Kenny's Loggin' – Working For Cox Logging Part 1

Mar 23, 2023 - 2 years ago

"Phone,” Mother said. Upstairs I went. It was Cox Logging. They were starting up just after Christmas, and were looking for a landing man. “Okay when?” I said. “Be at our office on Tyee Spit at 8 in the morning.”

Next morning at Tyee Spit, there was Clayton Abbott my neighbour and school mate from Painter-Barclay Subdivision. He was going to be hook-tending and with him was a guy named Fred who would be the rigging slinger no choker man. One other guy — Gordie Ludlow — was the spar operator.

Kenny's Loggin' – Working for Cox Logging, part 1 — *Cox Logging’s Terex Truck getting a load.*

Into Cox’s plane and into Fanny Bay on the left hand side of Phillips Arm. Jeff, one of the Cox sons, met us there. “Get your gear on and we’ll head up the hill and get started,” Jeff said.

We went up the hill to the setting. It wasn’t too far; the tower was still set up from last year. We were logging a side hill, coming down towards the road. We had to keep the road open because of fallers and others working up past us. To do this, we had to pile logs on the twenty foot bank, I had to stay up on the bank to unhook the chokers. Sometimes, logs or chunks would get on the road. The ones I couldn’t get with the straw line I had to tag the chokers together.

One day Pat, one of the fallers, got hurt pretty bad. He had fell a fair sized hemlock into a cedar snag which slabbed with one of the pieces hitting him in the back. It took a fair amount of time to get him to camp and the waiting plane.

On the weekend the fallers went to town so we were allowed to pile on the road. Then the loader showed up, an Insley rubber tired, chain drive line loader. When we got a load he would clean the road off and put a load on the “Euclid” logging truck.

The engine in the spar “calved”, so Gordie quit and went to town. Clayton, Fred and I were sitting in the crummy down the road a bit wondering what was going to happen. Meanwhile, the loader was cleaning off the road. He got the road open and got up beside the spar. He noticed that he had broken one of the drive chains on the wheels, while idling down to get it, the other chain on the same side broke and away the loader went, he jumped out and over the bank went the loader! We heard the crash and wondered if he got out, then we could see him standing there looking over the bank.

Dale, the other Cox brother in charge of mechanics showed up and asked, “What are you looking over the bank for?” “Well,” Clayton said, “there’s nothing to see on the road, ha, ha, ha!”

More next month!

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.