Kenny’s Loggin’ – Port Neville Days

Jul 20, 2022 - 3 years ago

Part Two in a series — see part one in the July issue, ‘Logging, Lunching, and Learning Loaders.’
I loaded my duffle bag and caulk boots into the back of the pickup. Dad and I headed for Kelsey Bay, where we would catch one of Alert Bay Air Service’s planes for the quick trip to Port Neville.

Kenny's Loggin' - Port Neville Days — *Owner Frank Norie; check out the exeme load on this Mack!*

Once off the plane, Dad said, “the flunky, Fred, will show you your bunk.” I wasn’t going to sleep in the office; into the bunkhouse with the men.

The typical bunkhouse slept eight men. Walking in the door in the centre, there was an oil heater and bunch of nails on the wall for hanging and drying clothes. On the left and right were rooms with a single bed in each corner. I was in the room on the left with one other man in the room. The other side had four men in it. My roommate was an older fellow named Bert, one of the boom men. He was a pleasant kind of fellow, with a well-developed chest and arms from working a pike pole for a few years. You wouldn’t want to arm wrestle him! He would wake up to smoke every couple hours — he smoked “Old Chum” tobacco in a cigarette paper. What a peculiar aroma.

After I got my gear put away, it was supper time. The first meal of the shift was usually wieners and beans. The cook was only into camp about an hour ahead of the rest of the crew, so there was never enough time to prepare a big meal. The men always complained about that!

The next morning, Dad told me to go help the rigging crew, as Bill — the rigging slinger — was still passed out from his weekend binge. He was so drunk, he had driven right through the corner of the old “locomotive shed” at the Kelsey Bay Estuary, were cars parked to catch the plane. We don’t know how he made it from Campbell River to the plane dock! We had to help him down the dock and into the plane. When we got to camp, he got out of the plane and fell off the wharf. We threw him on his bunk in his wet clothes. It was a couple of days before he was in any shape to work. I wasn’t going to be stepping on his hand this time!

It was raining that day, and it didn’t take me very long to rip my new rain gear. The rain gear was a bit longer in the leg than I needed so the yarder operator cut both pant legs off so I wouldn’t step on them any more.

One of the truck drivers was bringing his wife and two young daughters into camp, as there was a house available. On the flight in, the plane hit a seagull which scared the heck out of the wife. That would be the last plane ride and camp life was over for her! At the end of the shift Dad had to take them out in the boat. To this day, I am still in touch with Ian, the truck driver, and his youngest daughter, Carly.

After work, the crew would have a bit of time before supper. One of the crew handed me a beer and said, “Here, young Smit (Dad’s nickname was Smit), have a beer — you worked hard all day with the men, you deserve a beer.” I found out later that I would have to repay that beer! I would get a ride with Chris in his Dodge Coronet R/T with a 440-six pack for an engine. He would stop at the liquor store and buy me two dozen beer for $5.25. One dozen for the weekend, and one to take into camp. I drank beer for most of my life, only quitting in the last couple of years!

When I stayed in the office at Easter, one of the things to do was to listen to the ‘radio telephone’. You could only hear one side of the conversation, so the guys would ad-lib the other side; pretty funny sometimes! The call sign for our camp was ‘Nob Logging’, which got a few chuckles from the guys.

We had a bit of time after supper, so mechanic Bobby Kerr taught me how to play chess. There was also a ping pong table set up in one of the bunkhouses’ games room.

After supper one night, Hoss — one of the choker men — said to me, “Let’s go fishing!” He cut a small alder tree for a fishing pole and tied a short piece of fishing line on it. We got a piece of uncooked bacon and tied it on the end of the line. There was a small creek just a bit up the road. We would sneak up to one of the small pools, lower the bacon into it, and Bam! A small trout would chomp onto it. You could lift them out of the water before they let go. We let them all go as they were only about 6 or 7 inches long.

One day, some of the rigging crew wanted to try ‘the belt and spurs’. We got into a pickup and drove up the road a bit to the garbage dump, where there was a usable tree right on the edge of the road. One guy was learning the spurs and was up the tree a bit when another guy said, “Bear!” We jumped into the pickup and took off, leaving him on the tree. We came back after awhile, big joke although he wasn’t very impressed. I learned some new words then.

Another day, Dad sent me to help Uncle Bert move the rock drill. There was a very large rock blocking the road being built, so he put a couple of holes in it and put in some ‘Amix’ powder to blow it into smaller pieces so the Cat could move it. I was shown how to move the rock drill, up the road to a safe place I went. Along came Uncle Bert with the Cat. The fuse was lit, and my uncle had a bit off a grin on his face. When I asked why, he said, “I was getting pretty warm loading the powder, and took my coat off and forgot it on the rock.” The rock was definitely in smaller pieces, and so was his coat.

We had this special grease used in the couplings for the drill steels. If you left it out overnight, the bears would come and eat the whole 5 gallon pail of it. You could see which way they went, they left deposits every few feet down the road.

Sometimes, I would go with Dad in the speedboat to Kelsey Bay to pick up parts that were needed before the freight boat could deliver them, like a spring for the logging truck that was sitting waiting before it could get more loads. Apparently, that stretch of water off of Kelsey Bay was one of the roughest spots on the coast. The westerly wind blew right down Johnstone Straight and some currents from the channels in the area and the river met here creating a rough water zone. Not very nice boating conditions! I had a couple of frights travelling these waters and later when I worked in Jackson Bay for Dougans, same thing. Even flying in an airplane was pretty rough.

We would often stop at the post office at Port Neville. My friend’s family — the Hansons — had homesteaded there since before the 1900’s. Later, a store and post office were established there to provide services for the loggers, homesteaders, and indigenous people in the area.

One night, three of us got into Chris’ speedboat and went up the inlet circling in behind Robbers Nob. Two of us got out of the boat and climbed up onto the flat spot near the end of the isthmus, then Chris circled back and scared the ducks off the estuary, sending them straight at us. We stood up and shot a couple. Then we went and had a look at the petroglyphs. On the west side of Robbers Nob, near the tip, several petroglyphs can be seen below the high tide line. The property above the high tide line is private.

It was in August when it got really hot. I was helping the rigging crew ‘tower up’, when things got a bit blurry. I can remember being in the office and the being in the boat, and the ride to the hospital in Mom’s car. I spent six days in the hospital getting my appendix out. boy what a sweat box it was back at the camp; I was a bit dehydrated and they had to get my fluid levels back up before they would operate on me.

That marked the end of my summer work. It was back to school in September for me, with a bank account, and lots of knowledge about logging.

The next two summers I helped Nories in the shop at Elk Bay. I would get a ride in with Hugh Gardiner, the shop foreman. He just lived up behind our house in Painter-Barclay. I would walk up to his place and start the pickup. Then, he would come out and light a smoke, he was very good at keeping the ash from falling from his smoke, lots of times with at least half hanging on while he talked. I mostly hung out helping around the shop and Nories had started a ‘dry sort’, so every day I would have to stamp logs from the previous days production.

Ken Wilson worked in the logging industry in B.C. for over 50 years. Ken is a regular contributor to Supply Post newspaper with his column “Kenny’s Loggin’”, and resides on Vancouver Island, B.C.