31 Anyone for a Speedboat Ride?

For a number of years our flat-bottomed clinker built skiff served as our main means of transportation to the store, putting along at maybe 7 miles an hour if you stretched your thinking.  As times changed, the outboard motor became the choice for getting around in a hurry.  This prompted my dad to begin building a small speedboat.  To do this he had to clear the work shed behind our house of all its accumulated junk. 

He had only built a small skiff before, so this was quite a challenge for him.  I can remember him spending hours working in his spare time laying out the frames to bend the plywood around as the hull of the boat began to take shape.  The little speedboat had a real mahogany transom, which was shaped just right for the new outboard that would soon arrive.  Considering this was dad’s first major attempt at the boat building trade, the 14-foot speedboat turned out better then he imagined it would.  It even had a cabin for protection from the wind, but the seats were a bit second rate and I can remember after a year or two they split down the middle from the jarring as our bottoms bounced over the rough water.

When the boat was finally finished and ready to launch it had a sort of homemade look, but we thought it was the coolest thing going.  I can remember impatiently waiting for our brand new 25 hp Evinrude kicker to arrive, and for the big day to come when we could finally fasten it on the back and see some action.

The whole family hung around waiting with bated breath as dad carefully uncrated our shiny new outboard and fastened it in place.  Of course we all wanted to be the first to take a ride.

Dad said, "Come on kids get in.” And we didn’t need a second invitation as we all jumped in.  Mom was more then willing to stay ashore until this new contraption was first tested, as she was always somewhat spooked by boats and the water.

Up until now, the only speedboat I had ever ridden in was an inboard and it was much larger and could not get up and plane.  Well, was this ever different, what a thrilling experience when dad opened the throttle.  I couldn’t believe what happened next.  First he opened the throttle part way and I thought that was amazing, but then he opened it full throttle and the boat instantly jumped like a jackrabbit and skimmed the top of the waves to my wondering amazement.  It seemed that we were flying.  After circling around the bay a few times and cutting back and forth across his waves to see how it took them, he finally pulled into the wharf and let mom give it a try.  Mom had finally gotten up her courage enough to climb in, after she realized it was not going to disintegrate, and away they went for a spin.

And so began a new era in our life on Read Island as the newest technology had finally moved into our world and we were now part of the new age in water travel.  But as in all new technologies there is an inherent risk and this was just the leading edge of a drama that was waiting to happen.

30 The Two Seater

“Oh for the good old days” is a phrase that you hear from time to time but I suspect that such rhetoric is given without so much as a thought to its true implications.  This brings to mind an incident during the good old days when back of our first cedar shack on Read Island, sat an outhouse, a two seater none the less.  Why a two seater? I don’t know of anyone who would want to use it with a family member, or anyone for that matter, unless perhaps a close friend.  And I say that with tongue in cheek.

But I do know that because the bush was thick and sparse of habitation the facility had no door.  This was great for contemplation and the study of creatures that chose to wander by while taking care of business. On a cloudless night one could also lift ones contemplation heavenward and study the stars. One could also read from the last Eaton’s catalogue, as no reputable outhouse would be without at least one for a ready supply for the needed cleanup after business.

Most of the time however it was in and out as quickly as possible as the business of the day permitted little time for contemplation. 

It was on one particular dark evening when the immediate chance of rain meant any delay in taking care of business meant you would get soaked on the way back to the house, that my dad found himself in need of the facility.  Upon arriving he sat down with haste, and as he tells the story, “It was a good thing that I had just sat down when the bolt of lightening hit with such an incredible crash, right in front of me, that I know I would have messed my pants if they had not already been seated.”  “You guessed it I beat it back to the house just as fast as I could.”

29 Soar With the Eagles but Don’t Forget the Hummingbirds

As I think back on the pristine surroundings of my childhood I continue to marvel at the beauty of the island and the view from Bird Cove.  I remember one particularly fine day that I was about the place and looking out the bay, when suddenly I head a roar coming from overhead.  Quickly looking up I saw a large bald eagle falling in a steep dive toward the still, blue green, and very transparent water of Bird Cove.  I watched in amazement as it dropped in a straight line from several hundred feet and hit the water with an incredible splash.  It all but disappeared, but with a frantic flapping of wings managed to keep from disappearing all together.  I was sure his predatory greed would carry him under, but he rose with difficulty a large salmon hooked in his talons, and slowly, still flapping frantically, cleared the trees on the far shore and disappeared.  Somewhere I knew was a nest of hatchlings waiting for a salmon dinner.

Living on the island was like living in an arboretum, but in the privacy of your home.  I used to enjoy watching a plethora of wild life but particularly the ruby throated hummingbirds every summer.  What fascinated me even more then their iridescent plumage was the mating ritual of the males as they wooed their desire.  In front of our house between the road and the beach was a hedgerow of salmon berry and other shrubs.  It gave me endless pleasure to watch the male hummingbirds dive straight toward the hedgerow. In amazement they always pulled out of their dive just short of hitting the hedgerow, while making a che, che, che sound over and over again with each repeated dive.

28 Eat Your Meat But Keep Quiet About it

Most of the wildlife on the island was relatively tame as we accepted them as our neighbors and left them alone.  By today’s standards many people on the island lived in poverty and the only animals that had to look out for man were the deer, which were hunted to help supplement the vegetable garden.  Most staples however, like shortening, flour and sugar came from town.

Hunting season was never taken into consideration when it came to replenishing the meat supply as any time of the year was hunting season.  I can remember when on one occasion the game warden drove into the bay before hunting season opened and all the camp was a buzz to make sure there was no tell tale signs of the last kill.

My Uncle Irwin provided his family and ours on occasion with venison, as my dad did not hunt.   Uncle’s idea of hunting was to climb the hill behind our house to the apple orchard, where after dark on any given night there might be a half to a dozen deer feeding.  Why waste your time running around through the woods after meat when after dark with a headlamp you could bag a deer in five minutes.  Shine a light into any deer’s eyes and it will just stand there waiting for the trigger to be pulled.  Pit-lamping was very illegal but a very efficient way to obtain meat.  Remember getting fresh meat was considered a necessity, what farmer would untie his cow and let it wander off before he butchered it so he could spend hours looking for it. 

Many of the folks on the island had small hobby farms with maybe a few goats or sheep, a cow or two and maybe the odd horse and a few chickens or geese.

Charlie Rosen was a fine old Swedish gentleman who lived by himself on a small farm by a lake that today is called Rosen’s Lake. We would see him from time to time as he went by our house with his horse pulling a stone boat to pick up supplies at Tipton’s Store.

We never saw Charlie very often but were always pleased when he came by to visit.  On this one occasion we learned that one of his horses had died, and what a shame that was, especially with so much meat going to waste.  That was no problem for Charlie as rather then let it go to waste he ate it.  How much of it he was able to eat before it spoiled I don’t know, but maybe he canned and ate it all.  I will never know.

 It was rumored about that some of the locals even ate the odd cougar.  For whatever reason cougars were considered a pest and if one was spotted you would immediately phone the government cougar hunter who would come post haste to dispatch the varmint.

We did have quite a few partridges in our orchard and even though I was not much with a gun at least on one occasion brought one home for supper.  Except for a bit of a wild taste depending on what they were feeding on, they were much like chicken.

If people today suddenly had to butcher their own meat most would instantly become vegetarians.  I remember when my Aunt Ruth was slaughtering chickens, what an unpleasant spectacle to watch as she lopped their heads off and eviscerated them.  This was not as hard to deal with as when on one occasion I was going by Jim Redfern’s place and he was butchering a cow.  As I said this was the quickest way to vegetarianism.  Here was Jim in the middle of the front yard and up to his neck in body parts as they were laid out all over the yard.  Jim lived off by himself so I was probably the only person by that day, much to my regret.  With no encouragement from Jim I left as politely as possible to carry on home.

27 Just About Toothless

 Realizing the hazards of helping my dad you might think would make me more cautious, not so.  Again we were working on the little D4 when dad asked me to run to the house for some needed pieces of equipment.  You must realize that when my dad said “Run and do this, or run and do that,” that he meant literally to run.  Upon hearing the command to run, off I went as fast as I could.

If you are familiar with driftwood you know that it is polished smooth and devoid of bark from the tide, and very slippery.  Jumping from log to log as fast as I could, I returned to the beach with the needed tool, but this led to my undoing.  It only took one misstep on a slippery log and down I went quicker then you could blink.  In fact I went down so fast that I did not have time to put my hands out to brace myself against the fall, and fall I did, flat out my chin hitting a log so hard as to shatter a half dozen or so of my teeth as my jaw slammed shut.

I can still remember as if it just happed, sitting there spitting out teeth.  It was as if my mouth was full of fine gravel.  In fact I went back later and there on the log was a pile of enamel from my fractured teeth. The one positive thing about this experience was that my tongue was in my mouth or I would have cut it off.

When I told my dad what had happened, up to the house we went to tell mom and phone for a plane.  Then it was off to Campbell River, but this time to see a dentist.  All he could do at the time was to grind off all the sharp edges so my teeth would not cut my mouth or tongue.  To this day some of my teeth still show the results of my fall, as they were broken but not bad enough to be crowned.

My love for dentists as a kid was shaped solely by my yearly trip to Vancouver and a dentist by the name of Painless Parker. My dad took us kids to one of several offices that he ran across the country.  It was our misfortune that he had one in Vancouver.  Painless as part of the name was strictly a ploy to lure the unwary victim in, his true identity is still unknown to me to day.

The day for my dental appointment started as normal but once through the door of the office the terror began.  Remember this was before the day of the high-speed drill when the “device of terror” was powered slowly through a series of pulleys that clacked and rattled overhead.  Going at such a slow speed your whole head would vibrate with the turning of the drill.  The stench of smoking bone as the drill ground its way through rotting dentine was over powering.  And on top of that the freezing was just another means of inflicting more agony, as the freezing never seemed to lesson the pain. This made my heart race and added to the continual need to pee brought on by the terror of the moment.  I used to sit there until I thought I would bust as I was a timid kid and afraid to ask for a pee break.  This being a yearly event I would sit for hours as I always had a lot of teeth that needed fixing and it seemed as if the ordeal would never end. 

The only consolation was that I knew I was not alone in this chamber of horrors as my sister was in the next room going through the same ordeal as I.

The invention of the high-speed drill brought with it considerable relief from the pain and agony that I experienced as a kid. It was so comparatively painless that for years I had just about all of my dental work done with no freezing.

Over the years I have come to accept the needed services of a dentist and the terror of my childhood experiences are but a distant memory, but not to distant.  Writing this has brought it all back but not the pain, at least not all of it.

26 Keep Your Nose Out of the Way

Gypo loggers are a breed unto themselves, and as I mentioned earlier, run close to the wire, which means that their equipment is just about always ready to break down.  They are always waiting for the next boom to be towed to town, when they will be able to pay off their bills or buy that needed part.

My dad was an honest man but a typical Gypo logger in that he was always broke and sometimes had to fix things the hard way.  I remember one raw winter day with the threat of snow, when we were working on the D4 Caterpillar trying to remove a pin out of the track.  The cat was down on the beach where a raw wind was blowing making it a better day to be by the fire.  Not the type of person to let inclement weather put a kibosh on the agenda we were out there freezing to death.

Adding to my level of frustration there was no master pin to be found in the track and we were about to take the track apart the hard way.  “Never fear my dad says any pin will do if enough force is applied.”  He then proceeded to wail away on a pin with the brute force of a nine-pound maul.  First though, he had me hold a steel bar against the pin, as he could not reach it through the track.   So here I am holding on to the steel bar with all my might, as he is driving it against the pin with all his might.   And the pin is just as comfortable 20 slams later as when he started, and he is getting tired and so am I and without warning the maul glances off the pin and flattens my nose.

Dad is quite upset of course and we rush up to the house and tell mom what just happened and she of course jumps on dad for being so careless, saying, “Gervase how could you be so clumsy, you should have been more careful.”  “Now look what you have done to Bobby.” Then she immediately phones BC Airways to come and take dad and I to a doctor in Campbell River. 

About an hour later we watch as an old post WW2 Seabee came flying round the point into Bird Cove and quickly lands at our wharf.

Forty minutes later we are at the Campbell River General Hospital and in the emergency room where I apprehensively wait for the doctor.  What he might do to get my nose looking like a nose again fills me with some concern.  After the proverbial wait in walks the doctor in the traditional white coat to fix things up.  With little or no formalities he pokes a closed hemostat up my right nostril to crunch the cartilage and bone back in place, with no anesthetic and them stuffs the nostril with about five feet of gauze and sends me home.   I was somewhat relieved by the simplicity of the method but as a result of his primitive procedure my nose is still a bit flattened to this day.

Without further ado we caught the next available plane for home, but it was beginning to snow and the pilot had great concern that he might have to turn back if the ceiling closed in.  The snow progressively got worse as the arctic air screamed out of Butte Inlet pushing the temperatures downward.  By flying just above the water the pilot could see well enough to make it to Whale Town on Cortez Island.  Here dad new a logger, a Mr. Kristoff, who lent us a boat to continue on homeward.

The boat Mr. Kristofff kindly lent us was without a cabin, which meant we had to travel a good hour exposed to the searing cold of the screaming blizzard from Butte Inlet.  And to add more concern dad had to fiddle with the engine the whole way home to keep it running while we both about froze to death, because we had left our heavy jackets at home thinking it was a quick trip over to Campbell River and back.

Boy was I glad to finally get home to mom who was anxiously waiting for us with a hot drink to warm us up.  My dad never said much about the trip but I think he was pretty anxious before we pulled into Bird Cove.  The thoughts of dying from exposure were not far from my mind.

After a couple of days the remedy for my crushed nose drove me crazy, try stuffing five feet of gauze up your nose and see if it does not drive you crazy.  I fixed that a day or two later by yanking it all out, and that was the end of that, no more irritation or dripping nose.  As far as that goes I could have done what the doctor did and saved the family and myself a ton of frustration and worry.

25 The Day the Cat Drowned

If you are a logger especially a Gyp logger drowning a cat is not a very good thing to have happen to you.  It happened just after dad had acquired an old Caterpillar RD8 and was using it to haul logs down to the beach.  The old RD8 was much larger then the Caterpillar sixty and it could haul a much larger load of logs.  This made it less maneuverable and more apt to get stuck when hauling logs down to our muddy beach.

This particular beach had a unique feature that resembled a chocolate pudding with a skin on the top.  You could carefully haul logs across it, if you didn’t twist or turn, drop your load, and beat it back to the beach without breaking through.

This particular day my dad drove carefully across the beach with his load, unhooked the logs as usual, climbed back on the tractor, but as he turned for shore, the tracks twisted through the last layer of the skin and the old RD8 went in with a slurp, both tracks just a spinning.  The creamy blue clay covered everything but the top of the tractor, and the cat just sat there no matter what dad did in his attempts to extricate it, before the incoming tide completely drowned it.  My dad was not a swearing man but I can still see the disgusted look on his face, as he knew what was cut out for him for the next few hours.

He worked the rest of that day until water was spraying in the air from the fan when he finally shut her down and let the salt chuck win.  I can still see the water slowly creep over and pour into all the openings in the engine as it rose higher and higher and finally covered the poor cat.  As soon as the tide went out the next day dad was out there unscrewing every plug he could find on the old RD8 to drain as much of the salt water out that he could.  After refilling everything with new oil we began our work again hoping to beat the next days incoming tide.  We were fortunate to just beat the incoming tide, as a few years earlier the neighbors across the island had their cat covered probably a half dozen times, before they finally got it free of the mud, and out on dry ground.

A lesson learned?  Not so well as a little while later when using our smaller D4 to haul logs to the same bay we went through the same scenario but this time we beat the tide. 

24 Boat Day at Read Island

It was the Union Steamship Co. of BC that continued to be the lifeline for the small communities along the entire coast of BC. Their weekly trips along the BC coast and to Alaska continued until just after I left for boarding school, and were for many years the only means of connecting with the outside world.  Once a week without fail they would pull into the various communities along the coast and deliver their needed supplies.

There was nothing that they would not carry.  They carried everything from groceries, household items, building supplies, machinery, and the mail.   Boat day was a big event at all of the small communities along the coast and just about everybody was there.  I can remember every week as we listened to the approximate arrival times on the AM dial the night before its arrival.  I can still hear the staticky voice of the purser as he read off the approximate arrival times for each port of call.  We would listen intently until we heard the purser’s voice come over the radio saying, “This is the SS Cardena broadcasting the schedule of the approximate arrival times for Friday, July 4, Whale Town, 1 pm, Read Island 3 pm. etc. etc.

I can remember how I anticipated boat day every week, especially if I was expecting something, like a new bicycle.   We would be waiting at the wharf long before the expected arrival with our eyes straining to be the first to see it sail around the point.

The small government float with the small freight shed seemed to melt into insignificant as the large freighter loomed into sight and slowly steamed into position next to our float, about tearing it from its moorings as it tied up.  The small float wouId be wrenched this way and that as the logs anchoring it to the beach strained against the pressure, nearly breaking lose as the vessel finally came to rest. I knew better then to get in the way of the monkey knot when the deckhand threw the heaving line to the shore man who pulled the giant hawser over to the float, to be secured to the steel bollards while the boat was unloading. This was cool stuff for a kid and I was always excited whenever I was allowed to go with my dad to meet the boat.

I used to love watching the hoist man run the steam driven hoist as he lifted the pallets of cargo out of the ship’s hold and swung them over the float, letting them down on the dock to be unloaded by the stevedores and carried into the freight shed.  Again this was real exciting for a kid and I used to enjoy the whole experience to the utmost.  Nobody would think about leaving until the last pallet was unloaded and the ship whistled and pulled away from the float, to sail out of sight around the point and to its next small community.

It was now our turn to locate and sign for our freight and especially that bicycle that I had seen on one of the pallets and I knew I was getting for my 9^th birthday the following Wednesday.   We soon found the bicycle along with all the rest of our freight and after buying some groceries at the store headed home to do it all again next week.

Read Island Store & Post Office in new location & operated by the Hill family.
(Original store & post office was owned & operated by Joy Lambert)

23 Around the Place With My Unique Dad & Other Stuff

Most of the Gyo Logger’s during my dad’s days were a unique group of individuals who could make do with what was at hand and lived close to the edge.  My dad could seemingly come up with a solution to any problem.  I thought my dad was the smartest person alive, which I realize, runs counter to what most kids today think of their parents once they reach their teens.  Give my dad a piece of haywire and a stick and he could fix just about anything.  He was a genius at starting an engine regardless of what kind it was.  If an engine wouldn’t start it was either a fuel or electrical problem.  To check if an engine had a spark, just give it a crank with one hand while grabbing the spark plug with the other.  No spark?  Then, try a new plug and if that doesn’t work, check the points and it should run.  It has a spark?  Yes. Then remove plug, pour gas into spark plug hole, insert plug, and crank.  She still won’t start; clean needle valve and it should run.  Yes I still use most of the remedies to start a stubborn power saw or lawn mower, but I will never, take hold of a spark plug, I repeat never.  I remember accidentally touching my arm on an exposed spark plug with the engine running and it felt like a mule kicked me in the arm.

I can remember coming home after school and quickly change clothes so I could go out and help dad and Roy working back of our house.  Dad ran the steam donkey that had been converted to a gas machine and I helped Roy on the rigging. The guy on the rigging had to wrap the thirty-five foot chokers around the logs so the donkey-puncher could haul them into the water to be boomed up.  After they were boomed into a Stewart raft the tug would come and tow them to a mill in town.  It was always a high day when a boom was finished and sent to town, as that meant in a few weeks, the logs would be sold and dad would receive a check so Roy and the rest of us could be paid.  It was always a hand to mouth existence for most Gyo loggers so payday was something to remember.

One of the neatest logging machines my dad eventually acquired, was an ancient crawler tractor for skidding logs, called a Caterpillar Sixty, to me it was so cool. Caterpillar last produced it in 1931 but there were still quite a few in existence back then.

I can still see it blowing smoke rings when it was first started.  It would blow rings into the air, by the dozens and they would drift off endlessly.

To start the engine a steel bar called a Johnson bar, about five feet long was placed in one of several holes in the flywheel.  The secret was to pull the bar with all of your might and spin the flywheel fast enough to start the engine.  If the engine started the steel rod would disengage with out any mishap, but if the engine perchance back-fired, which it did from time to time, it would throw the bar against the large gas tank with such force that it would go flying and whoa to anyone standing in its way.  I saw the bar go sailing past dad on enough occasions to conclude that it was not something I ever wanted to do.

22 Cat Food Ain’t What I Wana Be

One morning shortly before Roy and Marg left, Marg comes over all excited; you could tell she had something important to say, as she could hardly wait to get started.  She was a real talker anyway.   It seems that Roy had taken his bicycle and had gone to the Surge Narrow store for supplies the night before.  The roads on Read Island if you could call them roads were narrow dirt not quite one lane just wide enough in most places for a small car.  At this particular time there were no cars on the Island but you could do all right on a bicycle with what we used to call balloon tires.  Mountain bikes had not yet been invented.

For his return trip home Roy wore a headlamp and carried his supplies in his backpack.  The headlamp gave an adequate beam to see down the lonely, pitch-black trail through the forest.  Traveling along the last stretch before home he thought he heard a rhythmic padding sound like something flapping or a tire’s rhythmic rubbing on something. He dismissed his concern and carried on as it was late and he was anxious to get home.  It was just when his thoughts had settled some, when from out of nowhere something hit him from the back, catching his backpack as it flew by, and knocking him flying.  He landed with quite a thud but was fortunate not to get seriously hurt.  Quickly scrambling to his feet he furtively looked in every direction as his headlamp cast a dim glow into the brush on either side of the trail.  The terror in his heart reached a high note only matched by the disappointed screams of a cougar that had missed its prey.  The fear ran up Roy’s spine as the eyes of the cougar glowed back at him from the light of his lamp. “ This is not good,” Roy is thinking, then, it was gone.  With the fear still raging in his heart he quickly found his bicycle and tore off down the trail with his heart still pounding.  When Roy came rushing into the house as white as a sheet and slamming the door quickly behind him, Marg knew that he had had a close encounter with something and cried out, “Honey what happened to you?”  ”You look like you just saw a ghost.”   Roy exclaimed, “You won’t believe how lucky I was.  I was so close to becoming cat food that I could smell it.  I think I can still smell it?”  Marg says, “But it doesn’t smell like cat food to me.”  So while Roy took a bath to get rid of the smell he told Marg in detail his close encounter with the cougar, and they both had a good laugh to relieve the fear and tension of the moment.

Eventually Roy and Marg moved away because dad could not keep Roy working steady enough.  I think I missed Marg and Roy when they left for Kelsey Bay where he put into practice the skills of the logging trade that my dad had taught him.  It was only years later after I had left Read Island and the memories of Bird Cove that I looked him and Marg up, but that was even now years ago and I often wander how things went with him and Marg through the years.

21 Roy & Marg a Good Man & a Good Woman

I will always remember the day Roy came to our island from the prairies to work for my dad, and brought his good wife and two daughter’s Marilyn and Monty.  Marg was a big prairie girl well over two hundred pounds and loved to talk.  She used to come over each day, and talk my mom’s leg off.  I can still remember my mom complaining to dad about it.  I don’t blame Marg, as the island must have been quite a shock to her.  It is one thing if you are a man and have a job to go too, but to come from the civilized world and be stuck in a shake shack 24/7 would be quite a test of the spirit.

Roy and Marg with their kids lived for several years in our shake shack while Roy learned to be a logger.  I remember it was my dad who said, “Never hire a man who smokes and wears a belt.”  The first time I heard him say that was because of Earl, a young fellow, who dad paid to help with the building of our new house.  Even though Roy smoked I am not so sure but I think he probably wore a belt too. So dad hired Roy anyway as he was after all my uncles brother.  Between smokes Roy wasn’t a bad worker.

I will never forget some time later when I took Marg to the store.  I took my responsibility as a chauffer seriously and as we both got into the boat I saw that Marg was comfortably seated.  I untied and pushed off the boat.   It was a 17, foot clinker built cedar skiff with a flat bottom.  For an engine it had a 9-horse power Wisconsin that sat mid-stern and required a rope wound around a groove in the flywheel to start the engine.  Standing with my back to the gunwale of the boat I wrapped the rope around the groove in the flywheel, and pulled with all my might.  This was something I was used to doing as I had used the boat many times before to run errands for the family.  Not giving it much thought I pulled as hard as I could expecting the engine to take off on the third or fourth pull.  To my amazement and the horror of Marg, without warning the starting rope broke with such suddenness that I was thrown head over backwards into the water.  To keep myself from going completely out of the boat and into the water I kept my legs hooked over the gunwale of the boat.  So here I am feet and legs in the boat and the rest of me hanging upside down and backwards in the water.  I must say Marg and I had a good laugh.  After I ran back to the house to put on some dry cloths, we left for the store.

20 A Cougar is a Good Cougar But Not Until Dead

The following event is what eventually turned my imaginary fears into reality.  It all began after a busy day when everyone in the house was fast asleep.   My dad was suddenly awakened with a loud growling sound from outside the bedroom window.   Not sure what the sound might be he immediately jumped out of bed and grabbled the flashlight that he kept on his night table and peered out past the raspberry patch.  Mom who in the meantime was awakened by the commotion said, “Gervase what is going on?”  My dad replied, “I can’t see well because of the raspberry patch but I think a cougar might have just killed a deer beyond the fence.”  Mom replied,  “Don’t think about going out now in the dark, wait until daylight.”

 Dad heartily agreed and the next morning there in the grass just beyond the fence dad could see clearly the scuffle between the cougar and a deer.  It seems that the cougar had won the encounter and grabbling the deer in its strong jaws had dragged it up the steep slope behind the house and through the apple orchard. Here the cougar had dropped the deer in a small hollow, covering it with leaves until its return to feed on its kill the following evening.

Us kids thought this was pretty cool as my dad and Uncle let us go out and see the tracks of the cougar where it had killed the deer, and where it had covered it for its return meal behind the apple orchard.

We all waited impatiently for evening when the cougar would return to feed.  My dad not having a gun carried an axe, and my Uncle a 22.  The normal weapon for hunting cougar’s in those days would be to carry a 30-30.  Crazy or not, off my dad and Uncle went to get themselves a cougar.  David and Dawna and I were dying to go along but my dad said “Forget it, you kids can come no farther then the orchard.”  “Please dad, please, why can’t we?” “I will not say it again, you can go no farther.” My dad said.  With that my dad and uncle took off and we waited very impatiently until they returned.

I can still picture my dad and Uncle as they climbed the hill into the forest behind the orchard, followed by Uncle’s mutt Skipper. Unknown to everyone Skipper was to play the biggest part in the expedition.

They had not gone very far with Skipper hot on the cougar’s scent when Skipper started barking like crazy and off he went with my uncle and dad running till winded to keep up. Skipper had spooked the   cougar away from his meal and was chasing it frantically through the brush.  Little did the cougar realize that with one swipe of its paw it could end poor Skipper’s existence, but instead kept running until it found a tree large enough to climb.  In a matter of moments my uncle and dad caught up with Skipper and the treed cougar, which was now glaring down at the dog with a menacing stare.

My uncle quickly raised his 22 and with the first shot the cougar fell out of the tree.  It fell with a thud at my dad ‘s feet and he courteously stepped aside feeling that this was not the time to use his axe, and that valor could be best displayed on another day and in a different venue.  My uncle never paused in his shooting and kept firing until the magazine of his 22 was empty and the cougar lay still.  This gave Skipper the opportunity he had been waiting for and he victoriously started biting at the cougar.

It was with great excitement that we greeted my uncle and dad as they came dragging the cougar back down to the orchard.   It was not a big cat by known standards but we all marched down from the orchard to the house in triumph, where the rest of our families waited.

The next day my uncle and dad had their pictures taken with the cougar laying in front of them, its head held up with a forked stick.  Of course Skipper was in the picture and so was the gun in the background propped up against a tree.  My dad declined to have his axe as part of the picture.  My Uncle however, as it was his trophy, had the hide sent to town where it was made into a rug with the cougar’s head as part of it.  I thought it kind of cool to see the rug on my Uncle’s living room floor, with the cougar’s cunning grin that seemed to say, “your turn is coming,” every time I visited my aunt and uncle.

Uncle Irwin with Skipper and my dad.

19 Never Fear Jim is Here

As a small child on Read Island I was not overly concerned by the fact that wildlife of every kind made the island their home.  I knew that predators such as cougars and black bears also roamed the forests on the island but I was not particularly concerned.  What really gave me concern was the dark.  I can remember that after turning the light out in my room at night I would dive under the covers.   And of course you had to be especially careful about putting you legs over the bed as you never knew what malevolent creature living there might attack.  I can still feel the tingles of terror run up and down my spine as I went on errands outside after dark.  It was sometime later that certain happenings beyond my imagination awakened in me a fear for some of the wild animals that lived on our island.

 

I remember the story of how Jim Lambert as a boy, chased a cougar off in broad daylight.  Jim being one of the mildest men I have ever known makes what happened next hard to believe. Out of the corner of his eye Jim notices a movement in the brush not far from where the cows were feeding.  To his amazement he saw a cougar creeping along in a crouched position readying to spring on their best milk cow. This was something Jim would not stand for but the only thing Jim was able to find for his defense was a stick.  Knowing what happened next is amazing as Jim walked slowly toward the cougar waving the stick and shouting, “Shoo cougar! Shoo cougar! Shoo cougar!”  And would you believe it, the cougar took off.  Much to Jim’s relief.

18 Tipton’s My First Super Store

Moving to Bird Cove put us just about central to all business and social activities on the island.  The main road on the island now ran past our front door.  It was now only a short walk or bicycle ride to either of the two schools, or the three stores on the island.  The Read Island General Store and Post Office on the south side of the island was where we got most of our mail and supplies.  On the north side of the island were Frost’s Post Office at Surge Narrows, but by far the best store was Tipton’s General Store just up the channel from Frost’s Post Office.

Mr. Tipton and his wife added their uniqueness to the blend of island folk and thus became an integral part of my growing up life on Read Island.  It was said they had left the civilized world at Mrs. Tipton’s insistence to get Mr. Tipton off the Scotch whiskey that was about to do him in.   Her intensions were to be applauded but were to no avail as his supply of booze never lessened as it was renewed weekly with the Union Steamship freighter’s run from Vancouver.  In keeping with his love of booze and quite often-inebriated state, someone had rudely written on the wall of the freight shed where all could read, “Toothless Tipton’s Tavern”.   This was unfair as Mr. Tipton was a man of integrity and did run a good store in spite of his weakness for spirits.

 He lived with his wife up from the beach on a steep hill above the store. Part of the walk to the house was managed by a set of steep stairs that provided access to the store, which clung to the shore atop a series of pilings to give it support.  I can still hear him coming down from his house huffing and puffing. To hear him climb the stairs caused even more concern because he had a bad heart.  His most famous feature however was his very large, very red curved bulbous nose, seconded only by his “huh, huh, huh’s”, which he uttered continuously.

I loved his store as it had an amazing variety of items such as, groceries, hardware, clothing, shoes, gumboots, paint, and building material.  And that was besides all of the mysterious things that he kept out of sight.   I especially liked to smell the strange mix of all these things as I loved come in to buy peppermint candies; 10 cents could buy you quite a bagful.  What I liked even more was a Macintosh toffee bar, or an O’Henry bar for 6 cents.  Orange Crush was also a treat at 6 cents for a real glass bottle of the stuff.

At Tipton’s when you bought cottage cheese it came in a large container and Mrs. Tipton would scoop out your order onto heavy brown waxed paper placed on a large scale.  I liked to watch her fold the paper over and tie it with a string for you to carry home.  It was also fun to watch her cut off a pound or two of cheddar cheese from a huge round and wrap it the same way.  It is with fondness that I remember the many times that I went to their store after school to satisfy my longing for sweets.

Tipton's store where I bought my peppermint candies as a kid.

17 Traveling to School at the Surge Narrows

The roads on the island were only roads if you stretched your imagination.  The ground had been cleared of derby and the stumps removed but they were very narrow, rough, very muddy and not very wide, more likened to a wide trail. To cross the many streams that crisscrossed the road at various places large hand split planks had been laid on logs as under girding support.  The planks however were extremely uneven in thickness and very lose.

The first year that my little sister Karen started school I rode her on my bicycle crossbar.  This meant that I had to peddle like a mad man down the little hill and across the bridge so I could make it up the other side as far as possible before having to get off to push. Usually it was too steep to make it very far with Karen on the crossbar.  On this particular occasion we flew down the hill and hit the uneven planks at blinding speed, snapping the forks off right above the wheel. This sent both of us flying over the handlebars.  Karen hit the ground first and began howling like she was killed.  The speed sent me flying over top of her and I landed with a thud.  It appeared neither of us had broken our necks.  My fear for her quickly subsided as I realized she could not be hurt to seriously because she was making such a racket.

We carried on to school by foot after dusting ourselves off, and it was some weeks before the bike was fixed and we could ride again.

One cool thing that happened during the last few years at Surge Narrows was learning to drive a model A.  My dad picked up an old ’32 model A when I was about fourteen and after a bit of practice I learned to drive it quite proficiently.  It had a manual choke and a lever that advanced the spark.  I thought it was a cool machine.  It came with a rumble seat, which my dad promptly chopped off, and in its place put a box to make it like a pick-up to carry stuff.  Traveling to school was now a snap as we would all climb in and off we would go, getting there in a matter of minutes.  No more fear of crashing my bicycle as I flew over the bumpy bridges at warp speeds.

16 Surge Narrows School Days

The transfer to the Surge Narrows school was a bit of a shock the first day as it was a new one room steel Quonset hut with thirty six students from grades one to eight; but all under the firm command of Miss Steele, a good looking nineteen year old girl just out of normal school. She was an in control kind of person and ran a tight ship, standing for no nonsense. I secretly kind of liked her, as she was young enough to appear good-looking to me even as a kid. Maybe it was because of that, that I got along with her and kept out of trouble.

Teacher number two, Miss Featherstonehaugh, was a thorn in the side, but not my worst nightmare.  Even though I was sometimes in trouble, the students liked me.  The first scrape with the law was during practice for our Christmas program that year.  Some of us were mimicking a song while she was practicing it with another group.  I unwisely did it one to many times and her wrath descended on me.  She came flying over in a mini rage and broke the ruler she had been using on my hand.  Some weeks later her sensitivity to me had reached a breaking point during class when we had doubled up for an assignment.  My inability to curb my talking was again my undoing, when after a few warnings she unexpectedly called me to the front of the classroom, hauled out the dreaded strap and laid it on me. The pain from the strapping was insignificant, what really hurt was the pain and humiliation of having it done in front of the class.  And to humiliate me further, after sending me back to my seat for a few minutes, where I had already concluded that anymore talking would be unwise, she suddenly and without notice sent me outside to sit on the step.

Of all the teachers through those five years at the Surge Narrows school the last one was my worst nightmare.  It is far better to be tolerated or even disliked, but to be the teacher’s pet that is really “the worst nightmare,” It means that before long you are despised by many of the other students and even your once best friends.  Miss Muir was an old maid and for some reason loved little Bobbie Betts. Slowly after she started to teach at Surge Narrows my once best friend Wayne Anderson gradually turned on me and in so doing turned the whole school against me.  He was the leader of the lets make fun of Bobby movement along with Glen Fair.  Most of the other kids would have been indifferent to my fate, but as Wayne, and his friend Glen, and maybe at times, Bruce, in the shadows, turned on me the rest of the kids followed their example. What saved me from any form of physical abuse was that I was big enough physically to take any of them on, but I wouldn’t because I was taught that a good Christian boy would not fight.  I remember getting into a fight with Paul Poitras however and I took him down during a lets pick on Bobby moment, because he was the most convenient to confront, but I never had any hard feelings against Paul then or now.  As I think back on those last couple of years in grade school I wander if I had whomped the lot of them my relationship with them may have turned out better.  I can remember that last year and a half sitting all alone eating my lunch with kids all around.  I used to dread going to school but would not let them win in their verbal threatening.

I look back on most of my time at the Surge Narrows school with fondness as during my first few years there I enjoyed the kids in class and on the playing field.   Scrub was one of my favorite games and we played it every day during our lunch break.  We would eat as fast as we could to get out on the play field as quick as possible.

Even though most of the kids in school were from homes where their father’s were loggers or fishermen there was very little swearing on the play field. The worst I ever heard was when Miss Muir got into an altercation with Bruce and he called her a SOB so everyone could hear, and our mouths dropped open in amazement.  What his punishment was escapes me, probably not much as by now Miss Muir had already lost control of the more defiant students.

Christmas time was one of my favorite times at school and a time that I looked forward to with great anticipation. I loved being in the Christmas play.  Some times I even got to sing. I remember Dawna and I sang a duet and I can even recall playing the part of a king in one of the plays.  The play escapes me but I will never forget my last line, which happened to be the closing line of the play, “I love creampuffs,” and I said it with all of the fervor I could muster.  I loved everything about Christmas especially when the Rev. Alan Greene, the skipper of the Mission Vessel the Columbia, came by, and dressed up as Santa and passed out presents to each student after the play.  It was even a bigger hit when he would fire up his generator and show black and white silent films.  This would be the only time each year that we would see a film.  I think our parents loved the movies as much as we did.

15 Walking to School in the Snow

After our year at the Read Island School my parents decided to transfer us to the Surge Narrows School on the north side of the island.  This meant that the Read Island School had to close down, but by switching it saved us about a mile of biking. The winter of ’47, as well as the next four or five winters were particular brutal with lots of snow, but this saved us a mile of walking through the deep snow and cold.  When we walked we would walk in single file, I, my sister Dawna, then Karen, and David somewhere in the line, each placing our foot in the steps of the one in front.  This was much easier them stepping through fresh snow in a separate track

I remember a big snowfall, when we were still going to the Read Island school and the snow was particularly deep, so dad took us by boat, to the amazement of even our teacher, Miss Evans.  Even this was sometimes very difficult as the bay would freeze over and we had to break ice to get out. The ice would cut through the hull of the boat if not broken first.   Sometimes the ice was to thick to break so we had to stay home until a trail was tramped through the snow first by an adult.  This was one of the things to consider for us switching to the Surge Narrows school.

I always went to bed with great anticipation if the snow was falling heavy with the wind howling in the eves because I knew we would be able to stay home from school the next day.   We would get up with excitement and I would look at my mom and say “Do we have to go to school today?” And when mom nodded her head, “no” we would jump with delight as we knew it was a day of fun sliding down the big hill in front of my cousin David’s house.  Dad had made us all ski’s and a real toboggan as well that had a front sled to turn with your feet.  We would come in well after dark but not before mom would finally demand that we come in for supper.  Mom was not someone to turn a deaf ear to.

14 A Day I don’t Want to Repeat Ever Again

 One of the highlights of my year at the Read Island School was when I played Little Black Sambo in the school Christmas play and wore a black stocking pulled over my head, with only my face showing.  For hair, black wool yarn was pocked through to resemble the curly hair of a little black boy. My hands and face were covered with charcoal.  I can still remember one of my key lines.  “I love pancakes” I used to love being in school plays as a child.

One thing about that school year that I will never forget and it had nothing to do with school except that is where it took place.  When I first realized something was out of place it was about an hour before the closing bell rang.  I asked Miss Evans if I could go to the out-house which was out behind the school, and I got there none to soon.  I made it back to the school and was more then ready for another trip when the closing bell finally rang.  This time I retched my guts out.  My sister, David, Ronnie, and I had barely gotten on our bicycles for the ride home when I hastily got off my bicycle violently sick again. This happed so repeatedly that I became too weak to ride my bicycle any farther.  I got home through the kindness of some acquaintances the Upton’s.  Mr. Upton who took me home in his small open boat and I can still remember sitting on the seat with my head resting on the gunwale of the boat retching in agony the rest of my way home.

My mother thanked Mr. Upton for his kindness.  And shaking with fever and so weak I could hardly walk; she brought me into the house where I immediately hung my head over the toilet to continue my retching.  It was some hours later before I started feeling well enough to climb in to the tub for a warm bath, and oh it felt so good as it pulled the poison out of me.  This was one experience that I hoped I would never have to go through again.  The only explanation for this episode was possibly from a venison sandwich that I had eaten for my lunch.  The question still remains, why did my sister Dawna escape, as she had the same lunch.

13 Read Island School Days

 As a kid my schooling began when I was 6 years old, but normal it was not.  My first year was at a little log cabin school right in the middle of the island.  It had been around some time even by ‘44 when I attended, and by then it was very old and run down, as it had been built by the first crop of settlers to homestead on Read Island.  There was only a half dozen kids counting all of the grades and one of them was a native lad by the name of Gordie McMillan, he would come up to you put his arm around you like a buddy and then unaware to you, place his leg behind you and flip you over on your back.

Because of the difficulty of getting to school that first year, I only attended briefly before my mother pulled me out.  The half-mile by boat and a mile down a narrow trail, through the dark forest, infested with cougars was more then my mother could handle.  She did not want her little Bobby eaten by a cougar. This caused the decision to send my sister and I off to our grandparents, and it was not until our move to Bird Cove that our schooling began on Read Island. 

I will never forget my first full year at the Read Island school with Miss Evans, an old maid schoolteacher who read from the Bible every morning but for story time after our noon lunch break she would read adventure stories and exciting accounts from the Greek mythologies which I found quite fascinating.

That year we all played our own version of football a game we really loved to play except for Ian who was different and didn’t fit in.   I have often thought about Ian over the years.  You see Ian today would be considered mentally handicapped or we might say had a learning disability.  I have felt sorry for Ian but realized that I learned a valuable lesson about accepting the less fortunate because he came into my life.  Today we used terms that show respect for those thus challenged but back then he was referred to as an idiot as he had a pointed head and would easily lose control, and in his excitement poke his fingers up his nose and whinny like a horse.  Because of this he was subject to much teasing which bothered me and I vowed to respect those less fortunate then myself.

The school had an old gramophone that we all loved to play.  As it was a one-room schoolhouse we could only play the gramophone during the noon hour.  We all loved to gather round and play the half dozen or so records that we had but the one we used to play over and over again was “Love Letters in the Sand.”  As the school had no electricity, in order to get the gramophone to work you had to wind it up with a crank. The tone arm had a needle the size of a darning needle and the music came out of a large built in horn, it is amazing to me that it made music at all.  I thought it was a cool machine.

12 Finally a Logger, and Not Just a Logger's Son

The summer I turned nine was a memorable point in my life because this was the year my sister and I had just come home from the year of school spent with my grandparents at Mission. This was the first time my dad gave me the opportunity to work in the woods. My dad had struck out on his own, inviting my uncle Irwin and a friend of theirs Jim Lambert, to become his partners in a company that was to eventually be called “Bird Cove Logging”. This was driven from necessity as Forest Lambert the son-in-law of the Tanaka's, the family that had rescued our family from the brink of poverty, had forced the company into bankruptcy.  Forest had to take over the running of the camp when his in-laws were hauled off to a concentration camp in central BC, because they were of Japanese decent. Forest was a good man but not good at managing a logging company, and now Dad was without work.

Dad and his partners were able to locate an old steam donkey, which even then was obsolete. The old steam pot was still in running condition, and could it really haul, logs that is. The one major drawback this machine had was that it had a voracious appetite for wood. This kept one man busy with a power saw cutting firewood.

To say my dad made me cut wood for a steam donkey at eight years of age would not be telling the truth, but I do remember him giving me the handles of an old Mall power saw, and a monster it was, with a cutting blade about 5 feet long. I remember him starting the cut and them giving me the saw to hold. It just about rattled my teeth out, but it was enough to infect me with the wood virus and eventually I became one of the logger’s elite brigade, known as fallers.

Not only was I given a chance at running a power saw when I was only eight, but also my first job in the woods.  I was an eight year-old whistle-punk. The whistle-punk was the guy who relayed the signal from the chocker-man to the man running the steam donkey.  This was a very important job because if the signals were not given correctly, the “chocker-man” could get killed.  If the “chocker-man” hollered one “Hey” the whistle punk would jerk the wire once and if the “but-rigging” was stopped it would go but if going, it would stop.  The wire indirectly activated a horn that the “donkey-puncher” could hear. The pay was theoretically $1 per hour, but being the boss’s son was not always a good thing because getting paid was dependent on the availability of funds after all of the bills were paid. I do remember, however, of getting paid at least once as a kid and of buying myself a winter parka and presents for the rest of the family as it was Christmas time.

Steam donkey that Joy Lambert operated

11 Angels Must be for Real, But not David

 It was about two years later after we had moved from the head of Evans Bay to Bird Cove Bay on Read Island, and shortly after my sister and I had returned from living with Grandma Betts, that the three of us spent the next few summers swimming every afternoon as the tide came in. The operative word here is swim, meaning none of us new how.  But we used to have a great time playing in the salt water in front of our house and around the next bay by ourselves, out of site from both our mothers. The beach went out for about a quarter mile and it was mostly a black gooey mud, which made a squishy sucking sound when you walked and was good at sucking gumboots right off your feet.  Before you knew it you were walking with only your socks in the black gooey ooze.  The mud also made for great mud fights, between David, Dawna and I. Nobody ever won but it was sure fun to sling great gobs of the gooey black stuff at one another.  The best thing however was that when the tide went out the mud got really hot by the sun.  When the oncoming tide rolled over the hot mud it raised the cold salt water to bathtub temperatures, and it was lovely to play in.  And play we did on old logs and pieces of wood and such, making rafts to push around with poles.

I always was somewhat envious of David as in my mind he was a bit more daring them I was and he was also a better aim with a rock, and that bugged me. I had proof of that and a scar to prove it. Well before I knew it he had taught himself to swim, before I did, and that really bothered me too. Before to long Dawna had taught herself to swim also, and here I was still too afraid to put my face in the water.  At this point I was feeling a bit negative about the whole thing but still afraid to put my head under the water, when as luck would have it I fell off my raft head first into the water and came up swimming.  I wish all my prayers were answered that easily.

David was really not a bad kid but was the kind of kid that would get into trouble mostly because he never thought of the consequences.

One day when Dawna, David and I were playing outside.  David comes over to my sister and told her to put her hand in his pocket, and feel the little mouse.  Dawna not thinking trustingly did so, and quickly pulled her hand out and ran home and told mom what she had found and it wasn’t a mouse.  Mother immediately told my Aunt, and did David ever get in trouble and a lecture on what nice boys should and should not do to or with girls.  David never did do anything close to that again.  Of course this was a big deal in my mother’s eyes as even legitimate sex was only to be tolerated.  I think she had sex three times, one for each of us kids.

Even though we don’t keep in touch to often I still visit David from time to time, I like to think that because of me he turned out OK, or maybe I should say in spite of me.