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.
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