This pic, looking up at the Staff Bunkhouse at Juskatla in the '70's brings back some memories.
As well, when I think back on my "institutionalized" times I go all the way back to basic training in the Navy in 1964, at Cornwallis, Nova Scotia.
From there it was to Nelles Block at CFB Esquimalt (then HMCS but now CFB) while I did 10 months in Comm School, learning to be a Radio Operator. From there it was a year serving on HMCS Sussexvale, an old WWII Frigate. She was paid off in September of 1966 and I went to HMCS Aldergrove, in the Fraser Valley. It was a ship-shore station and we worked all Commonwealth ships, both naval and commercial, as well as anyone else who called us.
From there I went to Heber Lodge, where all the single guys lived when they were building the Gold River Pulp Mill. That was in March of 1967, just as I was getting out of the Navy, and it sat where the ballpark is now. Marling Field I think they call it.
In 1969 I went to the Logging Division at Gold River for Tahsis Company running the warehouse.
It was there I was washing up one Saturday morning about 8:30 AM or so when the Bullcook walked through and said; "Quite a bit of excitement last night eh?"
"Oh," said I. "I must have missed it. What happened?"
"You mean you didn't hear anything last night around midnight? he asked.
"Nope," I replied. "Slept like a log. What happened?"
"Bunkhouse D burned down," he answered. "Killed a guy too."
Turns out that one of two brothers had flipped out and set the bunkhouse on fire which killed his brother. The firetruck came along as well as the cops and I guess there was quite the commotion for a couple of hours.
This all happened less than 100 feet from my bunkhouse too.
I slept right through it.
A few years later I was hired as Warehouse Supervisor for M&B at Juskatla and I lived in the staff bunkhouse pictured above. My neighbor was Gabe, the Head Cook, although he was actually a French trained Chef and produced the best cookhouse food I've ever had. He'd get up early every morning and personally cook your breakfast for you as you came down the line. When you reached him your breakfast was hot off the griddle for you. Most other places cooked up ahead and used warmers for the eggs and pancakes etc.
Not Gabe.
He believed the crew deserved a good hot fresh cooked breakfast so that's what he gave them.
From there I went to BCFP Port Renfrew where I first lived in the bunkhouse used by the Forestry Crew, which is what I started working on, planting trees, powersaw spacing plantations and the like. That crew was pretty crazy and one of the last of the company crews as things evolved to contract forestry not long after those days. By 1977 I was running the warehouse there and living in the Staff Bunkhouse, where I spent the next five years or so before we closed Port Renfrew and moved everything to the old Gordon River camp in 1983.
I finally got caught in the mid '80's downsizing that was so prevalent then and didn't work in a camp again until September of 1986, when I went to Eden Lake for Husby TRucking, soon to become Husby Forest Products. We stayed at the old Naden Harbor Timber camp right at Eden Lake and the old CIPA Industries camp down at Naden Harbor became Perigrine Lodge not long after that.
I'm of the opinion that BC loggers were some of the best fed guys around back in those days, and at a very small cost to them too.
I think IWA guys paid $2.50 per day for room and board for many years.
I recall in Juskatla that I was charged $30.00 per month for my room and board but I was paid an extra $25.00 per month called "Location Allowance," so my net cost was $5.00 per month. I had a single room with a TV and a fridge. I shared a washroom and shower with a young engineer whose name I can't recall while Gabe, on my other side, had two rooms to himself. One he lived in and one he used to refinish furniture in. He had also decorated his room with all kinds of things he'd picked up on his travels and he had the most cosmic stereo set-up with the weirdest turntable I'd ever seen. It was a fore-runner of CD's and he'd seen the prototype at a show in London England, found out there were six of them made but they weren't yet for sale, decided he wanted one anyway so travelled to Denmark and harrassed the head office of the company that made them until they sold him one of the prototypes.....for $1,600.00.........for a turntable.......in 1973.
He then bought what was basically a CBC studio amplifier, a transformer to ensure steady power from the diesel powerplant was installed for him and he hooked it all up to a couple of giant speakers with a pair of graphic equalizers to smooth things out.
This was all installed in one of those rooms off to the right looking at the picture above, and I spent quite a few nights in his room having a drink or two and listening to all kinds of music on that system. It ran from a photo-electric eye on the arm and when he turned it on the arm dropped down to a very close distance from the magnetic grooves on the record as it tracked across the record to measure it so as to know what speed to rotate at. A digital readout showed you exactly what speed the record was turning and, as there was no needle, nothing ever actually touched the record. The magnetic energy from the record was converted to sound with absolutely no distortion at all and was really pure.
Classic guy and I think he has his own restaurant somewhere in eastern BC nowadays.
The camp at Renfrew was ok but the waste from the cookhouse was incredible and I always thought we had the fattest dump bears on the coast because of that.
They used to hang around the bunkhouses all the time and I've chased a few of them off the porch so I could get in the bunkhouse when coming off afternoon shift there.
Had a major bear problem at the Gold River dump near Heber Lodge once but in 1967 a Game Warden and a couple of cops and a few other guys went to the dump one night and shot six or seven of them. They did that kind of thing back then but you'd never be allowed to do it these days. Sounded like a battle ground when all the shooting started, that's for sure.
I never worked on any of the float camps that frequent our coast but I claim my Navy time makes up for that.
Sometimes I think I spent half my life living the institutionalized lifestyle.
Fortunately none of the institutions were penal...........or mental.
Gotta go now, but.....
Take care.
