Kenny's Loggin' – Phillips Arm – Part 2

Jan 18, 2023 - 2 years ago

Read Part 1 here.
With the large turnover of men, you never knew what you could be doing from one day to the next. One night, the dry-room burnt down! I never heard a thing; it was outside at the other end of the bunk house. Most of the mens’ work boots were lost. I kept mine in my room so Bill sent me to help Doug (who lived in the married quarters) to load a blast. He said to put 3-5 sticks of dynamite in each hole, which proved to be too much as there wasn’t much usable rock left in the quarry — most of it over the bank!

Kenny's Loggin - Phillips Arm - Part 2

I was chasing on one tower one day and the rigging didn’t come in for a while. Then, one of the chokermen came into the landing out of breath — a large slab of cedar had come down the hill and knocked the rigging-slinger into the creek. He was trapped with just his head out of water. Soon help arrived and we stretchered him out to the plane. I was surprised to see him back in camp in 4 days! We thought he had a broken back, but just had a bruise in his hip. He spent over half an hour in the creek, so he was really cold from the water.

Kenny's Loggin - Phillips Arm - Part 2
I worked one month straight without a day off. Went to town and bought a new Mazda pick-up from Art Wright and Charlie Kelly where the Husky convenience store is now.

Kenny's Loggin - Phillips Arm - Part 2
In the fall, we had to burn the slash. After supper we filled some piss-cans with diesel and made a wick out of felt on the end of the nozzle, sort of made a primitive flame thrower. We worked late into the evening. Our clothes and the whole bunk house smelled like diesel after.

Kenny's Loggin - Phillips Arm - Part 2
One night after supper, I could hear some of the rigging crew talking about pulling logs through the creek when the salmon were going up it.

Not too much to do after supper, as none of the roads went very far for exploring. One night we got the skidder and helped Harold to round up many large burls so he could load them on his boat to take to town to process.

After supper one night looking for something to do, I wound up at the fallers’ shack. One of the fallers was filing chains. He was pretty good at it. He was a champion in the “obstacle pole bucking” event in loggers sports, so he was elected to file chains for the rest of the fallers. “Yes file these chains at 45 degrees angle and 5 degrees down on back of file and you’ll never go wrong,” he said. Which later on would be a valuable bit of knowledge as I would be using a power saw quite a bit in my logging career.

It was getting late in November one night it snowed quite a bit which was the end of log hauling. So the planes came and we went to town!

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.