Kenny's Loggin – Dougan Days, Part 2

Jun 22, 2023 - 2 years ago

In part 2 of Ken Wilson's Dougan Days, he reminisces about camp days working for Dougan Logging in Jackson Bay, B.C. Photos provided by Mike Dougan.

Kennys Loggin Dougan Days Part 2 — *"Old Black" and the steel spar.*

When I was at Dougan’s they had a sit down breakfast. They waited until everyone had made their lunch and sat down at the table. Then they brought out the eggs, pancakes and stuff. This wasn’t to my liking so I just had a bowl of porridge and a half of a grapefruit. I made a sandwich with 2 slices of mock chicken, 2 slices of cheese, some tomato slices, some onions and lots of bacon with plenty of mayo. I would eat that after the first load left the landing in the morning.

On Mondays, the crew and wives, etc would get on the “TQ” — Dougan’s camp boat at Kelsey Bay. Jackson Bay was across Johnstone Strait past York Island into the Wellbore Channel on the left. At times this was a pretty rough piece of water. The Salmon River empties out into the straits, fast tides in the straits plus a wicked westerly wind. One time with the boat fully loaded we ran into a bit of a problem. One of the fallers, Charlie was moving his wife and kids into camp. Boat was so full that his washing machine was put up on the bow. About two thirds across it got pretty rough, the washer fell overboard, Dave cut the throttle back. Mike yelled, “keep the throttle up!” People were starting to panic. One wife had to be restrained as she thought she would be better off in the water. The water settled down a bit once we got into the Wellbores and we made it to camp without any more problems. First time in my life I was scared!

Shifts started on Tuesday. After work, we dug a sack of clams and hung them over the wharf to clean the sand out of them. The next night we would grab a pound of butter and a bottle of HP sauce and go over to Jack and Lydia’s house and eat the clams standing around the stove, bullshitting.

Me and my brothers had longer hair so we were “The Hippies.” On Saturdays, the hippies would go to Dave’s trailer to watch Gunsmoke. Dave usually had a gallon of red wine for us, which was usually destroyed watching TV. We would call Dave “Mad Dougan” after Matt Dillon.

One night we went to George and Sue’s. I had eaten a rotten orange in the afternoon and it didn’t sit well with me. I puked all over the carpet — not good.

Later in the spring, with more light we would head over to Glendale Cove. There was an old abandoned camp of BCFP’s there. Apparently it was a 300 man camp. When Mel and his son Gene needed a door for Gene’s addition to his trailer, they just cut the door and frame out with the power saw.

We would go fishing in the Glendale River, lots of nice cutthroat trout.

Does the name “Rudy Begonia” ring a bell? His actual name was Warren Philip. He was one of my buddies that they hired green. He set chokers for one shift and then went pulling rigging. He liked logging and being in the woods so much that he went to BCIT and got a foresters degree. He passed away with cancer at an early age.

Old Black was on its last legs so a Bucyrus 38-B was purchased. I remember it took a long time to walk it out to the settings, it only travelled about 2 mph, even tried pulling it with a dump truck.

I left Dougan Logging in the summer to go be a hippie and do a Tour-de-BC. Went to the Interior, saw Bella Coola, went to Prince Rupert hung around Hixon for awhile and came back and went to work for Sammy at Menzies mountain.

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.