboy had always been my dream from a very early age.

We booked a room in the Chilcotin Hotel and spent the next few days exploring the area, and all it had to offer. We went out west as far as Sheep Creek Hill. Explored some caves located there, and found cave art within one cave. We then went east to both the little towns of Likely and Horsefly. Both these towns are very tiny but have such a rich history. I told my brother that one day, I was going to come back to this area for a longer visit. After checking out the sights we headed back to the island.

The Van

I was back on the island and my priority was finding a place to live. I rented a small cabin across from the Ideal Cafe, it was a one-bedroom unit with the kitchen and living room combined, and you cooked on an oil stove that also heated the cabin. It wasn’t much but it was only 75 bucks a month. It was set in amongst some big trees and was pretty private.

A friend of mine came over one day to visit. He and another buddy had a mail truck that had been converted into a camperized van. We were heading to pick up another friend, we had just smoked a couple of big joints and were pretty stoned. A couple of dogs started chasing us so my buddy slowed down to a crawl, opened the sliding door and was barking back at them. There was a ditch that was shallow and quite wide on the side of the road. Larry was half hanging out the door looking back, barking, when he just drove into the ditch and we came to a stop for a second, then the van just slowly, I mean very slowly tipped over. There was no damage. I looked up the road and saw a young lady pushing a baby carriage, or she had been because she was now on her knees laughing her head off. It must have looked pretty funny. A couple of long-haired stoned hippies in a slow-motion crash.

We had many adventures in that van, it could hold quite a few people and sometimes when we would head to Vancouver for a rock concert, it would get pretty stuffed. This was during the days of the CPR ferry that would sail from Vancouver every day around 3 am. You could reserve a place in the limited vehicular section and be back on the island by 6 am.

Before the beaches around Tofino became a provincial park in the 70s, you could camp right on the beach. In the spring there would be a big event called a Bee In, hippies from all over would come, we took the van there every year and it was always an incredible adventure.

Some of the best adventures were going to concerts, we could take quite a few people with us. We made it to Vancouver for so many concerts that it’s hard to remember them all. We would drive to Vancouver and pile out at the Colosseum. Go to see the band play and then after the event, we would hit a bar for the rest of the night, then head down to the waterfront and the CPR rail ferry. Before leaving, we would reserve a spot on the small car deck. It sailed around 230 am and would put us in Nanaimo around 500 am, then it was just a short trip home in the mail camper van.

Another time, we loaded the van with hippies and headed to Long Beach for the bee-in. It was a great time, camping right on the beach along with thousands of other hippies. I think I liked all the crafts that were for sale, the variety was amazing. Then there was the food, such wonders of edible delights.

On the way back, we just made it into Campbell River, when all the wiring in the van burnt. Filled the van instantly with smoke. We quickly pulled over and about 15 hippies jumped out of the van, along with so much smoke. This must have looked like a Cheech and Chong movie. Sure glad there were no cops in the area at that moment.

We tried to repair the van but we just failed and that was the end of this sweet chariot. It was pretty much the end of an era.

Living in the interior

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 who were interested in hiring you personally. I had been looking for a job for weeks 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 who owned the 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 hotel lot I saw not just my buddy but two other good friends, looking 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. My friends and I had many adventures over the next few years.

One of my buds and I took a canoe trip up the Cariboo River into the Cariboo mountains. That first summer, we planned on going right up to the Bowron lakes and back again. We figured it was going to take about 10 days to complete. We put in at Quesnel Forks, canoed up through Quesnel Lake and reached the falls below Bowron Lakes in 7 days. It was quite the journey, there were fast rapids and calm areas where we would camp and fish. We saw many moose along the way and grizzlies were everywhere, a very large one charged us in the canoe just after we left Cariboo Lake and we had to paddle as hard as we could to get away, that night we slept on an island in the middle of the river. Along the way, we found numerous old homesteads, abandoned now but awesome cabins that at the time would not take too much work to make livable again.

The trip back down the river was much faster as we were running with the flow. We ran into the same grizzly on the way back, at least he looked like him. He was standing on the river bank growling at us as we went past. We wound up spending 12 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 headed up to the likely pub next weekend to see what these beer races are 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 several 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 8 or 9 beers, we were down to just a few racers left, I was one of them. Finally, after more than a dozen beers, we were down to just two of us, myself and a big cowboy. This fella was standing far steadier than I. It was my turn now 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 l 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 was some sawed-off pool sticks with leather straps, these were to control the crowds when things got out of hand. They worked pretty well. My buddy and his girl both worked in the club, she was the head waitress and my buddy was another bouncer. One night, a customer came running up and said a bunch of guys had hauled my friend 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 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).

After closing, they would sometimes come to our house, set up and play for another few hours, we loved it, the parties would get a little wild at times, with hundreds in attendance, the city did not take a liking to our parties though. 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, 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.

After the plane crash, we bid on and won several spacing contracts out in Bella Coola, what a place, so beautiful. The mountains go straight up from the river bottom to touch the sky, the valley bottom is not very wide but is full of small farms. Alexander Mackenzie on his journey across Canada ended his quest for a route to the Pacific in Bella Coola. Traditionally, Bella Coola was and is the home of the Nuxult People, once wrongly classed as Coast Salish, today the Nuxult are classified under their distinct category. In 1858, the valley was used as a link to gold fields up in the Chilcotin.

We began to buy and load up the gear needed, lots of new saws, stoves, big cook tents smaller wall tents, and other various supplies to get these contracts started.

Freedom Hill

Our first trip into Bella Coola was in a 1968 2-ton Chevy truck that was loaded with most of the supplies. Two of us were heading in to put up the camp, others would be arriving over the next few days. The road from Williams Lake was long and dusty, it was 454 km of gravel road to get to the top of Freedom Hill. 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 4 hours to drive the 11 km to get down the hill, it took us just over 5 hours to drive the 454 km from Williams Lake. Our brakes kept overheating on the way down and we had to stop at all water sources to splash water on them to cool them down. The brakes would almost be red hot.

There is a story on 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 to the bottom. The military had agreed to complete the road but the 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 this story is not true. The real story is the government only intended to build the road out to 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 take my hat off and give kudos to the residents of Bella Coola and congratulate them on building the road that is Freedom Hill. Although there are 11 km of road on this hill, the full road that needed to be built was more than 60 km long, this covers 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 route. 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.

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.

Noosgulch River

The Bella Coola valley is narrow with mountains on either side that reach the sky. 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 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, we would see a First Nations elder come every day, strip down and lie in the river for hours, one of our boys told me he was doing a cleansing ritual before becoming a chief.

Our tent camp was set up right where the Grizzlies travel, 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 into where they were looking up a tree barking, i looked up to see a very small grizzly cub hanging on and it was calling for its mommy. The brush was so thick you could not see more than a few meters. I gathered up the dogs and got out of there before the sow returned from where ever she was. My heart was pounding.

One sunny day after work, one of the boys and I were walking up the road toward a pool on the Noosgulch River that was great for fishing. Both sides of the river have big old-growth timber that you hike through to get to a slow-moving deep pool. This was not far from camp, it was good fishing and we were looking to get enough for a good feed for camp. The road was a temporary skid road cut into a steep hillside, there were sparse but big trees growing 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. 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 until he fell off the steep upper edge and landed on the road with a very loud grunt 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, arms flailing around, trying to catch his balance, and 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 of sight. I looked at my companion and asked him if he just saw what I saw. With the joint still in his hand, he said he had. I felt sorry for the bear.

The valley is full of grizzlies and we saw them almost daily. We always were very careful when down by the rivers during the salmon spawn. Watching these bears fish for salmon was always cool. These bears also loved apples and most of the valley bottom farms had apple orchards. One time on a visit to a farm owned by some friends, I saw the biggest grizzly I have ever seen. They had a split rail snake fence separating their backyard and their apple trees. If I stood by this fence, it would be chin-high to me. I watched this bear walking behind this fence, heading toward a feed of apples. He was walking on all 4’s and his hump was well above that fence. He was a common visitor to the farm.

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, your not paying them as much as the white boys are you. At this moment, one of our 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, 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 head guy.

He tried to brush it off as a misunderstanding, but we were not buying into that. We told him that we 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 what they said 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, 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 several rooms in the hotel in town. A couple of more days and we were going to move everyone into town. Tomorrow, we would all start to get the camp ready and move the day after that. 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 knee-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, just past the highway bridge.

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 river 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 bright just before the tent burst 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 out 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.

The Winter In Bella Coola

My buds went back to Williams Lake and I decided to book in with a couple of the guys who worked for us, they had become pretty good friends, and I was going to stay for the winter. Their parents had bought and converted a small sawmill into a pretty cool home, it was in Hagensborg They lived in an upper area and the 3 boys lived in a lower part, almost like a separate apartment except it had no kitchen. Had lots of fun, and did plenty of hiking in the valley. The fishing was awesome.

Their place was pretty private with the closest neighbour living about half a mile down the road. Anytime we crossed paths with him, he acted like a privileged jackass, seems he had a problem with us all being less important than he was. This guy had a big fancy house with a driveway that was cut into the ground where it went into his garage in the lower part of the house. This was lined by cement walls. As we walked by one night after a bit of partying, we noticed his big, expensive car parked in the driveway. There had been a bit of a thaw that day before it refroze again and his driveway was frozen solid. We thought we might be able to angle his car a bit with the 4 of us pushing. We easily were able to move it by rocking it up and down while pushing at the same time. We got it broadside with only 10 to 12 inches between the ends of the car and the cement walls. With the ice covering, we did not even leave footprints. Sure would have liked to have seen his face the next morning. He would have had to wonder how his car slid around during the night.

These guys knew their valley well and loved to hike, I got to see so much. I enjoyed a trip we took across the Bella Coola harbour in an old inboard/outboasted clunker the boys 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 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 a love for waterfalls and one 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. It was in the fall and there had been heavy rain for days. I could hardly believe how active the falls were. I had been there in the summer and thought it was cool then. 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, some mountains were 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 majestic old bull elk, sporting a huge set of antlers. As he moved through the fog, head held high, his antlers caused the fog to swirl behind him, all the time he was calling out to his herd.

The Ranch

In the spring, I took a job working on a ranch. The ranch was a pretty big spread, 220,000 acres, I would be working the back end, about 15 miles from the main ranch, my home was a one-room cabin with a sod roof, wood stove and a spring outside the door for water. A table, a couple of chairs and a bed were brought up by wagon from the main ranch and all was good to go.

I drove out the Bella Coola Road to the turnoff and drove to a property located at the end of the road. The ranch had left a riding horse and a pack horse for me to use to get to the ranch. I parked my truck and saddled up one horse, packed the other with my gear and headed into the ranch, just me, the horses and my pup. There was no running equipment on the ranch, no drivable roads, only an old winding wagon road, it now was quite overgrown and had sections of corduroy road through the swampy areas.

On the way in you have to go through a ranch owned by a cantankerous old cowboy. He would eventually become a friend, but the first time I met him, he put the willies on me. I was on the old road where it goes right past his cabin. He came out with his six gun in his hand, it was now pointed at me as he came up to my horses. I had been told 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.

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, he immediately was 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.

One really bad winter, it had been 40 below for weeks, 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. I had even butchered one of my milk goats for meat. I had been out hunting every day, looking for a moose, then one day, I opened my cabin door at first light and there, right in front of me was a moose, eating hay with my horses, one shot and I once again had meat. I quartered it, hung it up and left it outside to freeze. hunting season was over but this was so needed to survive.

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 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 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 2.5 days from the nearest road, 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, seems some rustlers were working in the area.

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 craven a human conversation badly, I decided to ride to another ranch that was about 20 miles from my place, there was an old timer 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. 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, evening was coming on.

He thought it was too late and said I should stay the night. But I wanted to get on 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. You know, 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 water source. 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. I think we both enjoyed these moments of companionship.

One time, just after I started working on the ranch, I had to journey to town on business, after taking care of my obligations, I headed back to the ranch and I arrived at the end of the road where there was a lodge I saw that the old cowboy was there loading up a wagon with supplies, he said he was heading in the next morning. He hoped I would travel with him, so I said sure. The lodge would put us up for the night in the bunkhouse. They always let us leave our vehicles at their place. When I bunked down for the night, I 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 them socks on as I dressed, had breakfast and then hitched my horse to the oldtimers 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 looked pretty bad and 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 came 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 newbie.

The lodge was pretty cool, the owner and his wife were awesome folks as were all their cowboys, 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 seed the creeks around the ranch.

Then she would take the guests out looking for them 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. 

The fall is the time to get out hunting birds, like grouse, geese and ducks. When the geese would migrate in the fall, sometimes as many as 10,000 would stop in the meadow out front of my cabin. I would go out before daylight and quietly lay down at the edge of the meadow. It was flat and if I laid in the right spot, 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. Laying in the field would be many geese, all shot through the head by the same bullet.

One fall day I was out hunting grouse, they 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, then 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. 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, 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 in front of me exploded with a burst of noise and flapping wings flashing past my face. The whole event scared the crap right out of me, and I fell back, with my rifle going off. 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.

One summer day, 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. Like 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 couch where I would sleep tonight, 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 had 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 seat up 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 told everyone to put the seat cover down after use. The goat was pleased.

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 my 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, seemed 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 got 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, my ribs hurt like hell and all I saw was Dexter running in a gallop in the direction of the cabin. 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 and wolf cross, he had been my companion all these years and he was a good friend, his mom was owned by my friends 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 only yet 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.

A few days later 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 Williams Lake. 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.

Blunden Harbour

After arriving back in Campbell River, I figured I would rent a house and see about finding work. `I ran into my old friend of mine, we had been pretty good buds when we were kids, he was looking to do some hand logging along with an oldtimer and his son. They needed a cook, he also said that it was good clam digging in the area and I could dig clams under his licence, I had made good money clam digging in the past. So I signed on for the adventure. My friend had this awesome trawler, it was heavy and great for pulling wood to the beach, a good boat for logging. The other boat was far too light to pull logs to the beach but the old timer and his boy would use it to sleep in. The old timer was going to be the boomer, my buddy would be yarding wood with his boat. The young fella was going to look after putting the timber hitches on the logs to have them yarded to the water, he would also be doing most of the falling. I would be helping out wherever needed, I would also be doing the cooking. Along with this, I would be commercial clam digging on all the good tides It was October 5, 1979. when we headed to the harbour.

Blunden Harbour is a place of waterfalls and rivers, of deer and wolves, of birds and seals. A place of windy forests gently covered in a blanket of mist. A place where dreams come from.

Blunden Harbour is located on the mainland, directly across from Port Hardy, at the entrance to Bradley Lagoon. At the turn of the century, the village at Blunden Harbour was inhabited but it has mostly returned to the forest and the sea now, but if you take the time you can still see the remains of the longhouses lined up on the beach. The old chimney is all that is left of the house that was tucked around the corner from the village site. A few of my wife’s older uncles were born here.

The old timer had brought up a float with a small house on it a week back and secured it to the beach just where the outflow of Bradley Lagoon flows into Deep Bay, the bay is part of Blunden Harbour, and we had a stiff leg set up for this. The float had a 12-volt generator system along with a propane fridge and stove, it would be our cookhouse. The generator system was a series of 12-volt cat batteries, hooked up to a 12-volt gas generator. I would fuel up the genny, start it and let it run until the fuel ran out. It would run for 3 or so hours, charging up our batteries, this was all that was needed to keep the lights on.

On arrival in Blunden, the first order of business was offloading the boats, setting up the propane and lighting the pilot lights, firing up the generator to charge the batteries and stowing away the food. The old timer told his boy who was 16 to get the propane going and the rest of us went about other jobs. The young fella was gone for a bit before he came and said he could not find a match to light the pilot lights. He was given a pack and back into the cabin he went, then there was a big boom that shook the float and blew open some windows. As we all turned to look, the young man flew out of the cabin, all excited like. Seems while he was looking for a match, he had left the pilot light going. We all had a good laugh after ensuring he was alright.

Later that day Jimmy was checking out the saws, making sure they were ready to work, one of the saws was 090 stihl, this was a big saw with a 6-foot bar. They needed this saw as there were quite a few big trees on the claim. These saws are never easy to start. The young fella came along and I thought he was going to struggle in starting it, I was wrong, he just picked up that saw and fired it up like a pro, he was a tough lad after all, I had worked for a couple of his uncles on Gilford island, and they were highball loggers. This young man was cut from the same cloth.

One day this young man had forgotten his watch and asked me the time, so I removed my tin hat to look up at a stick-on clock that was inside and told him the time. He thought I had used my hat to somehow tell the time by looking at the sun. So from then on, he would ask me the time while looking at his watch, it seemed I was always dead on. You could see him all day long holding his hat up, squinting towards the sun trying to figure out how one could tell the time in this fashion. Never did let him in on this.

They had hopes of bringing out six sections of wood by Christmas. But from the very start, it seemed that reaching this goal was going to be tough. Every day the boys would start with high hopes. But by day’s end, they would look back on saws that wouldn’t run, and brand new lines that would break. Logs that would hang up where there was nothing to hang up on, and when they would finally get logging, the wind would come up out of nowhere and force them into hiding. Here it was the morning of Dec 15th and they barely had 3 sections of wood in the water.

Over breakfast one morning, my buddy said he felt today was going to be different. He didn’t know how right he was. They started to log at high tide and had only a few logs in the water. I had just taken a skiff over to the logging show to help out when the wind started to blow. It was a funny sort of wind, it would start like a child’s breath but would build up until it seemed to be a thousand voices screaming at us through the rigging of the boat.

The wind was hitting the boat from all directions and my buddy was having a hard time keeping it straight to the beach, so he gave me a shout and told me to take the skiff to shore to bring the youngster and his gear to the boat so we could get back into the float house. By the time we got his gear on board and the skiff stored away on deck, the wind was howling at us from all sides, if we didn’t make it into the harbour soon, we weren’t going to make it at all. Getting into the harbour is a bit tricky when it’s calm out, it’s near impossible when you are fighting storm-force winds. The entrance to the protection of Deep Bay is a narrow channel between a reef and a sandbar. Jimmy thought if he could stay as close to the reef as possible we might just make it.

We were about halfway in when the wind hit us broadside with a blow that tore loose anything that wasn’t lashed down. The wind seemed to be a living thing as it picked us up and slammed us down on the sandbar. We tried to back us off but we were stuck fast. I ran below deck to check for damage and the other two went out on deck to look the situation over. We had water coming in from a couple of spots, but the auto pumps would handle it. The story outside was a whole lot worse, I got back on the deck just as a wave crashed over the boat and rolled us hard to the port side.

It was just starting to get dark and the wind was still increasing, you could almost hear it laughing at us as it screamed through the rigging. Then it started to rain. The kind of rain that, when pushed by 100-knot winds, leaves welts on exposed skin. Every wave that crashed over us rolled us a little farther towards disaster. If the boat went over, the waves would break it up and that would be the end of us.

My buddy hollered that we would have to cut up one of the stabilizer poles to brace the boat. So we lowered both the poles and cut the leeward pole into two pieces. We left the windward pole out for balance. I took a piece of the pole and jammed it into the sandbar while they climbed out on the windward pole to roll the boat back as far as it would go. I got the pole lashed to the side of the boat. We put the other piece in the same way.

The danger of rolling over was taken care of, but we were still stuck on the sandbar with the waves crashing over the boat, anything that wasn’t tied down was washed away. The skiff was gone. The rain was so heavy you couldn’t see one end of the boat from the other. All we could do was wait and hope the waves didn’t break the boat up. We spent the next little while securing anything that was left on the deck. The young feller was working the hand pump out on the deck. This young man impressed me.

I have always enjoyed being in challenging situations and this certainly was one. When you are put in survival mode, your adrenaline gets pumped. I was thinking about this as another huge wave smashed over the boat, you could hear the bottom grinding against the sandbar. My buddy went below to see how much water was coming in. When he came back he said we would have to take turns on the hand pump out on the deck. You could only handle the wind, rain and waves for about 15 minutes before you had to come in, so we took turns on the pump.

The wind felt like it was trying to drag you loose from the boat when you were out there. Over the next few hours, the winds slowly decreased and with every gallon of water we pumped out, the boat sat a little higher in the sea. By 11 pm. the wind had died down considerably and the boat rose high enough with the incoming tide to let us pull off and limp into Deep Bay, half frozen, dead tired and soaked to the bone. The old timer was happy to see us when we arrived, he said he had been worried that he had lost us all to the storm.

We pulled out with their 3 sections of wood a few days later. But our adventure was far from over. The first night was one of those incredible times that are remembered with awe, the moon was full, no clouds in the sky. The sea was flat as a mirror. Jimmy was sleeping and I was at the helm. The old timer and the kid were at the back of the boom pushing with their boat while we were towing and it was a pretty cool night.

Hard to believe that just a few days before we had been fighting for our lives as we were stranded on a sandbar in hurricane-force winds. My buddy woke up early and took over the helm as I went to create some breakfast. We turned on the marine weather and they were calling for another storm packing winds up to 100 plus knots. We were not far from Broughton Island and decided to duck in and tie the boom up in Ralph Bay and head across to Port McNeil empty, as we wanted to make it out for Christmas.

By the time we had the boom secured and gear stored below deck, the winds were getting pretty wild. When we pulled out from the bay and entered the Queen Charlotte Straight the storm was blowing extremely hard, the top several feet of the 8-meter waves were blowing off with the winds. We would ride up a wave and then drop into the trough between to be covered by the next wave then bust up through the next wave only to drop into the trough again. We had green water flowing past our windows. Things were flying about the cabin, and broken glasses and plates littered the floor. Then one of the support cables on the remaining stabilizer pole broke loose and was whipping around outside with a coupling on the end, if it broke a window, we could sink. My buddy hollers You have to get out on deck to secure that cable Bud”. So I tied one end of a rope to the boat, the other end around my waist and put on a life jacket.

He knew if he heard me hollering, he would know that I got washed overboard and would need to pull me back to the boat. I then went out on the deck and damn it was pretty wild out there. I tied myself to the boat before trying to grab the cable, I was lucky and got hold of the line quickly, I proceeded to secure it back to the boat, every time a wave rolled over the cabin I would hold on with all my strength while it washed over me, then get right back to the chore at hand. So much water was flowing over me that I was surprised I did not see any fish swimming by. I got it done and back inside. I quickly changed out of my wet clothes to warm up. I spent the next few hours with my head on the radar looking for logs, boats and whatever else that was floating out there. The other boat was running over with us, we had secured a heavy steel 45-gallon drum to his deck. I watched it fly up into the air and then disappear into the storm.

The rest of the journey across was wild but uneventful, except for the need to slow down to allow an out-of-control sea span tug and three barges that were running sideways in the storm in front of us. When we finally pulled into Port McNeil Harbour, I think we all ran up to just put our feet on land. We had made it, the rest of the way home was by road. After Christmas was over, they went back and picked up the boom. After dropping off the boom at the sort, I was paid out and I was back to being unemployed. It was a great adventure for both myself and my dog Cody.

Cody enjoyed the times we got out in the middle of the night to dig clams. I had a pole with a hook on it that I would stick on the beach and hang my Coleman lantern on, this provided a circle of light. I would dig out the area illuminated and then move my light, the digging was great. Outside the lit areas, you could sometimes see the shine of sea wolves’ eyes in the glow of my lantern and hear them talking to each other. Cody would stick pretty close to me and growl back at them. These nights were awesome and the experience was just awesome.

The Plane Home

I spent the next year logging in various camps, fishing and hiking in between. By winter, I was employed at Protection Point,  up in Knights Inlet for a heli-logging outfit. I was working as a chaser in the landing, it was pretty tough work, the landing was almost half a km long and knee-deep in mud caused by the winter rains and machines running through the site. I was looking forward to getting out of here for the winter shutdown. The only thing that kept me going was the fact that the Minstrel Island Lodge was only a 5-minute flight by helicopter and they had off sales. We made the run more than a few times. It was a beautiful lodge, painted a light blue colour. It had a clientele that hailed from all parts of the world. I hear it is closed now and being reclaimed by nature. The pub here used to get pretty busy with loggers and fishermen.

When Christmas was just around the corner, and we were about to shut down and head to town, we got hit by very dense fog. There were just seven of us left in camp at this time and we all wanted to get out for the holidays. The airline tried to get a plane in for days but could not beat the fog. Finally one got in. The pilot said this would be the only flight so all seven of us had to cram into the beaver plane.

It was tight and I being the smallest had to sit on top of our gear behind the back seat, in the tail of the plane. It was a long flight out as the pilot had to keep low over the water to stay out of the fog. When we were just a few minutes out of Campbell River and flying past Deep Water Bay on the north end of Quadra Island, the fog dropped to the water’s surface and we could not see anything. The pilot was doing his best as he tried to navigate blind, when all of a sudden, we hit the water at full speed. We almost flipped but the pilot kept us level. It was so wild that we all screamed out in fear as the plane bounced from one float to the other. The pilot got us stopped and we all checked our drawers, damn scary that was.

We were in deep fog and could not see more than 10 feet. The pilot said we would have to taxi the plane the rest of the way, and we still had to get through Seymour Narrows. The pilot told us to watch for boats as he was attempting to avoid any whirlpools and back eddies. Lucky for us it was almost slack tide and the waters were fairly calm. We did pass quite close to a seiner though, we could just make it out in the fog. To them, it would sound like we were flying extremely low and they must have wondered what the hell we were doing, we could just make out the crew on deck, waving their arms about trying to let us know we were so low. We finally made it to the dock.

Over the years, several planes have flipped locally and they usually sink in minutes with the occupants unable to open the doors due to water pressure, most go down with no survivors. We were lucky to have a great pilot that day.

Canoeing The Salmon River

During the summer of 1980, it was extremely hot I was laid off for fire season. Some friends and I decided to canoe the Salmon River, it would take 4 to 5 days and we thought it would be a fun trip. The fishing was phenomenal and the weather was sunny. The water was low, making the rapids great, but on one set of rapids, one of the canoes sustained a pretty serious hole. We were kind of perplexed as to how we could repair the damage. I looked down and saw one of the ice cream buckets we use to carry our cameras in to keep them dry and a thought hit me. I pulled one of the pump-up fuel tanks from a Coleman stove, pumped it up, turned the fuel on and lit the end of the tube on the tank like a blowtorch. Then I took the lid from one of the ice cream containers and melted it over the hole. Worked like a charm, this canoe was never properly fixed after that and never leaked again.

This trip was the first of many adventures on the Salmon River, most trips after this were done in January when the river was running high. My dog Cody was my constant canoe buddy.

Moving To Coombs

In the spring of 1981, I was offered a job in Coombs and contacted a buddy who had a lease on an old farmhouse along with 10 acres to see if he had room for me, seems a few old buds were living there, they had a spare room that I could have so I took the job. The job was working as a saw mechanic on a spacing contract that would employ 40 people. This was a government-sponsored UI (Unemployment Insurance) make-work project jointly run by BCFP and the Government. Workers on UI who were employed in this project would see their UI raised to the max allowed and their claims extended to the end of the job. It was scheduled to run for 10 months. It was a cold spring but I was supplied with a truck with a large cube box that was heated, my job was to keep the saws running. I would repair saws daily and if I had no broken saws, I would go out and walk the line, listening to and tuning up saws. The guys liked this as they would get a smoke break while I worked their saws. I remember one day as I stopped to check a guy’s saw, he asked if I had light, so I quickly gave him a light and just as I was lighting his smoke a forestry checker came upon us. He fired us on the spot, It seemed that the smoke I lit for this guy was not tobacco but a joint and it looked like we were going to smoke it. I had no idea. I challenged my firing and won my job back. After this, I did not walk the line anymore and only worked out of my truck.

My next job in the area was in Parksville, I was hired as a foreman at the kingfisher fish plant, where we processed everything from prawns to herring row. We had 50 ladies working on the floor who had been there for years, they were all much older than me and took me in like a son. We would work 5 days a week. On the weekends, the owner and I would work creating hand-made seafood sausage, it was sold to local Vancouver Island stores and always sold out. After 6 months of working at the plant, it shut down due to the owner having health issues.

A week later, I secured a job as a foreman on the construction of a huge commercial greenhouse system for Errington Greenhouses. This new system was created in China and the U.B.C. was funding part of the costs as this was a new way of growing food. All the boxes came marked on the outside in big letters, “Red China”

We built 5 separate greenhouses that had fully automatic heating and cooling systems and tables on rollers where the product was grown. Each greenhouse could be managed by 1 person. It was an interesting job, learned a lot. Not only was I the job foreman, but I also took on using a builder’s level to ensure the new greenhouses were level. This was something I had to learn on the job. You use a builder’s level in the construction field to check elevations across the project. It is an optical instrument used mainly in surveying

Before we started the job, I had to fall many large trees along the property line. I then used a portable sawmill to cut these logs into lumber and used it for various projects at the site. I built a large flat deck on a 5-ton truck with some of the wood. Over the 10 months of the job, we had a variety of workers, at the height of the construction, we had more than 25 people working. I enjoyed the job and made many friends.

Firefighting

After the job was finished, the forest service asked me to try out for fire suppression, I thought it was something that sounded pretty awesome. I met a few forestry guys while I was working on the forest service work project. They felt I was a good match for firefighting. I went to Port Alberni for a series of physical tryouts, there were around 30 of us there, and 6 of us passed the tests as they were pretty tough. 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.

This was in 1982. 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 began burning in Strathcona Park. I got on as a crew boss. This was a big fire, it had a 5-mile front and over 300 men fighting it. My crew was set up as 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 over 3 km of hose running down a canyon to get water to a particularly hot spot, just as 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 in front of us began to burn so badly that it was hard to get a breath in. 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 consumed us. We lost all 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 they never explode.

My crew and another 300 personnel fought this fire for 3 weeks to get it under control and contained. Then my team stayed on for another 3 weeks of fire patrol and mop-up. A total of 6 of us spent this time living 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 get them 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 in silviculture with the forest service. I took it up and over the next couple of years, I worked in silviculture, recreation and protection. I worked almost exclusively out of Zeballos. Wonderful little town with such a rich history. I would spend Monday travelling in, then work 3 days and spend Friday driving out. Weekends were mine.

Zeballos 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.

Zeballos

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 to $35.00 an ounce and this was 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, 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. So many would lose their balance and float down the river to the harbour. Two young native brothers had a house beside the camp and would head out in a row boat to pick up the floaters, $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.

Quadra Camping

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 biker 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 covered in all sorts of water plants. Winds were calm and the sky was blue, birds were singing and fish 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 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. Bo never let me live that down, not ever.

And He Killed Me

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 I and a buddy were walking into the nightclub that night, I saw the bouncer was straddled on top of a girl and was 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 she never returned to Campbell River.

My injuries were messy but pretty minor. When I got out of the hospital, my face was covered in stitches and bruises, my nose took a while to heal. I was off work for a few weeks. 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.

The Day My Life Changed

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 walked in and sat at a table with a girlfriend 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, her eyes held me spellbound and 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. We were married by a justice of the peace. My wife almost fainted during the ceremony. It was almost comical as we sped up the service to get it done before she went down.

A few weeks after our wedding, we were up at her parent’s place. My wife 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. 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.

Right after we got married, we discovered that Gina was pregnant, and it was pretty awesome, we were 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. Not long after this. We took to looking after a couple of children 4 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.

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 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.

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.

We were looking for a direct link between mycelium and tree/plant growth. John felt that this mycelium works as a super highway to transport nutrients from one tree to another. I had always believed in this as well. There were many various organizations and individual scientists who were looking into it as well.

It has now been proven that mother trees help their offspring to grow. We also looked at old trees and how they are carbon sinks holding on to vast amounts of carbon. One thing that surprised me was how stands of young trees can offset more carbon than stands of old-growth trees per square area of ground. I spent a year with John and my interest in plant species, uses, and soil compositions and my love of fungi was born. This has always been of interest to me, i recently watched a TED talk by Susan Semard that explains how this works, it’s called how trees talk to each other, This was an amazing project to work on and I thank John for the year of discoveries.

After working for the science division, I moved on to protection. This was a great division to work for. Because of my firefighting training, and the fact that I had already worked as a faller, I was allowed to grandfather in and fall for the Forest Service. I would go into a logged area that was scheduled to be burnt and fall all snags up 100 meters from the edge of the burn. Once we had this done, we would set a parameter hose line to catch any fire that escaped. After this, we would bring in the helicopters and use the pinball system to do the burn. We would first get a big burn going near the center, then set the outer edge on fire. The main fire pulled this in towards the center, building an outer guard of burnt ground. Occasionally we would use a truck-mounted flame thrower to get the burns done, this was cool.

Camp Cook

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 work to deal with my issues. I quit drinking and got help from a government program. I had one-on-one counselling and joined AA, quitting drinking was so good for me.

Bills began 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 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. 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.

Owekano Lake

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 road and were hiking in to do a pre-harvest assessment for 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 that was 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.

Just 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 a pool below. In 2001 a second bridge was built across the Machmell River further up from this one, i have not seen this one since I was up working there in the 80s.

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.

Back With The Forest Service

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 6 am and quit at noon, then stay another two hours on fire watch.

I had an awesome 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. For some reason, I had left my jug at home. It was the hottest day yet. We were going to be shut down after this day so we were giving it. You know,  all I could think of was that jug of Kool-Aid.  We finished the project and both headed to the truck, as my partner Dan arrived, he leaned over the truck box exclaiming how much he needed a beer. I realized that even in such heat, I still only thought of that jug of Kool-Aid. It was a great feeling.

Our First Child

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 Hare. As we walked 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. 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?

Merlin The Crow

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.

Back To Fighting Fires

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, 1 foreman for each and 3 crew members for a total of 8. 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.

My Baby Girl Joins The World

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 4^th, 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, 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.

I was the executive director for a not-for-profit organization, this was the Vancouver Island Forest Stewards, our mission was to clean up illegal dumpsites. In the Campbell River area, there were many, some were notorious. One particular site was up on the Duncan Bay Mainline, it was a section that went from Nursery Road to Willis Road. It was a place that had been used to dump for many years. I had a good relationship with the regional district and they always provided me with waivers to allow us to haul the material to the regional landfill for free. A container company donated two large bins and one of its drivers would haul them for free. Another company donated the use of a backhoe and operator.

On the day of the cleanup, volunteers arrived in groups and everyone got dirty, my daughter was in the first batch. She was in a skirt but I think she worked harder than anyone. She was so dirty and smiling so hard. I was a proud dad that day. We pulled more than 40 tons of garbage from that road. The logging company put gates up and now people walk there with their dogs.

My Fire Fighting Days Are Over

In the spring, I was put to work getting our firefighting gear ready for the upcoming season. I loved firefighting, but it could be dangerous. As I was getting our first aid gear ready, I got to thinking about the various injuries that we had all suffered. Most were minor ones like stitches, burns, twisted ankles or bruising from falls. 

Some injuries ended careers in firefighting. During one tough and steep fire, we had a rock slide come rolling down the mountain toward us, and most of my guys got behind big trees. One of my guys had to jump behind a smaller tree than he would have liked, one rock caught him in the hip, shattering it, and his firefighting days were over. I had suffered a few injuries, a few led to some time off.

We had to hire a new guy after losing our team member to the rock slide, I sat in on the interviews and was quite impressed by one who had his first aid “A” ticket and had been a volunteer firefighter, with my urging he was hired, He turned out to be the most useless tit to ever fight fires. One afternoon, I had him fuel up all our saws. The next fire we were sent to was a large burning snag that was on fire after lightning struck it. It would need to come down to put this fire out. After dropping from the heli, I grabbed my saw to cut it down. No matter how hard I tried, I could not start that saw. I looked in the fuel tank and to my horror, I saw it was full of oil, so I looked in the oil and here was the gas. I dumped them out and put a bit of gas in, shook it around and poured it out. I did this several times. Then I filled the fuel tank and after much pulling, and moving the choke in and out, I got it to start and as long as I worked the choke, I could keep it going. At one point I needed to use a wedge but needed someone else to pound it in, so I could work the choke.

This dickhead was all I had so as I was working the choke and cutting the snag he pulled back the axe for a swing and lost his balance, swung around and stuck it in the side of my frigging knee, I had to pull it free. He started to run to and fro, yelling to shut things down so they get me off the mountain, and then he came at me with his first aid kit. I told him to get the hell away from me and just throw me your first aid kit. I wrapped my knee to control the bleeding and my other crew members were arriving to see what was going on. I got the snag down and with the help of my guys, we got a helipad built so we could get off this hill. It was my wife’s birthday and I had plans to take her out to dinner and nothing was going to stop me.  We got home and I got my wife out to dinner. In hindsight, I should have gone to the hospital instead. The next morning my knee was twice its size and off to the docs I went. He had to give me a bunch of needles right into the wound and peel all the scabbing off to stitch it up. 7 stitches and a week off work.

After we laid off our guys in the fall, I talked to my boss about getting rid of this employee, and he informed me that it was tough to just fire a guy, the union would fight it and we would need a pretty good reason. So I put that on the back burner and just did my winter jobs. Come spring, it was cold, I was still wearing long johns at the start of June. The boss called me in and asked me if I still wanted to get rid of the guy who stuck an axe in my knee, hell ya I said. He told me if it stayed cold for a bit longer, we could stall calling back the crew until after the time when we were required to hire all the guys from last year, we made it past that time and had no reason to call him back. We hired a new guy to replace him and all was good.

Later that year, during late summer, we were up on a fire on the slopes of Victoria Peak on northern Vancouver Island. There are 2 mountains here, one is Victoria Peak and the other is Warden Peak. I had climbed both of these mountains in the past and had been up Victoria Peak 3 separate times. The views from up there were pretty nice and well worth the climb to see them. In my time, we would travel part of the way under a glacier that had a small river flowing beneath it. The walls were scalloped and glowing blue from the sunlight shining through, it was a phenomenal sight to see. I hear this has now melted away.

While we were fighting the fire, I had longlined in some gear that had been brought in by truck to a marshalling area below. After the pilot dropped it in a clearing, I began moving it closer to where it was needed. I had a trapper Nelson pack loaded with hose on my back and a Gormon-rup pump in my hands and was crossing a large natural fallen tree, my pack shifted and the next thing I knew, I was tumbling down the slope. I could not get myself to stop, the slope was steep and consisted of a hard layer of duff covered in small hemlock cones and only when I crashed into a tree did I stop. As I took my bearings I saw that the tree was on the edge of a 50-meter-high cliff. I had been pretty lucky to hit this tree or I would have not stopped till I hit the bottom below the cliff. Upon the realization of how lucky I was, I turned to jello and had a hard time controlling how shaky I was.

I was lucky to have not gone over the edge but not so lucky in damage as the trapper Nelson pack crossboard had seriously herniated a couple of discs in my back and as I was getting my bearings, the pain began to set in. My crew had to get me down below the cliff to a flat area where a chopper could land and haul me off to town. I feared my firefighting days were over.

My back was at least not broken but I had several herniated discs, I spent more than a week in the hospital but suffered severe pain for over a year. I kept wanting to see a bone bender but the workman’s compensation board refused me saying that I would give up all rights to my claim by going to one.

After several verbally high-strung arguments, my adjudicator from compo and I were not seeing eye to eye and he closed my claim early in, so now here I was hurting like hell, not able to see a bone bender and needing to appeal my claim to feed my family. I was a married man with a 2-year-old and a newborn baby, not able to work and no pay coming in. I won my claim, and my adjudicator was called out for treating me in the manner he did. My claim paid out just over 50,000 dollars in back pay. Bills were paid up.

Sometime after this, my wife and were shopping for groceries and I had one of those big sneaky sneezes that sometimes catch you unaware. It dropped me to the floor from the pain and I had to go to the car and wait for my wife. But you know every day after that my back felt a bit better. If I had been allowed to visit the bone bender back when I first got hurt, I might not have had to go through all this bullshit. My back was never the same though and I knew firefighting was out.

This was something I had not anticipated, I had planned to continue my firefighting training with hopes of working in the fire control center at some time in the future. Firefighting was my life, I loved it and now did not know how to respond. I was in a slump and was lost. The way Compo had treated me left me in a depression. So what to do, I had always liked welding and thought it might be a good career change. When I was in school, welding was a class that appealed to me and I was pretty good at it, so I decided to go for it.

My Class A Welding Ticket

I asked Compo to pay my tuition but they said no so I cashed in a pension for 14,000 and went to school for welding. I decided to take all three levels at one time, so I signed up for my “C” “B” and “A” tickets. One of my classmates turned out to be a cousin of my wife’s named Mel. He was a great guy and his lady Cheryl was such a sweet girl. Mel and I talked during class about how expensive it was to go to school. We decided that they could move in with us, share costs and Mel and I could go back and forth in one car. This was great, we all got along very well. Mel was only going for his c ticket so he would be in school for about 10 months. After getting his “C” ticket, they moved to Coal Harbour where Mel was going to work for Cheryl’s dad.

Initially, the course material was pretty boring, I was doing things that I knew quite well. But I finally began to learn more once I was on my “B” ticket. I learned how to Tig weld both stainless steel and aluminum, and I loved the whole process. Here I also began to learn fabrication. My “A” ticket training was all fabrication with a bit of the aluminum wire feed pound gun. One day while learning some ways to tig weld, my welder shorted out just as my elbow touched the table, making a circuit. I came to my senses out in the hall. The power of that shock blew me 3 meters and rattled my teeth.

One day, I was helping a classmate in setting up his computer and in the process, I arc flashed both my eyes. I managed to get up to the hospital on my own, my eyes felt like they were filled with sand. Once there, they had to freeze my eyes and then bandage them, telling me I needed to keep the eyes covered for 48 hours. I had to phone my wife’s mom to bring up Dad so he could drive me and my truck home. For the next 48 hours, I was blind. Just to have a pee was tough. My wife had to cut my food and place it in a bowl so I could eat with my fingers without losing too much. This was the longest 48 hours of my life.

I specialized in stainless and aluminum. I loved aluminum welding and had dreams of working for a shipbuilding company. My instructor had been welding aluminum for many years, he told me I was better than he could ever be. He had me stay after graduating for several weeks so he could teach all he knew about this process, he was a great teacher.

After graduating, I sent in applications to all the boat building companies I could find, but only found work on a pile driver as head welder. We were putting in dolphins in booming grounds. Welding on the pile driver was a wet job and getting shocked was a daily experience. It was not bad work though, and they paid me extremely well. I had a young welder working under me and he did a lot of the shit jobs. He later got married to my niece and was now my nephew.  The crew was a great bunch of guys and the head guy was the spitting image of Kiefer Sutherland, so I called him Kiefer. Then there was a turn in the economy and the jobs began to have a lot of space between them. At least I had the ticket for future work.

I had been offered pipeline work in Alberta but refused anything to do with the oil fields. Brown and Root offered me work in Kuwait welding oil pipelines back together after Sadam and his army had a meltdown and set it on fire. The pay was to be more than I ever made before if I signed on for a year, but I had a wife and young kids that I wanted to see grow up. Some workers were being shot.

First Year University

Some Friend’s of ours were going through a divorce, they had a construction company that they both ran, and the wife took that for her share of the settlement. She hired me as a commercial buildings insulation subcontractor, not my favourite type of work but it paid the bills. I was grateful for the job. One project had me insulating a new gas station in Courtenay. There was an on-the-job accident that resulted in my right big toe getting crushed, I had severe nerve damage and they needed to remove a neuroma from my toe, which consisted of a disorganized growth of nerve cells at the site of the injury. A neuroma is very painful. After the operation, my foot still hurt and I could not work for quite some time, back on and fighting compo again.  After my hearing with the board, I was awarded almost 35000.00. This was awesome as I had heard about a government program to retrain people who had been injured on the job.

I applied and got into a 9-month program. The money from my payout helped with living expenses while I was in the program. I was looking to get my grade 12 and perhaps get into university. I liked to write and photography was a big hobby of mine so I thought perhaps journalism would be a good choice. After all, it’s not new to our family, my uncle Terry had been a war correspondent during the Vietnam War and after that, he signed on with CBC Radio eventually becoming the Executive Director of CBC Radio International. A position he held until he retired. I grew up on the stories my mom told us about my uncle. I thought that if he could do this, so could I. The program leader gave me the go-ahead for this, covering all costs.

I challenged the exams for grade 12, wrote the first-year university tests and passed them both easily. A particular piece of the exams had me write an essay about something that changed the course of my life. This was easy, I wrote about my childhood and my dad’s alcoholism and how even after having gotten away from it. It still changed me in profound ways. I was truthful and did not leave anything out, it was pretty gritty. My teacher called me into her office to talk about my tests, she had my essay on her desk and she was teary-eyed. She said that I needed to get some experience working at a newspaper so I could learn the different cogs of journalism involving newspapers and magazines. She felt I had what it would take to be a writer.

It was up to me to find a newspaper willing to give me the training. The Courier-Islander in Campbell River offered me the training. The first thing I learned was darkroom development, I loved this. Then I was out as a photographer. Then I got the chance to write, and it opened up something inside of me. One day while working on a story, I drew a graphic drawing to go along with it. My editor liked it and put it in with the story. I started doing more for other stories, next thing you know people were calling in to try and buy the drawings. I soon realized that I could make a living selling my art. They let me be a graphic artist to finish out my time on the job training. Seems a new career opportunity presented itself.

There were forty of us who graduated from this course, I had become friends with them all and was going to miss them. I had tried to help each of them the best I could in achieving their goals and when graduation came, I was informed that I was voted valedictorian. It was both terrifying and an honour, terrifying because I would be giving a speech to and about my fellow students who would be joined by family and friends. And an honour because it was all my fellow students who voted for me. My teacher told me later that I was the only one they all voted for. This left me speechless.

Becoming An Artist

I began selling tons of art after working at the newspaper. I had somehow just become an artist and I had not seen that coming. It was a complete surprise. I remember as a kid, how Dad loved art and would always talk about Norval Morrisseau as being his favourite artist. When I started doing graphics for the newspaper, Norval’s art always came to mind, I too loved his art and would have loved to create art in his style, but there was one big problem, I was colour-blind in a big way. For the first couple of years, I only created black-and-white art. I was painting as many as 15 pieces a month and selling them for as much as 250 dollars apiece. 

An owner of a local First Nations gallery took me on and even acted as my agent. She got me a contract with a clothing business that would take art and embroider it onto limited edition pieces of clothing, they were from Alberta. A year after signing with them, they phoned me up and asked if they could use my designs to create some special leather jackets to be presented to the Calgary Stampede Queen and Princesses. I thought this was pretty cool and said to go ahead, this was not for money, just a very great honour. She also lined me up with a company in Victoria that produced a line of clothing with my images.

Another company in Victoria contacted me about doing a series of art prints, but they felt all black and white would not work and requested that I send them some colour images. So there I was, sitting in front of a canvas, looking at various containers of paint in colours that I could not see well. Then I thought, what the hell, I can see the names of the paint so I knew what colours they were and my wife said she would help. So I just went for it. The print company was quite impressed and expressed how the yellow sky and green oceans worked together. They printed 10 images, I stayed with them for several years until I was contacted by a person in Germany who had seen my art for sale there and was interested in buying an original. He sent me a couple of photo samples of the art he had seen to let me know what he was interested in. These were images that the print company had stolen from me. It took me a year to stop these sales, and it would have taken more money than I had to sue them. I marked it up as a lesson learned and used a couple of different silk screeners to produce my prints after that, I was in full control of marketing my art and as such, all profits were mine. The downside was a lot more time on the road, away from my family.

At this time, I began to create drums, and then I took up carving paddles. The creativity was flowing out of me and sometimes I would get into a painting or drum and work right through the night. I was literally on fire. It was all very exciting. I built a 4-foot pow-wow drum and got it entered into the BC Festival Of The Arts, I made it through the preliminary bouts and wound up in the BC Finals.

By the time my drum reached there, there were 7 of us First Nations artists who were working together not just in art but had created a dance troupe and were performing at various venues about the island. All 7 of us made it into the finals of the BC Festival Of The Arts. One of us won first place and the rest of us took home other various awards. This was the year of the Common Wealth Games in Victoria and the top 10 winners in the arts festival also were invited to be part of the body of the Common Wealth Art Show and our dance troupe was asked to perform during the ceremonies. It was 1993. Later that year in November, we were invited to take part in an art show at the Pan Pacific Centre, it was a week-long art show. There were 1300 exhibitors, our group won gold for best display and silver for the best craft. Our dancers danced 4 times a day. My pow-wow drum was on display and we used it during our performances, Norm Gromann from BCTV even came and did the weather with us.

Things in the art world had been progressing along quite well, I was getting my art silk screened by several private pro printers. My pieces of art were being picked up and sold in galleries across the province. My drums and paddles were sold before they were finished. England and the rest of Europe were beginning to notice my art and I was selling art overseas regularly.

Our dance troupe, the Box Of Treasures was in demand with almost weekly performances. The man in charge of the troupe, Simon was a great one at promoting the troupe and pretty much was the driving force behind us. Simon was also a well-versed mask carver who created a number of the masks our troupe used. Simon would go on after this to create the animated series, Raven’s Tales, I just love these videos and own them all. Simon is now a master carver whose works are phenomenal.

Simon called us all together one day to tell us he had booked us for 2 performances at the theatres in Campbell River and Courtenay. We were going to be the opening act for Susan Aglukark. This was an amazing chance to perform. We were all very thrilled.

Susan is a Canadian Inuit singer whose blend of folk music and traditional music of her people combined with modern songwriting has made her a major recording star in Canada. She began to perform as an Inuit singer and very quickly became a well-known name in the north. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation noticed her and included her in a compilation of northern singers. Then in 1992, she released her first, independent album, called The Arctic Rose. By the next year, she had signed a contract with a major record company. Her most successful single is “O Siem”, this song reached No. 1 on the Canadian country and adult contemporary charts in 1995. Overall, she has released seven studio albums and has won three Juno Awards. She is an awesome young lady.

Here it was June 1993 and we would open for her on two occasions, what a thrill. I was lead drummer and narrator for our troupe, I had 2 young fellas from the cape who drummed with me. Our dancers were from Campbell River and Alert Bay. We started to do regular practices to get us all in top-performance mode.

We would perform several dances, but my favourite to perform was the half-moon/full-moon dance. This dance would start with a half-moon coming out to dance while I would tell a story about how the ooligans would spawn during the half-moon. As I would be telling the audience this story, a full moon would dance out onto the stage. Neither of these dancers spoke and instead had buzzing noise makers in their mouths that they both were loudly shrilling at me with. I would act like I understood their meaning and would try to get them to agree to one or the other. Finally, after failing to agree, I would ask them if a member of the audience could decide which was right. They would both agree.

Then I would pick someone close to the stage and they both would go down and help them up we would ask them to pick one. After their choice was made, they would lead them back to their seats. I would finish the story as they finished dancing, then the one who was chosen as the winner would take a small gift out into the audience and present it to the member who came on stage.

We would do other dances like the Grouse Dance and the Wild Women Dance, and my son Robert Would Drum on some occasions with me.

After we left the stage, Susan and her band would perform, when she sang it was like listening to the harmony of the universe. On the second night, Susan asked me to join her on stage and drum with her, I jammed out and to this day, I wish I had the guts that night to take her up on her offer.

The Qatuwas

In august, 1993, my family and l travelled to Waglisla for a Qatuwas. The translation is a people gathering together. People arrived from as far away as Alaska and California for this gathering, people arrived by canoe in the thousands. Many more came by ferry or private boat. We went by ferry and as we arrived, we could see my wife’s uncle dancing on the wharf as we docked. We asked him if he was dancing for the folks on the ferry, but he said he was dancing to welcome his family. My wife’s uncle was Woyala, which means the highest, and he was the Head Hereditary Chief of the Heiltsuk Nation, but he was always Uncle Toby to us.

The gathering was 7 days long and each night there was a feast presented by one of the nations gathered there, followed by traditional dances telling stories of days gone by. The nation doing the feast danced all night, sometimes the nights would go on until daylight with dancing still happening, it was incredible. On the 2nd day, Roy Vickers asked me if I could set up a chance for him to meet Uncle Toby informally. I talked to Toby and he was excited so Roy came over the next day with his wife and son and we all spent the afternoon visiting. Roy is related to my wife and this was my first time meeting him, he was such a gentleman.

On the last night of the Qatuwas, at the end of the traditional dancing, a huge dance screen was set up and much music from the hit TV program was there, playing modern dance videos and music, this was for the youth in the village. It was quite surreal as most of these youths were still in their regalia, but now we’re dancing to modern music and songs. Hundreds of teenagers, in regalia, dancing to the likes of Peter Gabriel and Tom Petty, l will never see something like this again. I had run out of film.

The Heiltsuk First Nation lives in the village of Bella Bella (Waglisla), it is located about 160 km north of Port Hardy and about 120 km west of Bella Coola. The Heiltsuk traditionally occupied 21000 square km of land and sea on B.C.´s coastal Inside Passage. Bella Bella is the Government name for the community, Waglisla is the largest of the 23 reserves set aside in 1913 for the exclusive use of the Heiltsuk. The village located on Campbell Island is amalgamated from all Heiltsuk tribes who occupied numerous large winter and spring villages and associated sites spread throughout this traditional territory.

There are approximately 1500 residents in Waglisla. The primary industries for the Heiltsuk economy are forestry and seasonal fisheries including shellfish, groundfish, herring, salmon and other marine resources. For many decades, Heiltsuk people have had a thriving fishery to rely upon with employment in commercial fishing, fish processing, and a salmon hatchery. Due to dramatic changes in the fishery in the past several years, the entire fishing-based economy is now extremely fragile and threatens this traditional way of life.

Many artists in the community do quite nicely with the tourist trade and Eco-tourism is gaining popularity with the Great Bear Forest being the biggest draw. The chance to see a spirit bear is very exciting to these new-breed tourists. Whale watching and diving are two other burgeoning industries that are becoming common in the area.

Basketball is easily the most popular pastime in Bella Bella due to its all-year-round playing season following the construction of the new Community Hall. The men’s and women’s teams travel year-round to various tournaments along the coast.

Vancouver Christmas Show

Over the next year and a half, I partook in many art shows in both privately owned galleries and public  Shows. One show in Victoria was pretty cool, we had a feast for the visitors, and then there was dancing by our family members. My wife had brought her jewelry along and she made enough to pay for the trip, lodging and food. She would laugh and say it was a good thing we took her along.

Then in September 93, I was invited to be part of a First Nations group display at the 94 Vancouver Christmas Show to be held in Canada Place in early November. We split the costs for our display and each paid around 1000 dollars, this was a week-long show. There were 8 of us and 1300 exhibitors altogether.

A good friend was going to be my helper at the show as mom was ready to have our baby. We had trouble finding a room, we wound up in the hotel that has the revolving restaurant on its roof, not cheap but needed. It was 75.00 a day just to keep our van in the basement parking. We all arrived the day before to have time to construct our display which included a small longhouse. We worked until late in the evening to get it built. The first morning of the show was wild, there were tens of thousands of shoppers, and my prints and cards were doing well. This was good, it was costing me 1000 to be in the show and around 600 a day for food and lodging. 

On the first day, Norm Groman came down to the weather with us, one of our dancers snuck up behind him in a grouse mask and scared him, they cut the feed and then Norm tore a strip off of the dancer. I thought it was quite humourous myself.

By the second day, most exhibitors had gotten into a routine and the show was drawing in a lot of people. Our dancers were performing 4 times a day and with each dance, the crowds were increasing. People were enjoying the show. To tell you the truth, I was having a blast.

It was always too late to find dinner each night unless you went into the east end.  The nightlife there was pretty wild. Every third car was a cop car with lights flashing and sirens blasting into the crowds. On the first night, we found a mom and pop run Chinese restaurant that had great food. They were a nice old couple who we chatted with every night.  When I would get back to our room, I would call my wife to see how she was doing, it was tough being here with Gina being so close to giving birth.

On the 5th night of the show, they announced the winners in Best of Show and Best Display. Although there were 1300 to choose the winners from, we got Gold for best display and Silver for best of show. We all got our entrance fees back as a result.

My Miricle Child

I had another awesome event happening in my life during this time, my wife was pregnant and due any day with our third child.  At the end of her third term, just a few days after I had returned home from the show Gina began to have problems. She began throwing up stomach bile, and the doctor was very concerned, then she went into labour and off we went to the hospital. She was in a birthing room with extra support staff. There were several doctors and nurses across the hall in an operating room ready to roll if events went sideways. It was all very scary not just to me, but to my wife’s mother who was also there.

The operating room staff were in surgical gear and were waiting at the ready. Georgina had become very septic and was quite ill. As she was having contractions, she would almost black out from the pain and my baby had become all wrapped up in the cord and was unable to come out. Then Georgina began to hemorrhage and a river of blood was flowing off the birthing table they had her on, it was all quite terrifying.

Our doctor was fighting to save both my child and wife, he was doing his best and finally, he got my newborn son out, but my wife was still bleeding profusely. He kept telling her to push, she was almost ready to give up, I could see it in her eyes. Then she just pushed with all her might and all of a sudden the placenta came loose. Gina blackout. I was so afraid she had died. But the monitors all said she was not.

The blood flow subsided and after the doctor put in a few stitches, my wife was safe. I looked over at my wife’s mom and she was crying, she was so afraid that she was going to lose her daughter and possibly her grandson. He was named Forrest George-Henry Logan after his grandfather George Henry.

This was the man who back when my wife was just 6, had almost beat her mother to death. I met George back just before my first child was born. George was a man who I believe was haunted by that night he went into a rage. From what I saw in the 6 years I knew him, was a man who had spent his life trying to become a better man. He was sober and was known as a kind and generous man. I held him in high regard and respected the man. He had passed on the year before due to complications from diabetes, he had a stroke that put him in a coma, and he never recovered. He passed on a few weeks later and I would miss him. He had become a good friend. So we decided to have another child and named him/her after George.

My wife was fine with my need to name him after his granddad but she also wanted to name him Forrest, I liked this name so he became Forrest George-Henry Logan. A wonderful and strong name for a boy who barely made his way into the world, a child we might never had the pleasure to meet. He is our miracle child.

My boy Forrest has grown into a wonderful young man. His girl left him after their boy, George was born, she left George with my son. They moved home with us and we have helped to raise George, Forrest did the right thing and left a great job working as a timber cruiser to take a job in a gas station, this was so he would be home every night. He misses his old job. This year, 2024,  he has been invited to join a firefighting outfit where his brother is a firefighter. I was a wildfire faller for many years back in my youth, now my boys are both second-generation firefighters.

I hope his granddad is hunting and fishing in the great forest and looking down with pride on the man his grandson has become. I hope all the relatives are proud of my son. He is well-loved and respected in our community of Sayward. He has become a young man who loves life and has a passion for helping others whenever he is asked. I could not be prouder.

The Big House

After the birth of our third child, our home was no longer big enough for all of us. A lease became available in Oyster Bay. Home sitting on an acre, right on the beach. This house was massive and the views were incredible. The living room was 40 feet by 60 feet and one of the features was 13 huge picture windows that looked out over the ocean. These windows each had a 3-foot deep window sill where you could sit and watch the world from. The room was as big as the house we were moving out of. Off this room was a 10-foot by 15-foot entrance area where a big staircase led upstairs. The two doors were both huge. Another room was 20 feet by 40 feet that I set up as my studio. On another wall was a big opening that went into a dining room that was 15 feet by 30 feet, I built a table that was 15 feet by 5 feet out of cedar that could seat more guests than I ever had invited to dinner before. The highlight of this room was a huge river rock fireplace on the far end where we would have winter dinner parties with this fireplace burning brightly. You could look through the big glass doors that led to a big deck where you could watch the snow falling. Off this room was a fairly large bedroom that we set up as a guest room. Beside the fireplace was another door that led into the kitchen where there were several wall-mounted ovens and an island stove top with 6 burners. There was a staircase beside the kitchen access bathroom that was narrow. It went upstairs and also led to the basement. The upper stairs were almost like a servant staircase that led up to 3 more bedrooms. Past these rooms and around a corner, you come to the top of the front staircase and the master bedroom, a very large room with a walk-out balcony that had glass rails so your ocean view was not impeded. Just beside this room was the master bath with the largest tub I have ever seen, it fits both my wife and me with plenty of room to spare.

The stairs that went down took you to a furnace room that held a huge wood/electric furnace that heated the whole house with ease. I called it the beast. Off to the side was a wood storage area that could hold 3 or more cords of wood, this room had a chute that went through a door where you could pull up your truck and load the wood down the chute. There were also 3 shops and a 2 car garage downstairs. There were 55 windows in the house and 75 light fixtures. We had to buy bulbs in industrial-size boxes.

Outside was a lawn on the ocean side with many large trees and there was a stream that went past the house and emptied into the sea. On the other side of the house were fruit trees that during the season were loaded with apples, plums and cherries. The apple tree had high sugar content apples that would ferment in the fall from the sun and we had a bear that would come by to lay under this tree to eat this fermented fruit. The bear would get quite drunk and after feasting, he would stagger back into the forest to sleep it off, returning night after night until the fruit was gone. This was quite entertaining to watch.

We had over 200 feet of private beachfront where we would spend warm summer days watching the whales and dolphins swimming by, sometimes we would see hundreds of dolphins all leaping out of the sea as they swam by. Sea lions quite often hauled out on the beach allowing us some incredible close-up views of these large creatures of the sea. Our kids were young and this was a paradise to them.

Not long after moving in, I was sitting by a window in the living room. As I sat there, I just happened to look out and as I did, I saw my youngest son, Forrest, just over 2, hanging out the upper floor bedroom window. I ran through the living room, up the stairs and down the hall to this bedroom. I reached it in time to pull him back in. After this, I put childproof locks on the upper windows.

At Christmas time, my best and lifelong friend spent a couple of weeks with us. Not only was Larry my best friend but his family was closely connected to my wife’s family, his mom and dad were Gina’s older brother’s parents. Larry’s dad was the pastor up in Alert Bay where Gina’s dad was from. It was great to spend time with him and his fiance. My oldest boy was born on Larry’s birthday.

When Larry went back to Chilliwack he was informed that a position as the official fundraiser for the Harrison Lake Pow Wow Association that he had applied for was his. He called me that night to tell me the news and ask my advice on proceeding with this. I had done fundraising before. We talked for quite some time as I tried to give him advice. He was so excited about this and his enthusiasm got me excited as well.

The next morning around 11 AM, Larry’s brother called me up to tell me that Larry had died in a car accident earlier in the morning. I was devastated by this news, I could not get my mind around it, I sat in my basement and just cried. He was my best friend and I would never see him again. Death comes to us all, but this was just too soon. When we were not yet teens,  Larry and I met and would become good friends for life.

When Larry was with us, he had gone to his parent’s place for 2 days, they also lived out where we lived. His family had always treated him like he was a loser, this time was no exception. He came back very depressed. They had also treated his girlfriend with the same scorn. When they had his funeral, I was asked to be the speaker. I was honoured but had to turn it down and I did not even go to the funeral as I was afraid of what I would say to and about them. Over the years I had seen how they treated him and had never thought much of them. Both his mom and dad were ordained ministers but I felt they were not a good example of being Christ-like. On the day of his funeral, I sat on our beach with a fire and thought of all the good times we had during the years we knew each other. I smiled through the tears from these memories.

I buried myself in my art and this helped me deal with this loss. At this time, I was doing well with art sales and had picked up some contracts with clothing manufacturers and print companies that pretty much covered the lease and hydro bills so life was pretty good. The next year was pretty good.

Then we began to have some trouble with the house that involved rats, we hardly saw them but the basement would constantly have droppings on the floors and sometimes you could hear them in the walls chewing away. I began to search these rats out and discovered that all the insulation in the basement walls was full of droppings and urine. Lucky for me these walls were only framed in so it was easy to remove the old insulation. After pulling the insulation, I could see many rat holes leading in and out of the basement. I filled close to 50 garbage bags with insulation, and I must have swept up over 100 pounds of rat droppings.

For some reason, I did not wear a mask and my health started to go south. I was having trouble catching my breath so I went to see the doctor and he discovered that I had an infection in the sac that encircles the heart, which caused it to swell. and it was putting extreme pressure on my heart. I got sick. Being sick harmed my ability to create art, and we found that we could no longer afford this place. My doctor said I would be ill for more than a few months and recovery would be slow. We found a smaller home, a townhouse where the rent was something we could afford. I spent the next while just trying to beat this infection. They had me on some pretty powerful meds to fight the illness. I did finally get control of it and eventually, they could not find any signs of it. It’s a good thing my heart was strong. The medication had another effect on me though. I began to get fluctuating blood sugars and was diagnosed with diabetes.

After a series of tests, ultrasounds and cat scans, I was eventually diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, this sucked. My pancreas was not working properly anymore and they told me I was going to die, and I would die soon. They said there was nothing they could do for me. I became pretty depressed and was ready to just give up. Then I thought what the hell was wrong with me? Did my dad not teach me to use natural medicines and how to make them? When I was young and out in the forest with my dad, he would talk about different plants and mushrooms and how they could be used. One of the fungi he talked about more than all the others was turkey tail fungi and its ability to fight cancer, he talked about the benefits of this medicine every time we came across it. He had a deep respect for turkey tail fungi. Harvesting and creating the medicine gave me the drive to get better.

Turkey tail fungi can be found all through the year, but is more easily found and of higher quality during the cold months. You can find it on deciduous trees. It grows in profusion here on Vancouver Island, and it is a very pretty fungus. Dad had said it could stop any cancer, so I went on a hunt for it and found a big patch.

A duel extract tincture of this fungi is fairly easy to produce. First, you need to clean and dry them, I use a brush to remove all debris, then a dehydrator to dry them. After drying, I use a big blender to break the dried mushroom into small bits and then a small coffee grinder to finish. Do not take it down to a powder though, as this makes it hard to filter it. Grind it just so it’s in very small particles.

It can at this point be used for tea or cooked with food, but never take the powered form without processing it by cooking or brewing in hot water.

From this point on, it is a fairly straightforward process. First, you will fill a mason jar about 1/2 full of the dried fungi, then add alcohol to fill the jar, use at least 100 proof as this works well, or you can use an organic cane or grape alcohol. I use a 151-proof “Everclear Brand” alcohol, which is a grain alcohol. Let this sit for about 6 weeks shaking it up often, I do this once a day, then using a cheesecloth filter, strain the fluid out. I run it through the cheesecloth several times, then use a small basket strainer with a coffee filter in the basket until clear. I will go through quite a few filters to do this. Put the mash that was left in a pot of water and bring to a boil, then simmer for at least 3 hours, adding water as needed to get the same volume as the original strained fluid. Remove from heat and cool. Then filter this in the same process as the first batch. Filter until clear, mix with the first batch and place in a cool dark space.

Medicinal uses of turkey tail include the treatment of many kinds of internal organ infections. In China, turkey tail has been used as a preventive and curative agent for liver infections and liver cancer. In Japan, it is considered a panacea for a variety of cancers. Overall, the mycelium and fruiting body of the mushroom are considered to have immune-simulator and anti-carcinogenic activities. Clinical research with PSK began around 1970 and has focused on its immunotherapeutic efficacy in stomach, colorectal, esophageal, nasopharyngeal, lung, and breast cancers. In Japan, it has been approved as a pharmaceutical-grade medicine for cancer treatment and used for more than 30 years with consistent clinical efficacy. The average dose is 10 drops twice a day.

I was walking into the doctor’s office after being on this medicine for 3 months when I felt something funny in the area of my pancreas location. It was like something came loose.

Soon I began to feel better. After some more tests, it was determined that my pancreatic tube had had a blockage that came free. My blood sugars became normal. So, was it cancer? Or just a blockage? All I know is a third of my pancreas has shrivelled up from whatever it was, and this would affect me later in life. But my health, for now, had returned and life was good.

Losing My Religion

Our next-door neighbour to our townhouse was a preacher and quite surprisingly, we hit it right off with his family. The preacher and I became good friends. He would often ask me about my beliefs and listen to my stories. Afterwards, he would tell me how close in beliefs we both were. About a year after moving in, he began to invite us to his church to hear him. The church was pretty awesome, they used music and all would sing and dance during the sermons. We began to go weekly. Then they, the church members started to talk about getting baptized. After a bit, I agreed. The whole church walked down to the river and my friend did the deed. Not long after this, things began to change. Various church members started to tell me what I needed to do to become one with the Savior. I was told that I must renounce my paganism and throw out all the artwork that represented paganism, including my drums, paintings and photos of my family in regalia. I began to wonder what I had gotten myself into. What would my father say?

I grew up on the teachings my dad passed on about the natural world and the spiritual beliefs he would share as we walked in our forests. He often told us the stories that were passed down through his elders and retold to us kids.  The tales my dad told had me believing in the spirit world that he talked about in his stories. Not the kind of belief you need to think about, but I just knew they were true. Like if you ask a Christian if they believe in god, they will say yes and fully believe that they are speaking the truth without any real proof, they are going on faith.

I found myself at a crossroads, a spiritual crossroads. I had come to see that this was not unlike a cult in some ways. I stopped going to church and went on several sweats to clean my spirit. I started to drum again. No matter how much I pulled away from Christianity, I found that the way I had perceived my original beliefs was now fraught with questions. I found that I no longer unconditionally believed my father’s teachings. I had lost my religion. It was like I was adrift in the wilderness and there was no way to find my way back.

My paintings had gone from images representing my father’s stories to those of coastal scenes, mountains, ocean shores and islands. If I tried to paint in my old ways, I would feel guilty about becoming a Christian and feel I had no right to paint the old stories anymore. My heart was broken, I would just sit in my studio and cry as I looked at blank canvases.

Eventually, I began to create drums, then people started to request personal drums and these drums require that they have specific images based on the drums owner’s family. This was very therapeutic for me. It was the joy that was evident on people’s faces as they got their first look at the drum I created for them was something that opened up my heart again.

I have completely denounced my Christianity and now see it for what it was, a cult, and yet, I do not have the same belief in the old ways either. So each day, I ask my ancestors to help me live my life in such a way that they would be proud of me. 

The Edge Of Town

My health slowly improved and we moved out of the housing project and into a home on the edge of town, right at the edge of the forest. It was a place that a friend owned. 2 years after moving in, my friend had to put the house on the market, he was having financial issues and needed to sell. We began to look for a new place and pack up the house, again. The looky-loos began parading through our home. Most had no intention of buying.

One of the people who showed up for a look was a professor at Simon Fraser University. After seeing the place, he asked to meet with us. He informed us that he was very interested in buying the house, but only if we open to a 10-year lease, securing our rental until at least 2011 with no rent increases. Damn, but we signed that lease before the ink was dry on his purchase agreement.  This was pretty cool.

We smoke pot, so the thought of this professor owning our place had us being pretty careful about smoking it on the premises. I did not want to lose out on our lease. A few months after purchasing the property, he scheduled a visit to see what needed fixing in the place. As we were about to go out to look at things, he said we needed to do something first. He then pulled out a big bag of weed and asked us if we smoked. The relief was quite obvious on our faces, so he stated that he had smelled it the first time he was in the home. He also had noticed no signs of alcohol consumption and this was why he asked us to stay on. 

The landlord was willing to put up money if I was willing to use it for various projects around the place. We painted the interior and then we put paint on the outside. There was a roof that had to be over 30 years old, we replaced this and fenced in the back for our dogs. In the front of the house, I completely landscaped the area. I planted flower beds in as many places as possible. I have always liked gardening. Over the years, my yard would become a place of wonder and beauty.

We Quit Smoking

When my youngest boy was 10, he began to pressure us to quit smoking, it was a daily event. My wife finally said that she would quit and I said “Me too” before really thinking it through. We set a date a week from that day, we got the patch kits and other various items like mints and gums, and we were ready.

I went to the store a couple of hours before the time we had set and bought a pack of smokes, came home and gave Gina half of them and we sat there and smoked 10 each, finishing just before our quit time. I quickly put on a patch, not thinking about all those smokes I had just smoked. Damn near blacked out from a nicotine high.

I had a big bag of bunk that I could roll up to smoke and I bought wagon wheel cookies by the case. The bunk helped me wean off the habit of having a smoke in my hand. The patches were giving me my nicotine in continuously reduced amounts. The wagon wheels were my reward. I ate them by the box fulls. Both Gina and I quit and have not smoked since. The wagon wheels tasted so good that over the next year, I gained almost 50 pounds.

For most of my life, I have been in top shape and yet I now found myself quite round in the belly area. So we sold our car and bought bikes. We rode them for the next 5 years. I dropped those 50 pounds and got my health back.

At first, my wife and I rode 10-speed road bikes with 28-inch tires and we would ride out on the highways as well as around town. We had a blast, but if we wanted to go off pavement, we would need to be careful as they tended to slip on corners. I slipped once at a high speed on mud and broke a rib in the fall. We eventually purchased mountain bikes and took our adventures off the road. We never looked back.

We loved biking and thought nothing of 30 km bike rides, but we wanted to get out further. I bought a couple of gas motor kits to adapt our mountain bikes into motorized bikes. After we built those 2 and tried them out. We built 3 more so that all the kids had one. We could travel at around 25 km an hour on the logging roads, we would head out on family trips into the back woods, it was pretty awesome. The bikes began to get noticed and we got lots of orders for them, The cost of bikes and kits was around 300.00, I could build a bike a day and we sold them for 650.00. Not too bad. Then the government made them illegal and we could only ride them on the back roads which was fine for us, but sales died completely as people wanted to ride them in town. It had been awesome while it lasted.

Eventually, the RCMP began to hassle us about the bikes. There was this one time my wife had just left a friend’s house where we had purchased a big bag of skunkweed. I put that weed in my pocket and then we headed to the grocery store. As we pulled into the lot they saw us but we did not see them.  Our bikes were loud and we did not hear them behind us, we just kept riding oblivious to the sirens and lights of the police car behind us. Two cops hopped out of their car as we pulled to a stop and rushed up to us. I slowly looked around and everyone in the parking lot was looking at us. It took a second to figure it all out. These members of the law were not very impressed and said they would be impounding our bikes. The lead cop said he knew the law on these bikes. I got into a pretty heated argument with this Police Officer filling his head with Transport Canada rules on these bikes, it was mostly bullshit that I was laying on him, but it was enough to confuse him. During the argument, I would move in close to get into his face, but then I would smell that weed in my pocket and I would need to back off, almost lost the argument because of this. I could see this cop was having second thoughts and finally agreed not to take the bikes. We sold these bikes not long after this and went back to just riding mountain bikes with no motors.

Eye Surgery

Around this time, I started to notice my eyesight was beginning to fail and it was coming on fast. My doctor made me an appointment to see an eye specialist but it was going to be a year before I could get in. My eyes kept getting worse. I started to not see well enough to drive, so my wife would come with me to read signs and watch for things I might hit, you know, like people on a crosswalk. When I had to go out by myself, like when I would pick up the kids from school. I would take our cockatiel, he loved the kids. His name was Buddy and he would ride on the steering wheel where he would squawk if I was going to hit something. When we were waiting for the kids, I could not tell one from another, but Buddy would be watching and as soon as he saw them he would get all excited. Sometimes when driving alone, I would hold a big plastic spoon with holes drilled in it over one eye, this would for some reason, allow me to see better.

When I got in to see the eye doctor, he was surprised at how bad my eyes were. These are a new type of cataract that was showing up more often, something to do with the environment. He said he was seeing them in a younger group of workers who were predominately in the outdoors. He was going to book me in sometime shortly and if I wanted he would put me on a cancellation list, I would need to be ready on notice, I agreed and a week later, I got the call for the next day.

2 types of lenses could be used, the old type required some cutting and a few stitches to insert them as they were solid lenses, the only good thing about them is they are free. Or I could have the new ones that come rolled up. They only require a small hole where they are pushed in through and then rolled out. No stitches. They would be 300.00 per lense, paid before the operation. I opted for the rolled ones. On the day of the procedure, I was brought in and had some stuff put in my eyes, I was then taken into the operation room, with my town clothes and boots still on. They put me on the table and stuck a needle in my eyes to freeze them. Then the doctor hit my eyes with sound, this shattered my old lenses, he then vacuumed the pieces out. I instantly could only see white, damn scary. He then put the first new lens in and as he rolled it out, I saw him and he was so damn clear looking down at me that I let out a yell. I could not believe how clear things were. I began to call myself the 600-dollar man. (Some of you will understand the term) My sight was awesome after this.

Creating A Website

Riding around on bikes opened up the world, you were no longer zipped by things, and you had time to see all there was to see, I went out and purchased a new digital Canon Camera as my old film-bearing Rico Camera was fine before, but digital was the new way of the future. I photographed everything.

I began to look at things from a different perspective.

At the same time, my niece would constantly call me up to ask something about the island’s natural world and I would answer her as quickly as I could. Eventually, she stated that I should build a website about the wildland and its inhabitants of Vancouver Island so others could learn. I told her that I wouldn’t even know what to call it. She said “askbud.ca” because she always does that. I thought it might be fun and started into it right away. It became a passion and I worked on it day and night. My new camera provided the images needed. Both my boys bought Canon cameras as well and we started to go out together on camera shoots.

Over the next couple of years, the site started to get quite big. People began to discover it and we were getting thousands of visitors a day. I would receive many emails daily from people with questions. I purchased a car and we began to travel around the island to as many cool places as we could. My site became quite popular with schools and they would use it in their lessons. Then, one day, I received an email from a teacher wanting to know what was going on at my site, she was very upset. I opened up my site to check things out and quickly found that all my links had been changed in the destinations, they all now went to Asian porn. I was appalled and contacted my server, the company was in Holland. I informed them that I could not access my c panel or get control of this problem. It took us over a week to get my site back. It was a Russian group that had hacked it.

All I could do was make a hard copy and delete the whole site. I was devastated by the whole ordeal. Eventually, I cancelled my account with the Dutch server and signed up with a server company in LA called A2 Hosting, they have a much beefier security system and offered me the ability to host as many sites as I wanted on a shared server.

I needed to buy a new domain name before loading my site back, the site had almost 2000 pages. I was surprised when I looked up the domain name “gohiking.ca” and found it was not taken. The new site now had a name. Adding the pages back was going to take time, lots of time. It was one page at a time and a full back-end rebuild.

The Brain Hemorrhage

One evening after working on the site all day, My neck was sore. I decided to go to bed and see how it felt in the morning. I just figured it was from bending over my computer all day. I had no idea what was in store, when all of a sudden, in a flash of almost visible light, I felt like I had been hit in the forehead by a baseball bat, or perhaps that I had been shot. The pain was the worst I had felt. I remember leaping out of bed and yelling at my wife to call 911, and then I collapsed onto the floor, puking my guts out. It was a massive diffused brain bleed. I can barely remember the next 24 hours, but I do recall brain scans in Campbell River where they had trouble stabilizing me to transfer me to a brain ward in either Vancouver or Victoria. It was late the next morning before they could move me by ambulance to Victoria. There had been much debate about flying me but they were afraid to have me in a high elevation. As they were loading me up, my best memory of the whole event is still crystal clear in my mind, in the ambulance open door was not only my whole family, but several of our foster kids as well, all looking in with scared faces all tear-stroked. I might have said that I would see them all soon. Then a nurse came and gave me a shot of morphine and I don’t remember much after that until I woke up in the brain ward.

I was in a dark room, all by myself. I was hooked up to many machines that were all beeping away and I could not remember why I was there or even where there was. I was quite dozy and in severe pain. A nurse came in to check on me and ran out when she saw I was awake. Several doctors came back with her. They asked me how I was feeling and I said I hurt like hell, what happened to me. They told me I was in the Victoria Hospital and that I had a brain hemorrhage, I was informed that I was very lucky to still be with the world but that it was going to be a slow recovery. They gave me more morphine.

I was in that dark room for about 3 days, I think. I do remember my wife and kids came to visit me, but can barely remember it. I must have looked pretty bad because they cried the whole time they were there. Then they moved me into a room with a window that let in some light. I spent 4 days there before I was moved into a bright room with a TV.

Twice a day, they took me into a room where they would insert this long needle into a shunt in my thigh that would travel up my spine and into my brain where they would use various tools that would come out of it to cut and seal holes in my brain. I could watch this on a computer screen in real-time. I was always told to stay still, you bet. I felt like a hotdog on a stick.

Since this first happened, I have been suffering horrific migraine headaches. The morphine was great at reducing the pain, but it was giving me terrible nightmares. I had demons running through my dreams, chasing, catching and eating alive, little creatures that could talk with me. I saved as many as I could, and many were eaten. Sometimes I could see them while I was awake. They had on little tweed suits.

On day 9, a male nurse came in with a shot of Morphine to which I said I did not want it, he began to get a bit aggressive as he tried to give me that shot. As I began to get upset, I told him if he pushed it, we would get into it. He left to call the doctor, who said to see how it goes without the morphine. The headaches got pretty bad, it was from the blood that had pooled on my brain. I still refused the shots and my mind started to lose its haze and clear up. I began to remember things, but could not remember my family members’ names and this scared me, but after a couple more days, my memory mostly came back and I was feeling pretty good, except for the headaches.

On day 12, after breakfast, I asked the nurse if there was a Timmy’s downstairs, she said there was so I asked her for a pair of slippers and a house coat so I could go get a coffee. She said I could not go, so I told her this was not a prison and if she would not get me slippers and a house coat I would be going down barefoot and in my open in the back gown. She brought me some slippers and a housecoat. A few minutes later I was sitting outside, in the fresh air having a coffee and a chocolate Bavarian cream doughnut and it was good. When I got back to my room, my doctor was waiting for me. He told me that if I was able to go for coffee, I should be able to go home. I phoned my wife in Campbell River and told her to hurry before they changed their minds. It took 5 hours for her to get there and she found me in my room, all my clothes on and a bag of other stuff, itching to get out of there, i never did like hospitals. 

Had to go see my doctor the day after getting home and he told me that he had never thought he would see me again. He was surprised that I had survived. He said more than half the people who go through this are dead before they hit the floor and many more die in the hospital. Took a few weeks for my memory to return fully and 6 months for the headaches to stop, life goes on.

Cleaning Up The Forest

I have always enjoyed getting out and hiking in the forests of Vancouver Island. We do live in one of the most amazing places on the planet. Our island is the largest island on the west coast of North America. It is a little over 32,000 square kilometres in size and is 460 kilometres in length, 35 to 80 kilometres wide. It is separated from the BC Coast by several straights, the Juan De Fuca Straight on the south island, the Johnston Straight on the central island and the Queen Charlotte Straight on the north island.

The west coast of the island is a wet and wild land of wind, covered by (historically) ancient forests of giant trees, some of the world’s tallest trees can be found in these forests today. This side of the island is breached by many deep inlets surrounded by high mountains that seem to spring from the sea and go straight up to the sky. The average height of these mountains is 800 metres with some reaching upwards of 2200 metres.

The Pacific storms that pound the west coast throughout the year and more so in the winter months are laden with moisture that must be dropped to rise up and over the Island mountains. So the west coast receives much more rain than the east coast of the island. Truly a rainforest. The west coast is spotted with small islands, hot springs and many large rivers reach the sea there. An incredibly beautiful place. A place of waterfalls and hidden lakes. A place of mists and trees. A place of wonder.

The east coast of the Island from Campbell River down to the south Island has a very different type of terrain with broad gently sloping shelves that go from the sea to the eastern slopes of the Island mountains. Deep, slow-moving, nutrient-rich rivers that are teeming with fish, empty into the sea, building deltas of rich farmland.

Most of the Islands people live from Campbell River down the east coast of the island to Victoria including the south tip of the Island. Victoria is the Capital of B.C. and has an economy based both on Government employment and tourism as well as a minimal amount of resource-based industries. There is a strong agriculture presence on the east coast of the Island and dairy farms dot the south Island.

The north end of the island is still very much resource-based with logging, mining, and fishing, and the spin-off industries being the main form of employment. Tourism is starting to make a marked increase in the tax bases of local communities and I am sure will continue to have an increase in these economies in the future. Some communities are beginning to fully embrace tourism with incredible results.

Before my brain hemorrhage, I was working independently as a wildness guide, I would mostly take out photographers looking for a variety of subject matter. A problem had begun to show up, illegal dumpsites were becoming a big issue. No matter what logging road you took out to get out to the forest, it was there, and in increasing amounts. People coming out and dumping in the forests by the truckloads. The photographers that I would guide were always asking why we allowed this to go on. They would say how they could not understand how we could spoil such a wondrous place. I had no answer.

One day I was riding my mountain bike on a logging road that was only a short distance from my house. As I road along, I started to take a good look and was appalled at just how much trash was there. So the next day I went back with my camera and made a 15-minute video of the mess. I posted it to YouTube and was surprised to see that it had gone viral overnight with tens of thousands of views. I went back that day and redid the video but with a request for help cleaning up the mess.

I had always thought about illegal dump sites and cleaning them up, but life always got in the way. After having the brain bleed, I realized that there were no guarantees in life and it could come to an end in a flash. It was time to stand up and get it done.

Once the video was out, help began to flow in. The Regional District offered dump waivers, a container company gave us two of their biggest containers and a driver from the company provided delivery and the haul to the dump for free. Another company gave us the use of a front-end loader with an operator. Home Hardware gave us boxes of industrial-strength garbage bags and gloves. A local radio station had me on the air to inspire volunteers to come and give a hand.

On the first day of the clean-up, so many people showed up to help us that I was overwhelmed by their generosity. Some of the volunteers were too old or unable to help, but they showed up with thermoses of coffee, juice boxes, donuts and sandwiches. There were people stretched all along the road, some were dragging items up the banks to the road, and others were loading trucks and trailers with garbage. This was quite the sight, my daughter was down in a creek, up to her knees in wet baby diapers, loading up bags. My other boys were hauling up old beds and tires, sometimes they would set up a Tommy Moore pully and use a truck to pull up large machine tires and barrels. By the end of the second day, we had removed 88,000 pounds of trash. That is 44 tons. I was so proud of everyone.

After we pulled this off, I had meetings with some of the companies and organizations that were involved, and they all agreed to continue this help if I were to start a society to keep on doing cleanups. I talked it out with my family and friends who were involved. They all agreed to keep helping. So the Society Of Forest Stewards was born. Over the next couple of years, we cleaned up many more tons of trash. The local newspapers and radio stations covered our cleanups and this helped to keep our base of volunteers which had now grown to 300 informed about cleanups, not all would show up, but we always got enough to facilitate a good cleanup. We also started a rumour that we had hidden cameras set up at problem areas, we did try to get the funding to do this, but could not get it done. But you know, just the rumour had the desired effect and we began to see a reduction in illegal dumping. In the fall of the first year, we were presented with a green award for our work by the regional district, this was presented to us on the late Roderick Haig Brown’s land in Campbell River.

In the fall of our third year, I got a phone call from CBC National, they wanted to do a story on trash dumping, it would be about all of Canada, and my society would be for the West Coast segment. At first, I was very excited about the story, it would help so much with fundraising. Then I came to realize that they picked this area because it was one of the worst areas in our whole province. Then I was very ashamed. They started our segment in my art studio where I was painting a large painting, we then jumped to my volunteers doing what they do every time we do a cleanup. The whole story is both inspiring, because of the efforts of these people and at the same time, disturbing because of the people who do the dumping. The news story was over 7 minutes in length and was shown on Thanksgiving 6 o’clock news, right across Canada. You can see it on Google, and search for “Trashing Canada”.

I Can Walk Again

Over the years, my knee was always giving me trouble. Every few years I would get the doctor to go in with microsurgery and remove a build-up of material. This would stop a large portion of the pain. But then I was told that it could not be done again, the knee was too badly damaged. I was told that I needed to get out of the forest cleaning business and stick to doing art. I had to pass the Forest Stewards lead roll off to another and stop my work in the clean-ups.

I was also going to require a knee brace. After being fitted for and getting the brace, to the tune of 1800 bucks. I was able to do most things again. I could hike, and mountain bike. I could walk again. I could not believe how well it worked, it was like having a new knee.

I kept at my doctor to get me an appointment with the bone surgeon. He would always say it was not bad enough yet. I would tell him that the only reason I could walk so well was the brace, but it had come to the point where I could not walk on it without my brace. One day I twisted my knee pretty bad and had to see a doctor, mine was not on duty so I saw another. He took one look at my knee and said it was pretty bad. This doctor put in a referral for the bone surgeon. I was told it would be up to 2 years before my first visit. At least the ball was rolling.

I was told to take it easy on my knee and things should go OK. I tried but I was never very good at taking it easy, at first I would just push it to my limit. After a while though and with no real visible damage, I began to get cocky and would brag how my braced knee would stand up as well as any knee. I was soon to learn differently.

My youngest son Forrest and I were going to hike into Bonnel Falls which was located in the Nanoose Bay area. I had always wanted to visit them. It was late fall and the creek was running high. The upper falls were pretty impressive. We dropped down by rope to reach the next few falls that were lower. All were just incredible. It was time to head back up. I started to haul my ass back up the ropes and my knee just popped. There I was, two rope climbs below the trail, in pain.

I made several attempts to get up the first climb but was unsuccessful. Thankfully I had my young son with me, he would get me to go up a bit, and then he would work his way up under me and put his hands where I could use them as footholds. We inched our way up both climbs until I was back on the path, which took over an hour. For the next few days, my son’s hands were quite painful. He is a tough young fella.

I was back to easy walks on level paths, no mountain trails, no rock climbing, no caving. I could kayak though and that was a godsend. By getting out in the kayaks, I was still able to partake in some pretty incredible adventures. A friend of ours owned a kayaking company and gave my wife and me an invite to a kayaking trip, it would be at no cost if I entertained the other guests with stories of the coast and helped our guide on the trip, I said, “hell ya”.

North Island Kayaking

At 4:30 am, Georgina and l were on our way to Telegraph Cove to head out on the kayaking adventure. This was a chance to go out for three days, with a guide that included all the kayaking equipment, camping gear, and food. It was going to be pretty awesome and we both were very excited. Upon arrival at Telegraph Cove, we met the other members of our trip. Chet Morrison and his daughter Alexandra are from Pennsylvania.

Barbara from Oregon, and our guide Danial Finer who hails from Saltspring Island. After introductions, we loaded our kayaks, my wife and I were in a double kayak. Chet, his daughter and Barbara were also in a double, but the center cargo hold had been refitted with a seat for Alexandra. Danial was in a single. After pulling out of the cove, we headed across Broughton Strait and into the Cormorant Channel Marine Provincial Park. This park is located at the western end of Hanson Island. During the crossing, we saw many Dall’s Porpoises, they are such beautiful animals.

I have had some experience in a kayak, but the other guests were fairly green at it. As we went through the channel between the Plumper Island Group and Hanson Island, we encountered a very strong current that had to be pushed against, it was quite a struggle for my wife and me. It was a great way for the others to learn how to control their craft. It was tough, but all of us got through We then headed into a small cove on the north side of the island where we stopped for a wonderful lunch that was put together by our guide Danial while the rest of the team rested up.

The rest of the day we travelled down Blackfish Sound along the north shore of Hanson Island. We saw several whales off in the distance, but they were too far away from us. We did get to see deer, mink, seals, sea lions, and a few more porpoises as we headed to the east end of the island. We went between Hanson and Little Hanson Islands on the eastern end and arrived at our first camp where we would spend the night. The company has 6 of these camps located in various places in the area and they are incredible. There are 6 or more tents set up on platforms, covered cooking and eating areas, compost toilets and vistas that will take your breath away.

The guides do all the cooking and cleanups, our dinner on the first night was awesome, and Danial created barbecued salmon, rice, salad, and various treats. We all ate hardy after that first day of kayaking. These guides are pretty incredible and I have to hand it to Danial who looked after us very well. After dinner, Danial got the kitchen area cleaned up and then started a fire where we all sat around eating smores and getting to know one another better, We could not have asked for a better group of folks to spend three days with. We all got along quite well. Georgina and l headed to bed around 9 pm and fell asleep pretty quickly.

At 3:30 am, she woke me up to say that she thought she could hear whales just outside of camp, but that she was too scared to head out to see. I told her it was most likely just waves from a passing boat and then rolled over to get a few more hours of rest, but just then l heard the unmistakable sound of a whale breaching. It is amazing just how fast we got dressed and out onto the rock bluff overlooking the strait. As we trained our eyes to the early morning light, there they were, a family of Humpback Whales feeding off in the distance, it was an awesome sight. They entertained us for more than an hour, it was incredible, this is what we had come to see. The sound of them breaching was like thunder. There was no going back to bed after this. I sure do wish the others had been up to see these whales.

After the rest of our group woke, and we all ate a wonderful breakfast of banana pancakes and sausages, we carried the kayaks down to the water. After getting them loaded, we headed out for our second day. We headed across the entrance to Black Fish Sound, between Hanson Island and West Cracroft Island. Then along the southwest shore of the island until we reached the Sophia Islands, stopping for a short break along the way. This was turning out to be a trip of a lifetime, everyone in our group was having such a grand time. Chet informed me that he just returned from a 2-year stint as a trauma surgeon in Afghanistan and needed this adventure.

We saw lots of Dall’s Porpoise but no whales and after passing the Sophia Islands, we headed across the Johnston Strait to the western boundary of Robson Bight. We stopped for lunch here.

After lunch, we headed west up along the shore of Vancouver Island until we reached the camp for our second night. This was just west of Kaikash Creek, as we finished carrying the kayaks up to the high tide line, we spotted a humpback whale just offshore, it was swimming slowly just on the outside of the kelp bed and all of us were able to observe it well. I am pleased that the others were able to see it.

After a great dinner of homemade chile and buns, Georgina and l headed down to see Kaikash Creek, it was nice to stretch our legs a bit, there is a public campsite here that is maintained by the Namgis People that is only accessible by water, nice site with plenty of tables and a double compost toilet. The creek is very pretty and the water is fresh.

That night was an early night for us as Gina and I had gotten up at 3:30 am, we slept very well and woke up to the smell of fresh coffee, eggs, and bacon cooking and Danial in the kitchen with a big smile for all of us, Danial was always smiling. He also had a great knowledge of the area and could answer all our questions in a way that you could understand.

After packing our gear and loading the kayaks, we headed west along the shore of Broughton Strait towards our final destination of Telegraph Cove, there was some wind and we had waves rolling over our kayak, this was quite exciting to Georgina. We made a lunch stop at the Blinkhorn Rec Site where we had pita bread sandwiches filled with a tuna salad and other treats, we then hiked out the trail to the Blinkhorn light where we had a great view of the strait, there was a few seals and sea lions.

The Blinkhorn Trail is a beautiful, well-marked trail that wanders through rainforests overlooking Telegraph Cove. There are huge old trees and giant rock bluffs along the way. We always see amazing sights along this trail, Sometimes it’s whales in the ocean or black bears on the trail. Other times it’s some sort of mushroom or plant, you just never know what you might see, so keep your eyes open. For part of the way, you walk the old telegraph trail, and then in other areas, you follow natural animal trails. The telegraph trail was put in 1912 when the line was extended to the area, the cove became known as Telegraph Cove.

Once back at the Blinkhorn Rec site, we had a bit of rest, and then Gina and I explored the rec site, this site can be reached by foot from Telegraph Cove and the trail is part of the one we used to reach the bluffs where the light is located.

After a bit of rest, we headed back to the rec site, loaded our kayaks, and headed out on our final leg of the journey back to Telegraph Cove. On one of the little islands just off Westell Point, we were able to see a large Eagles nest with a couple of little ones in the nest. Then we pulled into Telegraph Cove and reached the end of our trip, all too soon for all of us. It was a trip of a lifetime. Gina and I had such a great time. My friend sold his kayak business the next year.

School Reunion

After getting kicked out in grade 8 and starting my career in logging, I lost track of any friends I had from school. Never got to know most of them, so I was surprised to get an invitation to the 45^th high school reunion of what would have been my graduation class. The tickets were 250 bucks. I wrote back that I would not be attending, after all, the thought of putting 250.00 to attend a reunion of people I really did not know seemed pointless.

I had several emails after this saying that I was in demand, they had seen the news reports and a few were part of our cleanups and they all wanted to have me come. I was also considered a well-established artist in their eyes. One of the success stories of students of my class. I wrote back to say no again.

They wrote back again to tell me that one of the attendees of the school reunion wanted to buy our tickets and they said that now I had no excuse, so please come. At this time my wife got involved, she was also urging me to go. The committee had started to write her as well and had gotten her in favour of us attending. I finally relented and said we would attend. I told them that as they were paying, I would do a painting that would be given out in a draw of a ticket number of all who showed up. Another classmate who lives back east commissioned me for a painting that was to be delivered at the same time. I agreed.

I was pretty nervous about this reunion. I had been one of the bad boys in school, always fighting and getting into trouble. I felt I had only a few friends when I was in school. I was sure that I would only recognize a few people. Most of the guys I had kept in touch with had either been killed in logging accidents or had died from health problems due to excessive drinking. I was not in any way or form, looking forward to this event.

The reunion was to be held in the maritime heritage center in Campbell River, this is now a very nice venue that is well-used for various events and meetings. It is right on the water, just south of the wharves that make up our waterfront. Right out in front is the famous Campbell River fishing pier. When this pier was built it was the highlight of the downtown core, tourism at its best. Many people fish off of it and the fishing is always good. At the start of it, you will find a small but well-maintained aquarium that is chock full of what is the sea life of our local waters. I go there at least once a year, and a lot of the entrants to my fish category on my website are from photos I took in this wonderful addition to our local waterfront. Inside the maritime museum is a full local fishing boat that has been restored.

This vessel is a true heritage boat. It is one of the oldest and best-preserved wooden Seine Boats on the coast. It is a true survivor of the local fishing fleet from the early days. It also was one of the first fishing boats to be owned by an Aboriginal man, before this, all native fishing boats were owned by canneries and captained and crewed by First Nations sailors. It was also on the Canadian five-dollar bill from 1972 to 1986. This boat worked as a cannery seiner for its first 14 years before being bought by a local First Nations family. It has been restored and is a beautiful example of the early days of fishing. The boat is inside and there are verandas on the second floor that allow you to view this boat from above. The venue of the reunion is just back from there, there is a covered second-floor deck out the front of the building with views of the wharves and Quadra Island beyond.

When I was a young man, some good friends and I rented a house that was just above this center, but in those days, it was where our sewer treatment plant was located. We all called it the shit pit. Right beside the treatment building was a very large square cement tank, it had an open top. Inside this tank were agitators that would swirl the shit and other wastes around to make it into a slurry, which was then pumped out in a long pipe far away from shore before it was discharged into the straight. We lived about 6 houses away, and when the wind was blowing from the north, our house was in its direct path. It could make you gag, we would close all windows and light incense. Thankfully, the winds only occasionally would blow from the north.

In 1996, the new treatment plant was opened at the Norm Wood Environmental Centre for business and the shit pit was shut down. Ideas floated around for a few years about what to do with this property. Then the District of Campbell River solicited ideas for suggested uses for the property. As the land had just recently been used for sewage treatment, there were environmental issues involved.

The Daybreak Rotarians proposed that we build a maritime heritage centre on the site. This could be used to bring the history of the local fishing community. The concept was approved and the Rotarians facilitated the construction. The completed centre was then turned over to the City.

As we arrived at the center for the reunion, I noticed that there were many cars in the lot, and the dread of walking through those doors almost made me turn around and flee. My wife took my hand and pulled me to the entrance, I steeled my nerves, took a pull on the doors and entered. To my surprise, they all clapped as we walked in. As I looked around the room at the more than 100 people, I found that not only did I still know who they all were, but memories of every one of them began to return and all I could do was smile. It was not unlike the show Cheers, where everyone knows your name.

We were directed to a table where 10 or so people were already seated. Three of them were ladies whom I had dated back in the day, they were now lawyers, hospital administrators and business owners. Two of the ladies took my wife off to the side and told her how all the girls had the hots for me back in school. They told her it was because I was such a bad boy. Who knew?

All in all. My wife and I had a good time. I made connections with most and still maintain many of these friendships. I was simply amazed at how many of them I remembered, and talking with these people had me laughing all night. My wife heard many tales of my high school days, some of the ladies even told her they had memories about me that they cherished, I too have fond memories of these ladies.

The draw for the painting was done before dinner, they all gathered around with their tickets in their hands, and one of the ladies on the committee drew the winner, it was a lady I could not remember, or perhaps she moved to our community after I left school. No matter, she was completely thrilled and teary-eyed with winning, which always makes me happy.

We then began to line up for dinner and it was then I discovered it was my cousin and good friend who was the caterer and the eating was awesome. After the dinner I had all the people go out on the balcony and I went out into the parking lot where I made a video of everyone cheering for the reunion. When I got home, I edited the video inserted photos and sent it out to everyone. I did have fun.

Moving To Sayward

It was the winter of 2016, I retired and we moved to Sayward, My family has had a long history in the community. My oldest sister and her husband lived here in the ’60s, he was the head chef at the Mac and Blo camp that was on the shores of Kelsey Bay, Sayward and their children grew up here. Several of my brothers began their logging careers in the camp. In 72, I was hired by a logging company owned by the Bendickson’s on Hardwicke Island. The island is just across the straight from Kelsey Bay.

Sayward is located where the Sayward Valley joins the ocean on North Vancouver Island in British Columbia. It is accessed by a 12 km paved road off the Island Highway. It is under one hour from Campbell River in the south and about 2 hours from Port Hardy to the north. The Bay can also be reached by boat via Johnstone Strait.

As with all communities on northern Vancouver Island, Sayward was only easily accessible by water in the past. It was not until after World War II that a gravel road connecting Sayward and Kelsey Bay with Campbell River was built. In 1979 the road was extended to the north island from Sayward Valley.

Sayward was at one time the southern terminus for the B.C. Ferries Inside Passage route, then in 1978, when Highway 19 was extended north to Port Hardy, the terminal was moved to Port Hardy.

Sayward is now a put-in point for sport fishing and tourism. From here you can access a wonderful area of islands and inlets, a great place to put in a kayak, and a great place to start a wilderness adventure that you will never forget.

Fall and winter are good times to visit the Salmon River estuary to view winter waterfowl. Spring is also a delightful time due to the prolific nesting around the estuary. At one time the Salmon River estuary was home to the island’s largest wintering population of Trumpeter Swans, not many here now though. The village maintains the path along the estuary to make your viewing experience even more special.

The Salmon River Estuary is made up of approx. 500 acres of inter-tidal marshes and mudflats, with the river meandering through them. Spruce & hemlock forests dominate the estuary’s upland areas and open wet grasslands, along the waterways.

Coho, Chinook, Pink, and Chum salmon travel through the Salmon River Estuary on their way to their spawning areas. Cutthroat, and Dolly Varden trout can be found here. Some steelhead can be found here and can weigh on the high side of 10 kilos!

Year-round access to sheltered, open waters, filled with insects & vegetation, has made this estuary a very important winter destination for thousands of waterfowl & shorebirds. During winter, birds can be seen in the thousands, including large numbers of trumpeter swans, green-winged teals, golden-eye ducks, widgeons, mallards, great blue herons, bald eagles, red-tailed hawks, and numerous shorebird species.

Cougars and black bears can be seen on the south side of the estuary, along with rare sightings of wolves and grizzly bears. The plentiful estuary grass supports a healthy population of deer and elk.

Just offshore from the estuary, Orcas and Grey Whales pass by regularly. Earlier this year, we had the pleasure of watching a Gray Whale swim past the estuary! I have seen false killer whales many times here as well.

Kelsey Bay Harbour is the only small craft harbour located between Campbell River and Port McNeil. It offers a loading ramp, a derrick, a breakwater system, and a boat launch ramp is located at the end of the old BC Ferries’ parking lot.

The Salmon River is a popular river for exhilarating river rafting and canoeing in the Sayward community, and the lakes and rivers in the area offer a range of canoeing and kayaking routes. When I was a young man, my friends and I, in January, would put our canoes in at the bridge at Big Tree Creek and spend 4 days canoeing down the Salmon River, enjoying some incredible sights like elk and bears as well as some awesome fishing. It was cold, with snow and sleet, but the river would be running high and this is what we were after, love running the winter rapids.

The Sayward Forest Canoe Route covers almost 50 km of lakes east of Sayward. Allow three to four days to complete the circuit, which begins on Campbell Lake.

Wisdom has it that the best approach to the route is to journey in a counterclockwise direction, putting in at the boat launch on Mohun Lake in Morton Lake Provincial Park. The well-marked route continues through 10 lakes before returning to the park. Road access to most of the lakes within the canoe route means that paddlers can pick and choose from a variety of put-in and take-out points.

The nearest large provincial park to Sayward is Schoen Lake Provincial Park, considered by some to be the most beautiful camping area and lake on Vancouver Island, offering wilderness hiking, canoeing, fishing, and spectacular mountain scenery. This campground will take your breath away. The mountains in the area are some of the most spectacular on the island.

I had always wanted to live here in Sayward and now was the time to just do it. We leased a home in the town site, packed our house and rented a big moving truck. The move went well, all my adult kids moved with us, so the house we leased was big. Had three of our kids, my youngest boys Hunny and their 2 kids also moved in with us. It was one big happy family.

My new website, gohiking was now completed, did I just say that? in reality, it is never complete, with new stuff added daily, but the rebuild and transition from askbud to gohiking was finished. My boys and I were out photographing many more areas and by the time the rebuild was complete, I had a collection of almost 2000 new pages to be added, and this is always growing. It is an ongoing project. Now that I am retired, I can get more done.

We have many good friends here now and love the ease of living in the country, we learned that we needed to have a generator ready as many winter storms bring power outages on a steady basis. It’s part of living here.

The Winter Storm

On the morning of December 20, 2018, my wife Georgina and I headed out of Sayward to do some Christmas shopping in Campbell River. There was a wind warning out but the wind was light and we even saw a bit of sun on our way to Campbell River. We did our shopping and headed home, the wind picked up a bit around Roberts Lake and we could see that a few trees had come down, and there were branches on the road. All in all though, it was pretty calm out compared to what the weather channel had warned could be coming.

Then we turned onto Sayward Road around 5 pm and there was a police roadblock stopping all cars from going any further. The parking lot at the Sayward junction was full of cars, even the school bus loaded with kids was waiting. I talked to Kim Graham who is the head of our RCMP attachment and she informed me that multiple trees had been blown onto the road, taking power poles and hydro wires down with them. I asked her if she knew if the logging road into town was blocked and she told me all town roads were blocked. BC Hydro crews were working to open the road and we all had to just sit and wait it out.

As we waited we could see people going in and out of the co-op gas station with popcorn and coffee, the co-op was giving this out for free. The Crossroads restaurant and pub were also providing coffee and they were giving free pizza to the kids on the school bus as well. Gives one a good feeling to see our little community helping out like this. Much respect on my part for these businesses.

We had our fill of coffee and popcorn while we waited and after about an hour we decided to check out the logging road, there were many trees down but someone had cut a way through the worst and we could drive over the rest of them, it was slow going but we made it to the intersection of the logging road and Sayward Rd. We turned onto Sayward Rd but only made it about 100 meters before we ran into a huge pile of trees on the road that was tangled up wire power lines. We turned around and headed back onto the logging road to reach town. This road had been cut out as well and we were able to reach home. When we got into the house, the kids told us that it was terrifying during the storm, they thought the roof would be torn off and that it sounded like a freight train was running through the house. It had felt like the windows would blow in. The power was out but the wind had eased off quite a bit. The kids had the storm lanterns going, I set up our camping stove, cooked up a stir fry, and made some coffee. After we ate, we all headed off to bed early.

I got up just before daylight and headed off to get some photos. The damage that was done was incredible, Sayward road looked like a right away that had just been felled, and trees were piled up 3 to 4 meters high and in groups of up to 30 trees per pile. There were many trees on homes and outbuildings, but the damage to these properties was minimal considering the number of trees that had fallen. There were many poles, transformers and wires on the ground. After checking out all the damage, I realized that power would not be restored anytime soon. So off to town, we went to rent a generator so that we would not lose our food in the freezer and fridge. Power was not restored for 4 days.

The village of Sayward was on top of things during this time, they opened the community centre for longer hours. The centre had auxiliary power. Free showers and the use of the kitchen facilities were open to all who needed to wash or cook food. There were free snacks and coffee as well. This was the most damaging storm in BC Hydro’s history. It hit the whole island.

Guiding

After the creation of gohiking, I began to get requests for a variety of outdoor adventures. Most requests were still for photography trips but others wanted to see waterfalls or hike a mountain trail. Still, others wanted to experience hidden caves or visit various communities on the island, historical places like Winter Harbour, Zeballos or Bamfield. We bought a 7-seat van and with my wife entertaining them, we would take up to 5 people and go on all kinds of adventures. The tourists loved it and I got to see places I had not been to yet, so fun was had by all. We began to guide people from all over the world.

One time, a family of six, who hailed from France hired me to show them the north island. The dad had a limited ability to communicate in broken English, mom and kids could speak no English. It is amazing how you can learn other ways to communicate. The kids used smiles and sound effects other than language to speak with me. Mom simply used smiles. We spent the whole day together and covered a lot of miles. At the end of the day, I got big hugs from all of them, maybe they couldn’t say thank you in words, but the hugs told me how much fun they had. It makes a guide feel good.

My favourite guiding jobs are those that involve hiking, I love to hike. We are so lucky to live in an area where hiking trails cross the island, there are easy to extreme trails, so you can have your pick. I have spent my life not just hiking the trails but have played an active role in trail building. I was part of quite a few trail creations and loved every minute of it.

One year while with the forest service, and a young man, I was asked to put a crew together of 8 guys, plus us two foremen. Our mission was to construct the trails between the lakes that were going to be part of the Sayward Forest Canoe Route. This was an epic endeavour. We worked out of canoes. We started on one end of the proposed route and would canoe to the end of a lake, then we would follow a suggested route that was laid out with ribbons and put in a trail wide enough to move a canoe along. With 10 guys building trail, we would move along pretty fast. With that said, it took us 3 months to complete the trails as we had multiple bridges that had to be put in, rest areas and easy launch areas at each portage.

Other trails on the island have always drawn me in to see the country. Some are just awesome and easy, trails like the one between Botany Bay and Botanical Beach. This is an incredible walk through a forest of windswept and twisted trees, it’s a beautiful place, a place of wonder. For 7 years researchers and students journeyed here to study at the seaside Marine Station. To get here, they would travel from Victoria to Port Renfrew by steamer, then traverse some very steep, muddy, and narrow trails to the station. There was talk about building a better road to the bay, but it never got built, this all but sealed the fate of the station, it was closed in 1907.

When you are hiking in the area, if you look close, you can still see remnants of the buildings sticking out of the West Coast rainforest. There is a lot of history here, but you need to look closely, as the West Coast rainforest is claiming the land back once more. The area became a provincial park in 1989.

The beaches at both Botany Bay and Botanical Beach are full of a wide variety of sea life. Both plant and animal life is in abundance, and each has adapted to contend with the variable conditions found here.

Black bears and cougars can also be present at any time. Black bears can become used to feeding on garbage, so to avoid teaching bears about trash, please pack out what you pack in. Cougars normally avoid people and are rarely seen, but please leave pets at home if possible and watch over young children.

British Columbia’s toughest and most beautiful trail is the West Coast Trail, situated in the Pacific Rim National Park Reserve on the west coast of the island. Considered by some to be the toughest trail in North America, the trail traverses 75 km of wind-worn and storm-tossed coastal shoreline, you will see giant cedars, huge hemlock and unending spruce forests, cliffs, beaches, sandstone ledges, and suspension bridges spanning rivers and streams. This is Vancouver Island wilderness, wild and wet even in the summer. Hikers who attempt this trail must be fit and well-equipped for the backcountry.

Then there is the 47 km Juan de Fuca Marine Trail in Juan de Fuca Provincial Park boasts scenery similar to the West Coast Trail, but with vehicle-accessible points at several spots along the trail, making it a favourite for beginners and day hikers. The trail begins at China Beach and ends at Botanical Beach. It’s a pretty awesome hike. China Beach is a very beautiful beach, a great place to go for a weekend walk. China Beach also has a great campground that is located in the west coast rain forests that grow so lush on our coast. The trail down to the beach is quite pleasant with some incredible views, not too difficult to walk and the beach at the end is awe-inspiring, to say the least. There are 78 drive-in campsites available at this campground.

Some facilities are wheelchair accessible; pit toilets and water taps are located throughout the campground. China Beach itself is a great place to picnic and beach comb. Remember that black bears and cougars may be present. It would be a good idea to leave pets at home and keep your children in your sight. Lately, we have seen some wolves showing up along the trails of the west coast, more north of here, you should keep pets on a leash at all times. Take a wander to the western end of the beach during the wet season and you will see a waterfall that will take your breath away. You can walk along the shore to the second beach or if you are camping, you can reach it by taking a wonderful trail through the forest to reach it. The waterfall is pretty awesome during the wet season.

In the spring and fall, you might get to see a grey whale as they migrate along the coast. So keep your eyes open and your camera ready. The best times to see whales are in March and April, as they migrate past the island on their way north to the feeding grounds.

There are many other mountain trails on the coast and some very historical trails like the Woss grease trail, First people used this trail to take grease for trade to the west coast areas. This trail runs from Woss to Tahsis, it is hundreds of years old if not older. You can also hike many trails in Strathcona Park. So put on your boots, grab your pack and camera and head out into the backcountry to see what the coast has to offer. Another trail that has just been completed is the Vancouver Island Trail, which runs from Victoria to the top of the island.

The Holberg Adventure

I was offered a contract to lay out the route for a trail north of Holberg, up on the strandby main. The job was to lay out a trail from the client’s property over to an unnamed lake, this lake is one of the northernmost lake on the island and is several km from his property. We were to be paid 1500.00 plus expenses. My son agreed to join me and I offered him 750.00. We did not know just how long this would take, so we packed food and camping gear and at 6 am Saturday, we pulled out of Sayward and were on our way. We made it to the eve river where the alternator blew. My son had a bar charger with a vehicular charger and we used that to put a charge in the battery, we had to do this several times as we could make about 10 clicks per charge. Eventually, a truck stopped and we hooked my jumper cables up and put in a 20-minute charge, this gave us enough power to get home. We transferred all our gear into the Oldsmobile Bravada and decided to head out early on Sunday.

6 am and we were off again, the trip to the strandby was uneventful and we arrived around 11 am. The strandby river flows into Shuttleworth Bight and is the furthest you can drive to on the north island. From where we stopped the auto we could see the windmills that are located on Nob Hill, just across the strandby river valley, we were quite a bit further north than where these windmills were located. We put on our cork boots and rain gear and headed into the bush. The going was OK at first and we made great time, we had GPS and it was pretty easy to lay out the route, eventually the going got pretty rough, lots of logs down across our route, thick underbrush and creeks to cross, but we finally made it out to the lake.

We found an old homestead here and decided it was a great spot to end the trail. My son was checking out the old cabin and the area around it while headed down to the lake to see where the client could put a dock in. It was pretty wet with high water. At one point I got my boot stuck almost getting a soaker, so I went to take a step back with my unstuck boot, unknown to me, my other shoelace was untied with one strand being under the stuck boot. So, as I leaned back to adjust my balance and pull my foot out, but my foot would not go back and as I was already on the lean, there was nothing I could do but fall back, i did and wound up swimming in the lake. I had my camera in my hand and all I could was hold it high as I went right under. So l there l was, swimming in the northernmost lake on the island.

The way back to the truck was pretty tough, I wound up getting leg cramps in both upper legs and it was quite the struggle. We reached the truck just at dusk. I changed and we headed off, happy in the fact that it only took one day to complete the job. The road was good and we expected to reach Holberg in about an hour.

On the drive out we hit a rock and tore a hole in the oil pan which drained the engine in about 1 minute. I shut it off and we took a look, there was no going on so we took stock of our situation, we were completely immobilized with 26 km of old road where we were unlikely to see another soul in between us and Holberg. With my leg cramps, I knew it would be a tough walk but we started to walk out. I made it about a km and the leg cramps came back, I could not go further, so my boy Robert said to me “Dad, you have to go back while I head out. I will find help and get back to you as soon as I can”.

It was dark and on the way in we saw many bear scats, I was worried about my son and had a hard time letting him head out alone, but my boy was a grown man and quite capable in the woods, I was just being a dad, we both had headlamps. I headed back to the SUV.

The road was good and we expected to reach Holberg in about an hour. On the drive out we hit a rock and tore a hole in the oil pan which drained the engine in about 1 minute. I shut it off and we took a look, there was no going on so we took stock of our situation, we were completely immobilized with 26 km of the old road where we were unlikely to see another soul in between us and Holberg. With my leg cramps, I knew it would be a tough walk but we started to walk out. I made it about a km and the leg cramps came back, I could not go further, so my boy Robert said to me “Dad, you have to go back while I head out, I will find help and get back to you as soon as I can”.

It was dark and on the way in we saw many bear scats, we both had headlamps but I was still quite worried about my son but had to agree to let him go on alone. I headed back to the SUV. I could not run the SUV but had a sleeping bag that I wrapped myself up in and got settled in for the night, l figured it would be sometime the next day before help arrived’

I fell asleep after some time. Sometime around midnight, l heard a truck coming up the road, sure enough, it was my boy with help, he had run into Ken and his incredible pup, timber, who was a friend from Holberg at about 6 km out of Holberg and they returned to grab me. Ken took us to his house, fed us and provided rooms for us to get some sleep, he told us he would be heading out to work around 5 am but that we could stay there using his phone and internet to find a ride out. I got online before sacking out and put out the request for a ride out.

Day Three

In the morning, l turned on Ken’s computer to begin searching for help and there was a message from my good friend Donny who is from Woss asking me where in Holberg we were as he was ready to come to get us. Could not connect with him from Ken’s computer, so we decided to try and find a cell connection but had to wander a bit around town to find one, finally got one at the ibis. Just as l was trying to call him, Donny pulled up smiling like a cat chewing bumblebees, it was good to see him.

Over the years Donny has pulled us out of many bad situations and saved our asses almost every time we got into one, you could not ask for a better friend. He picked us up and off to Sayward we headed. The trip was fine and we got home quickly. I got on the horn and called another friend here who had a trailer I could borrow, I arranged to get it the next day, and he also lent me a set of racks to load the SUV on the trailer. Donny came early and we went and got the trailer and off we went back to Holberg and the SUV. On the way in, several of the deck boards broke and were gone when got back, on a closer inspection, we realized all the deck boards were rotten, we managed to locate some used plywood that we could place over the deck boards making it strong enough to hold the SUV. We got up to the SUV mid-afternoon and pulled the trailer in place, I set up the racks and started the SUV, and quickly tried to pull it up onto the trailer, both racks collapsed and were completely useless now. So here we were needing to remove both a trailer and an SUV out of the strandby.

Donny says, let’s tie the car to the trailer and pull it all out at once to Holberg, during this time, the rear brakes began making some pretty horrible sounds. We made it to about 5 km from Holberg and decided we would take one at a time from there. We took them to Ken’s house but he was not home, we dropped both off there and hoped he would be ok with that. We figured with all the noise the brakes were making we would leave both at Ken’s. We made it out and I again got on the horn looking for a trailer and truck I could rent to get this SUV out. I was getting tired of this drive.

Day Four

No luck on finding any rentals for what I needed and I even phoned all the north island tow companies, only one would drive the Holberg road and he wanted 2200.00 for the tow, he did say that if we could get it out to the pavement which was 61 km of rough logging road away that he would tow to Sayward for 500.00. So l called Donny with the news and he said if l could do his brakes we could tow the damn thing out with his truck. I agreed and Donny’s wife headed into Campbell to pick up all the brake parts, he thought he might as well replace everything, it was a 1300 bill.

Patty picked me up on the way back home while he got the truck up on blocks and removed the rear wheels. I got to work as soon as I got there starting with the callipers, as I removed them I noticed that there was nothing wrong with them but as I pulled off the rotors, all the emergency brake pads and hardware fell out in pieces., the same thing on both sides, It was the cause of the problem, we had no replacement parts for this so I just removed everything from inside the drum, Don decided to have me replace the pads on the rear brakes but we did not need to replace the callipers or rotors. The truck was good to go, Donny took back the unused parts, picked up the needed emergency brake pads and hardware later, and got 1100.00 back. Donny took me home and would pick me up in the morning for another go at getting the SUV and trailer out to the highway.

Day Five

Donny picked me up at around 10 am and off we went again, determined that we would get it done today. We made good time getting to Holberg and once we were there, we hooked up the trailer and then backed up to the SUV, l tied a big rope between both, and off we went.

Donny pulling the trailer with the SUV tied to the trailer about 50 feet behind. It was a slow haul out the 61 km but the rope only broke once and in about an hour and a half we were at the highway. I phoned the tow guy who arrived about 30 minutes later, we loaded the SUV, and off he went, the driver being 500 dollars richer. 2 hours later all was home and the adventure was over, except I now needed to put in an alternator into the van so we can be mobile again, fix the brakes on Donny’s truck and replace the oil pan in the SUV.

Caving

I have friends who ask me why, after all the wonders to see in our world, why would anyone want to venture underground through hard, flat-out crawls, in tight holes and seemingly endless long drops through steep and fast-flowing waterfalls just to reach the bottom of some hole. I always struggle to find a way to answer this in a style that could help them understand just what it is that draws us underground and I usually fail.

I dropped into my first hole when I was about 7 years old and I have never looked back. That was many years ago. My boys Robert and Forrest both have gotten the bug and they love getting underground.

We are not just cavers though, we love searching out new caves and we have found quite a few of them. Cave hunting is my thrill now, as after many injuries and a screwed-up knee, I now find that exploring the holes is something l struggle with, walk-in caves are cool though and I love getting in to explore them. For the past couple of years we have been hunting caves up in the Adams River area, Over the years we have explored areas around Tahsis and Holberg and other areas on the south island.

We spent time exploring the area around the Minigil cave, crawling about in caves like peat cave, deer cave or the raging river cave. There must be many more in this area. Of course, we always love getting out searching for caves up on the Memekay River where I dropped into my first hole. Every time we go out, we find one or more caves, or we can at least conclude an area to be cave-free, although there was a time I walked by a cave many times before seeing it, this was the fishy-hole cave up on the Memekay River, so one should never call an area cave free.

We love to go caving but there are a few things you need to know before entering any cave system. Are there any drop-offs in this system, are there fast-flowing underground rivers that can be a hazard? Is there more than one route to follow, there is nothing worse than getting lost in a multi-cave system.

When you are going into a system, always carry a map of the cave system (if possible), carry several sources of light, l like to have a headlamp and handheld flashlight, and l always carry several long-burning candles for an emergency like a flashlight or headlamp failure. A helmet can save you from some nasty bumps to the head and always bring extra warm clothing as cave temperatures change little through the seasons.

The Upanna cave system is located about 17 km west of Gold River, on Head Bay Forest Rd, on Vancouver Island. These caves are just awesome to hike in and you can find everything here in formations and cave life, lots of crickets and spiders to photograph here.

There are many caves in the Paterson Lake area, one of which is so large, that it takes 2 days to travel through, requiring a night spent underground. Holberg area has a few very big and deep caves, but be careful here as there is a chance of running into underground rivers. The Zeballos area also has some very beautiful caves, some of these are protected and you need to have a guide to enter. Then there is the Horn Lake cave system, one of our more famous karst systems, these caves are incredible.

For an even deeper adventure, join a guided tour of the white ridge caves. The White Ridge Provincial Park is located at the boundary of Strathcona Provincial Park’s northwest corner on the Gold River Highway. The park is located 4 km west of Gold River and is accessed off Gold River Highway on the BR 80 logging road.

The Huson Cave system is a great place to introduce the public to caves carved out of limestone rock by Atluck Creek. The system contains 15 caves that are easy and safe, perfect for the inexperienced caver; no special equipment is necessary. The Little Huson Lake Cave Park is in an incredible area of the island and the canyon has some very special features which are unique to Vancouver Island.

The Cave Park includes the Atluck Creek Canyon. This canyon has some interesting beautiful features, there is a wonderful natural bridge that is quite amazing and a large cave entrance where the creek flows underground for 60 meters, this is known as the cathedral cave entrance. The bridge feature is the only one on Vancouver Island.

The park has some other minor karst features like scallops that form in the rock walls, they are rippled rock surfaces that have been created by high-pressure water flow.

There are ample areas to camp in the area, with the Huson Lake site being the closest, this is a very nice campground with lots of space. There is a boat ramp and picnic tables along with a very large green area.

The beautiful Eternal Fountain waterfall is a spot that all should visit, this waterfall is truly amazing and a wonder to see, it flows out of the rock face, drops for about 5 meters, and then disappears back into the mountain. If the beauty of these falls is not enough for you,  you can drop down to the base of the falls and go behind to discover the backside of this underground waterfall. There is a beautiful subterranean passage that has been sculpted out of red rock, it has been carved out by the passing of the underground river.

The tunnel behind the falls meanders along as it follows the roaring stream on its route through the cave to the end where it drops into a deep sump and disappears. An awesome sight to see, but please be careful as the rock passage can be very slippery.

Along the route, you will also have the opportunity to visit some other incredible spots like the Devil’s Bath, Canada’s only cenote, a cenote is a sinkhole surrounded by rock bluffs and is filled with groundwater. The Devil’s Bath is connected to the Benson River Cave system via an underwater cave. Devil’s Bath is located in the Quatsino limestone karst system, which contains many karst formations and cave systems.

You can also visit the Vanishing River and the Reappearing River, a part of the Benson River that flows underground for about 2 km before reappearing again. The trail into this site is not marked, there has been a washout on the trail route and it’s suggested that you pass this spot by. But if you are adventurous, you can locate the trail, and hike in on a short trail that takes you to an incredible place, you will see a river roaring down a canyon and then dropping into a deep hole and disappearing into the mountain, only to reappear some 2 km away. Quite a sight to see.

To get to the Eternal Fountain along with the Devils Bath and the Disappearing River from hwy 19, turn off onto Keogh Rd just north of Port McNeil and head south, drive a short distance and you will see a sizeable directional sign with a map of the Alice Lake Loop, this is where you choose your route. The drive is about 100 km, with a driving time of 2 to 3 hours, but you will want to have the whole day, so you can explore these wonders completely.

On your drive, you will have a good chance of seeing black bears, elk, cougars, deer, wolves, and any number of smaller forest creatures and if that is not enough, the bird life here is just incredible. The numerous lakes you will pass have exceptional fishing along with great camping areas, so you could take your time and stay overnight in one or more campgrounds and spend several days here. This would allow you to get to see the north island and all it has to offer. Be careful though, caving can become an obsession.

The New Knee

After years of suffering a bad knee, the bone doctor, Dr Botsford, finally called me in for a consultation about my knee. This was good as my knee was getting pretty bad. The doctor was surprised at just how bad my knee was. He was impressed that I was still out hiking. After looking at my x-rays and having a good look at the knee and leg, he told me this was going to be quite the job.

When the leg was originally broken and repaired back in the early 70s, they did the best they could and I was glad that I still had my leg. It had healed crooked and was coming into my knee on an angle. This was why it was in such poor condition. Not only that, but it was almost an inch shorter. The doctor said he would have a knee replacement designed that would straighten out the leg and increase my leg length to make it almost the same length as my other leg. He also warned me that I would most likely not be able to kneel on this knee again, he said caving was not going to be a thing I would be doing again.

Normally, the wait for surgery could be up to another 2 years, Botsford said he would fast-track me based on the condition of the knee, but warned it still could be a year. He asked if I would like to be on his cancellation list, warning me that I would need to be ready when and if they could fit me in early. I said that would be awesome.

After the doctor’s visit, I made the mistake of watching YouTube videos of total knee replacement disasters. My god, but this scared the shit out of me. One had a doctor standing on the table, big hammer in hand, trying to free a drill bit from the guy’s leg bone. He was pounding with all his might and the drill bit was stuck fast. If you are waiting for this operation, may I suggest that you do not view these videos?

Three months after my initial consultation, I got the call, to be at the hospital the next morning. Now I was terrified and it all was becoming real. My knee was so bad that I put my fears aside and was at the hospital the next morning. They took me in to pre-op where they got me out of my clothes and shaved my knee area. After getting me on a gurney, they put in an IV and gave me a shot to relax. Then we began the trip into the operating room, my heart was racing and I was really afraid but the shot they had given me helped. Once I was on the operating table, I was given another shot that immediately sent me to la-la land. Now there was no backing out. I came too during the procedure and for a second, saw what was going on, the nurse said he was waking up and then I was gone again. Was this a dream? I can’t say for sure.

Then I was in post-op and although I could see my leg was pretty swollen and full of staples, there was no pain, yet. I was kept there for about an hour, then was moved into a room. I was beginning to feel some discomfort. Later in the afternoon, I began to feel real pain, I mean real bad pain. I got a shot and it helped.

The next morning they wanted me out of bed and exercising. I tried but my leg was damn sore and I was getting dizzy spells. Dr Botsford came to see me in the afternoon and told me I needed to start working on my knee and to not do so was going to impede my ability to bend my knee. I was grumpy from the pain and the doctor and I had quite an argument. Words were said and he was pissed off.

He was saying that I was going to be one of those people who wasted his time. I told him that contrary to his beliefs, he was not a god, but just a mechanic. He said if I did not start physio right away, my knee would seize up. When I told him that as I lived in Sayward, trips into the CR hospital were out of the question so I would be looking after my physio myself. He stormed out of my room madder than hell. With me yelling words that should not be in this story.

I signed myself out of the hospital the next day, and with much pain, I drove myself home. I spent the next week in bed but also began to bend my knee. As soon as the swelling came down enough to do more. I started to do deep knee bends on the stars and other forms of bending like trying to touch my toes. I took no pain meds so I would know if I pushed too hard. Within a few weeks, the swelling came down and the wounds healed. I went into our clinic and had them remove the staples. I then started the next part of my self-designed physio.

I was the cook in our house and everyone was waiting for me to get back at it, but when working in the kitchen, I would move about on my knees. At first, this was pretty painful, but the more I did the less it hurt. This exercise had two effects, it helped me increase my ability to bend my knee and it worked to reduce pain from kneeling. Eventually, I was able to kneel with hardly any pain and almost sit back on my heels.

Then I was called in to see the doctor, I could tell as I walked into his office that he figured he would see me in bad shape, and he asked how things were. I immediately got down on my knees, sat back on my heels to show my range of bending, and then moved about a bit on my knees. As I sat back in my chair, I saw he was smiling.

I told him that I was sorry for being such a dick during our argument. He too apologized and said he was glad to see how well I was doing. He told me that he had a report that I was not to physio and I told him I had designed my own. We were once again in the good books with each other. I left the office with the understanding that he would see me again in one year.

I worked my knee every day and after a bit, I began to hike on trails again, first on easy trails but always increasing the severity of the trails till finally, one year after the operation I was ready for a major hike. I asked my son Rob to join me but he said he was too tired, so we set our radios to the same channel and I told him that I was going to go partway up the Mount Kusam trail.

The Mount Kusam Trail is a wild and rugged 23 km loop heading up and over Mount H’Kusam and down the Stowe Creek watershed. Starting at sea level, hikers pass through some of the most spectacular scenery on Vancouver Island, with views of mountain peaks and the Johnstone Strait as they negotiate their way over the well-developed trail. While the trail is open for year-round hiking, an organized event is held once per year on the summer solstice. The Kusam Klimb draws participants from around the world, hoping to conquer the mountain! We have a saying about this trail. Are you tough enough? Well, are you?

I left around 8 am and proceeded to travel up the trail. As I hiked up, I was taken by the incredible views. The higher I got, the more I could see. Checkpoint one was easily reached and the route to checkpoint two was pretty easy to traverse, but after this, the trail began to get steep, and I was quite happy to see that ropes were in place to help me with getting up.

I thoroughly enjoyed the hike and spent time taking any side trails that went out to viewpoints. These viewpoints are well worth the hike to see, and I suggest that you also take time to visit them. By the time you are close to reaching the top, you find yourself walking in a beautiful sub-alpine forest where bird life is abundant including many sooty grouse. As you reach the pass that leads to the far side of the mountain you will see a side trail that will take you right up to the peak of the mountain, I did not at this time take it but I plan on going back to hike this trail.

From the pass you can hike out to the top of a bluff that overlooks the Sayward Valley, this is a must-see. As you sit on the edge you can look down to a bowl that has a beautiful little alpine lake sitting there like a blue jewel and beyond this is the view of the valley located far below you. The lake is used by rough-skinned newts as a mating area, and sometimes you can see them in the thousands swimming here. I attempted to contact my son before I went over the top to let him know I was doing the whole trail, but got no answer.

After hiking down to the lake, you hike the trail that takes you around the lake and then back up to another pass that goes up and then leads you down the Stowe Creek watershed and eventually back to the bottom of the trail. This part of the trail is about 15 km and uses old roads and soft forest trails where you have a good chance of seeing black bears, elk, deer, and lots of birds. The whole journey took me 9 hours as I was taking my time, my new knee performed incredibly well.

During the official Kusam Klimb, the runners, and yes I mean runners as the lead racers indeed do run the trail, take between 2 and 3 hours to complete the race, the record for men is set at 2 hours and 13 minutes, the record for the fastest female is set at 2 hours and 43 minutes. These racers are top-of-the-line participants who train year-round for this race.

When I arrived back at my van, I saw there was a card stuck in my door window, it was an RCMP card with a note on the back to please contact them as soon as possible. All kinds of thoughts were going through my mind, was there a family problem, death? I did not know as I proceeded to drive down from the trailhead, as I arrived at the turnoff, I saw there were RCMP, Search and Rescue and others getting ready to head up the trail. I asked if someone was lost on the mountain. The head of our detachment said yes, you are. Seems that my son started to panic about me being gone so long and that he had thoughts of me laying on the trail somewhere with my leg screwed up.

He explained later that he had tried to contact me by radio as did a few others who were in Sayward and after getting no reply, he did the right thing and called search and rescue. I told him I had tried to reach him as well. We looked at the radios and I realized that mine had been turned to a different channel somehow in my pack and I had not noticed.

It all ended well, I was impressed with how fast they had got everyone together to come to find me. Gave me a good feeling that perhaps if there had been a problem, they would have brought me home.

There are many mountain trails on the coast and some of them are extreme, the kusam trail is one of these and if you are going to hike it, let someone know when you should be out. That way you can help them to find you by reporting that you are late. Could save your life

The compass Magazine

After we moved to Sayward, a friend of mine was starting a new magazine called the Compass, it was going to be an aboriginal-based mag. She called me out of the blue to ask if I was willing to write a story for the inaugural edition. I thought to myself, why not? So I agreed and then asked her what the deadline was, and she replied that was tomorrow. I told her she should have called me sooner, but I wrote it that night and got it off to her the next day. She then asked if I would write for the mag, and she would give me a column and let me name it. I agreed. Off the beaten path was created. Little did I know that this was the start of a multi-year adventure in writing/publishing.

At first, Kealy had an editor working for her who would edit our stories, this was fine until he would take it upon himself to rewrite my stories, when I would see them in the mag, they were sometimes completely different and this was quite disappointing. I made a condition of my continued work that my stories could only be edited for grammar and spelling, the story must stay in my own words. They agreed and I stayed on. Over the first year, a few of the other writers left, and after each, Kealy would ask me to pick up their columns. Soon I was writing 8 columns.

Then our distributor quit. I took over distribution and helped in a limited way with sales of advertising space. At this time, we were covering from the north island down to Courtenay. I would personally deliver the mags to all the hotels and motels, gas stations, restaurants, lodges and anywhere else I could get them into.

I extended our coverage as far as Parksville in the south and Port Alberni to the west. I made many friends along the way, I am a people person and enjoyed chatting with all. They always had a smile for me as I made deliveries. Smiles are much appreciated and would make me feel welcome.

A few years in, I started to see a pamphlet detailing North Island Trails. I thought it was a great little book. Then they wrote my publisher demanding that the magazine stop using the name of my column. According to them they had originally published the guide way back in 2016 and claimed it as theirs. After letting them know that we have used the name in every issue since 2015 and produced a copy of the first mag in 2015 with the column in it. I never heard any more from them.

Kealy at the time, was also working for the North Island Metis and would always ask me to work with them.  One of my favourite things I would be involved with was working with children. They would set up a huge tipi where I would sit and tell stories to classrooms of kids, I enjoyed this and watching children laugh with my stories was awesome.

She would also hire me to do various types of forest walks with both elders and youths. I would teach about the ecology of the forest and how it all works together. I would sometimes take groups out who wanted to learn about plants and mushrooms or perhaps about natural medicines. My wife Georgina always joined me and she would help the elders navigate the trails and share her knowledge as well. It was always a fun time, sometimes the groups would get pretty big. My wife was also the photographer for these outings.

Around this time Kealy took on the job of creating a First Nations-based radio station and asked me if I would consider taking on the publisher’s position for the magazine. I took on the role and over the next while, I learned a lot about the publishing world. I was flying by the seat of my pants but all in all, things went well. It was quite the adventure though. I must thank Kealy for giving me this opportunity. It was fun.

Then cancer hit.

It was liver cancer.

More to Come

A message from Bud

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