From The Supply Post Archives: Logging Truck Drivers Of Elk River

Feb 18, 2021 - 4 years ago

As part of our 50 Years of Publishing Celebration, we are bringing you interesting stories from our archives. This one first appeared in our February 1988 issue.

Logging Truck Drivers Of Elk River
The view of two generations of a logging family.

Last year in June, Elk River Division logging truck driver Jake Derksen retired after having driven accident free for 31 years, and after having hauled enough timber in his career to build 14,385 new homes. For a closer look at life on the logging roads of Elk River, Timberline visited Jake Derksen and his nephew, logging truck driver Gerry Derksen, who has been driving 12 years.

Jake Derksen
“I started off driving truck in 1951, hauling iron ore, and in June of ‘56 I joined Elk River Timber. The first logging truck I drove was a big chain drive with 16 foot bunks. You could haul an awful lot of wood in it, but it was really slow, a top speed of about 28 m.p.h.

Manual Steering
“It was manual steering, and you could feel every bump on the road. You didn’t dare hook your thumbs in the steering wheel or they might be ripped off with a sudden twist of the wheel. It used to spin around so much your hands would get terrifically hot from the friction. You can just imagine what a beast it was to try and turn that truck around.

Improved Safety
“The guys who are driving now sure have it good compared to when I started. There’s so much more safety today. In those days you had to be very alert or you wouldn’t last long. Another thing is the brakes and transmission are much better on today’s trucks. And now they have power steering, it’s no harder to drive than my car.”

Unheated Cabs
“You had to bundle up pretty good in the winter – sometimes the heaters worked and sometimes they didn’t. Then you’d have to fight with the mechanics to make them work again. The heaters were the last thing they worried about. If you had heat you never said anything because you were lucky to have one with proper heat. In the summer the heat was unbearable – we’d have to deal with the heat from the engine and transmission. I used to soak my feet in the river until they were so cold I couldn’t stand it, and by the time I’d gotten in my truck and gone ten miles down the road, I’d be baking again.

The Challenge of Driving
“I never found driving to be boring because you’re in a different spot all the time. I like running any kind of heavy machinery because you’re always on your own — no bosses hanging around. There used to be more challenge than there is now — the biggest challenge was to be really good on the gears. Now all of them are automatic. It was a challenge to shift without jerking, making it smooth and fast. If you didn’t do it fast enough, the truck came to a stop and you had to start form the bottom gear again.”

Gerry Derksen
“My dad and my uncle Jake were driving trucks before I was born. When I was young I spent a lot of my time with my dad in his logging truck, and when I was fifteen, he let me drive it — showed me how to shift.

“I guess it was in my blood because as soon as there was an opening in camp, I took the posting to drive trucks — before that, I had worked at a tire shop for two and a half years.

“It was my uncle Jake who showed me the ropes up here. I had driven a gravel truck before, so I knew the basics, but Jake sat with me in the cab and made sure I knew what was going on with logging trucks. He must have been a good teacher — I’m still alive!”

Winter Driving
“One of the toughest things about this job is winter driving — it can be more slippier than blazes. You can’t even walk on some of the stuff we have to drive on. Once the truck starts to slide it has a lot of momentum — the tires are so wide they can be like a big ski. Any driver would get scared unless they had nerves of steel.

Automatic Transmission
“It’s pretty well a lazy man’s way to drive nowadays — it will shift twice for every time you shift. When I first started I had to drive an old Hayes. It had 20 forward gears and four in reverse — that was a little more work.”

Safety
“Safety is foresight — being aware of the hazards. For instance if you’re coming down a steep hill, you have to know where you’re going to ‘park’ your truck if the brakes fail.

“Another aspect of safety is truck maintenance. One idea is to keep a guy on the same truck for a while. After having driven this one for four years, I feel I know every little nook and cranny of her. If I think something is loose or wearing out, I tell a mechanic right away.

“You develop kind of a sixth sense about driving a truck. You find yourself slowing down more than normal and sure enough you round the corner and find another vehicle there. When it comes to truck driving, I figure a person’s either got it or they don’t. Some people may be really good at something else, but not good as a driver.”

Driver Hours
“My day depends on the time of year. In the summer I start earlier, about six-thirty. There’s also an early shift starting at four in the morning. This time of year (winter) we start at seven, which means I have to get up at five. As for holidays, we generally get a month off in the winter and two in the summer.”

Elk River Driver Update 2021
When we decided to re-run this story for the March issue, we thought we should chase Gerry Derksen down and see what he’s up to. He’s retired now, and his uncle Jake passed away a number of years ago, but Gerry has fond memories of his days behind the wheel. We were grateful to the many family members and friends who reached out to us when we posted about his whereabouts on Facebook.

We were also able to track down the truck featured in the article. It’s a Hayes WHDX — Truck #26 from its working days. It’s now restored, done under the care of Steve Drybrough. Here are a few photos of the restored truck.