It was shortly after this that a friend of the family, Gilbert Joanne, found me a job where he worked on the booming ground at MacMillan and Bloedel’s Iron River Division, just down the road a mile from where we lived. I thought this was a cool place to work as I now worked as a boom-man for MacBlo, the biggest logging company in Canada.
This was the first time I had ever worked in the blue-collar environment of the rough and ready world of a logger. My dad being a Christian never used a swear word at home or in the bush so I couldn’t believe what I heard the first day on the job. The language I heard that first day made the “f word” seem like praise music sung by a choir. I heard more references to various bodily functions and alternate names for the sexual anatomy them I ever dreamed existed. I remember one of my pike pole carrying buddies, who would frequently stop in the middle of a sentence to let out such a long string of cuss words, that when he finally continued, you had forgotten what he had started to say.
The boom-man’s job was interesting as you had to stow the logs, but-top, but-top in a large raft, called a Stewart Raft, so they could be towed to Vancouver by a tug. This meant walking sometimes on very small logs, trying to keep your balance much like a tightrope walker, as many of the logs were very small and the large pike pole used to push and pull the logs into place, had to be used as a balancing pole.
I remember losing my balance one time and falling into the water, try swimming with heavy calk boots that weigh five pounds each. What made the job even more difficult was the smaller logs could not hold you up, so you had to run across them really fast to keep from sinking. One time I ran as fast as I could and finally ran out of logs, I finally had to place my pike pole across the logs to keep from going under.
My friend Gilbert gave me the job of wench operator, which I enjoyed doing very much, as it gave me a sense of accomplishment. There was a certain amount of skill required to know when to crack the throttle wide open as everything depended on timing. If I misjudged in the timing, the swifter and rider logs could not be chained into place properly.
I was fortunate that I never screwed when running the wench, but I was even luckier when I accidentally cracked a big guy on the side of the head with my pike pole and just about knocked him into the water. The only reason he didn’t come after me was because he was probably to dazed to do anything about it. All I can say is that I was lucky that it was not my swearing buddy that I had whacked in the head or it might have turned out differently.
Just when things were going really great and I thought my worries were finally over, I would have to adjust my plans, a strike was called and I was again out of work.
This was the first time I had ever worked in the blue-collar environment of the rough and ready world of a logger. My dad being a Christian never used a swear word at home or in the bush so I couldn’t believe what I heard the first day on the job. The language I heard that first day made the “f word” seem like praise music sung by a choir. I heard more references to various bodily functions and alternate names for the sexual anatomy them I ever dreamed existed. I remember one of my pike pole carrying buddies, who would frequently stop in the middle of a sentence to let out such a long string of cuss words, that when he finally continued, you had forgotten what he had started to say.
The boom-man’s job was interesting as you had to stow the logs, but-top, but-top in a large raft, called a Stewart Raft, so they could be towed to Vancouver by a tug. This meant walking sometimes on very small logs, trying to keep your balance much like a tightrope walker, as many of the logs were very small and the large pike pole used to push and pull the logs into place, had to be used as a balancing pole.
I remember losing my balance one time and falling into the water, try swimming with heavy calk boots that weigh five pounds each. What made the job even more difficult was the smaller logs could not hold you up, so you had to run across them really fast to keep from sinking. One time I ran as fast as I could and finally ran out of logs, I finally had to place my pike pole across the logs to keep from going under.
My friend Gilbert gave me the job of wench operator, which I enjoyed doing very much, as it gave me a sense of accomplishment. There was a certain amount of skill required to know when to crack the throttle wide open as everything depended on timing. If I misjudged in the timing, the swifter and rider logs could not be chained into place properly.
I was fortunate that I never screwed when running the wench, but I was even luckier when I accidentally cracked a big guy on the side of the head with my pike pole and just about knocked him into the water. The only reason he didn’t come after me was because he was probably to dazed to do anything about it. All I can say is that I was lucky that it was not my swearing buddy that I had whacked in the head or it might have turned out differently.
Just when things were going really great and I thought my worries were finally over, I would have to adjust my plans, a strike was called and I was again out of work.
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