Chapter 14
Logging For A Living

I have neglected to mention the fact that Earl and Evelyn Pick were married during the summer of 1937 while I was away, but I must have been "still away out in left field" socially as those events were of little interest to me.

It had to be the fall of 1935 that I worked for Edgar and Lillian's neighbor, Alec Souther for a month. He rented a quarter section almost four miles from home, and I was to fall plough (I don't know how much) but it took me almost three weeks to do the job. From there I went to sister Mabel's in Debden to do chores for them. It was more or less uneventful, but I learned somewhat to handle an axe. I was surprised to see what Charlie Herdman could do with one hand (and a hook for a right hand) with an axe. The chores weren't heavy. I broke a young cow to milk for one thing. Milking with one hand wasn t Charlie's favorite past time. I got acquainted with enough people to make it easier to fit in the following winter. In 1936 I went back for the same purpose but it was a completely different situation. That winter or year I should say, they were boarding the school teacher. There was still no snow and she walked to school until there was snow enough to be heavy walking and it was getting colder. From then on either Charlie or I would take her with a team and light sleigh. We became fond of each other and sat up every evening talking and listening to the radio. When we went to school house dances we were together except when I was asked and expected to chord on the piano like I had done the previous winter. It was my first serious experience of wanting to dance, mostly because I wanted to be with Allie. The situation went on until the middle of December when I felt serious enough about our relationship that I realized it might be better for Allie if I were to move on. This wasn't easy to do. It was a relationship that I ran away from mostly because I realized how little I had at home to share. This situation caused me to tell Charlie and Mabel that I wanted to go to Big River and hoped to get a job at a logging camp. This would mean they would have to find other help, but I was determined to go, and in a day or two Charlie took me to the station with my luggage.

It was fortunate that on the second day in Big River I located the foreman (Prescott Redmond) of a logging company and asked for a job. And it was just coincidental that they were moving out of Rig River that same day or evening to go to De Larond Lake, ready to drive almost to the north end of the lake the next morning. We stayed at what was called a "stopping house" for freight companies that night. It was hardly daylight when we loaded onto a ton truck and started up the lake. Loaded on the truck were four sides and a roof to make a twelve by sixteen office building, and five men, the cook, "Frank Rainbow", his helper "Duncan Bouey", his sixteen year old son and myself. Redmond and a couple others came up later on the same day. We also had a woodburning camp stove and enough grub for a meal or two. Redmond told the driver to ride with the doors open as the ice wasn't very safe. I think the cook drove the truck. If the ice broke we were to jump and run for safety. Such fun and excitement. We were to go up to what was called "East Bay" on the east side of the lake to cut trees out wide enough and short stumps so the truck could be driven far enough to a location suitable for the office. We cut the path for the truck by noon. The cook had hot beans ready for our dinner and we set about erecting the building. It seems there was a floor ready for it too. The building was ready by dark and we slept inside that night. I could say that I helped build the whole camp right from scratch. That first day the teamster that hauled us out to the lake arrived by evening, he was called Frenchie and he had a good team of horses, a gray and a bay. Frenchie could move a big log with them right to an inch of where it was wanted. He was to stay with the camp all winter. There were very few men until we got more sleeping room built. The second building we put up was for the bosses, blacksmith, skidway bosses, etc. Then we built a part of what was to be the kitchen, dining rooms (mess halls) and store room. The kitchen was first, all of this out of "ginpoles". These were six or eight inch black spruce, eight feet long up on end. As more men could be accomodated, they were arriving almost daily, mostly men on welfare from Prince Albert and Saskatoon. The pay was $1.25 a day and we were charged 25 cents a day for board. It took until the middle of January to get all the buildings completed. The last buildings to go up were a barn for about 30 horses and the blacksmith's shop. Much of the iron fittings for the jammers were handmade.

The first week at camp while there were only a few of us and we were soon all acquainted. We would spend the long evenings discussing our homes and where we all came from. The stump boss was there early and his first job was to lay out roads and survey the whole timber area into skidway blocks. One evening he asked my name and where I came from. Well, I said our parents came to Canada from Minnesota. a place in tall timber called Alborn. I gave him some names I'd heard from our parents. His name was Albert Anderson and he knew some of the same people our parents knew. Another coincidence was the foreman, Prescott Redmond. He had traveled a stallion for our neighbor, Jones Hodgen, and made a noon stand every Monday at our place. And so just another instance that makes the world seem not so big.

There were supposed to be 250 men in camp when it was up to maximum production. After the buildings were finished, I worked on the skidways, helping deck the logs. At times when we were idle a few minutes, it was cold unless we made a fire. The skidway boss said our crew could make the best fire of all the skidway crews. Ha! I never knew if that was meant as a compliment or not. Our crew stayed together until I left camp way on into February. Working in the timber was clean healthy work, but after buying a few clothes at the camp store, I had very few dollars to take home after paying my fare.