Kenny's Loggin' – You Can't Yard Like That!

Mar 21, 2024 - one year ago

The date: September 20, 1984. I am working, pulling rigging on the J-77 and we are on the M.S. 11 setting.

Kenny's Loggin' – You Can't Yard Like That! — *Photo from Dave MacKenzie collection.*

My brother-in-law Dave MacKenzie is my choker man. His cousin Brian MacKenzie is the hook tender, Louie Nickholson is chasing for Captain Henweigh (Shawn Mccabe). The foreman, Norm Hinch, had just moved the 115 long boom loader into the setting as it was a pretty high bank at the landing and we needed his reach to get the logs. The “Prince” was usually loading right-away logs and was not a big fan of the noise and confusion around the steel spar.

A pretty steep setting, we had to put two extensions on the back quarter guy-line so the trucks could drive underneath it. We had a hangup, the choker broke and threw slack down the mainline, it caused a whip in the back quarter guy-line which caused the guy-line dog to pop out and down she came!

“Look out!” I yelled — even though I didn’t think anybody would hear me. Gordie shut the loader off and all was quiet. We made our way into the landing, the top of the tower was resting on the top of the bank, Dave and I are looking at it and somebody says, “YOU CAN’T YARD LIKE THAT!!!!”

As we were standing around wondering what to do, the foreman showed up and sent us home.

The next morning, we went out to the setting and several other foremen and shop crew came out to have a look. I’m sure not many had seen this before and were just there to have a look. The foreman told us that we could leave as soon as we got the yarder back on its feet and get paid for the full day. I was running around taking pictures and the MacKenzies were coming up with a plan. With all the people around there was talk of disconnecting the pipe from the yarder, damn we were going to be here all day. The plan the MacKenzies came up with, was to put a strap on the pipe and get the Prince to swing the pipe around and place it in the saddle. Norm and Gordie liked the plan. Norm got rid of most of the looky loos from the landing and we went into action. We had to block up the yarder a bit and put a strap on the pipe to place it in the saddle. We got that done, Gordie swung the pipe back into place, then Norm hooked a strap onto the corner of the yarder and the Prince lifted it back onto its wheels and we were on our way home for a long weekend.

Back at the setting on Monday morning, mechanics were there checking things out, the rigging crew was running around spooling guy-lines and getting the tower ready to log again. When the mechanics got the machine running we started re-spooling guy-lines and discovered that the shaft for the back quarter guy-line drum was broken. That was it for this day’s work. The foreman came up and dispersed the crew to help other crews because it would be awhile before there was another guy-line drum installed on the yarder.

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.