Working in Lumber Camps V - Summers 1946/47

Chapter V - The men who came to work in the Lumber Camps

Who were the men that worked in the lumber camps? There were of course a small core of skilled workers who operated the saws, graded the lumber, acted as foreman over the workers in the mill and out in the lumber yard, an office clerk, the blacksmith and the all important camp cook. Many of these men had a wife and children living in a nearby cabin or in a town somewhere. The balance of workers were quite a mixed bag including I recall a trapper escaping from the woods during the summer months, other men with a history dating back to the Great Depression of hitching onto freight cars in search of menial jobs wherever they could find them, displaced people – the DP’s we called them – that had begun the migration from Europe that followed the end of WWII, Canadian men of Japanese origin and a few students, like myself and my friend Dick Fleming, who came up from the cities to work for the summer.

Let me tell you something about these men.

The trappers: These men lived in the forests year round. I have a picture of one of them that I took with my box camera when I worked in the camp. His name was Henri Levesque. In the summer when the black flies, mosquitoes and other biting insects arrived Henri would escape from the forest and find work in the Lumber Camps. In early October he would return to trapping. This meant returning to his camp on the banks of a river deep in the woods.. It was a simple log cabin with the clay mud from the riverbank placed in the cracks between the logs to keep out the cold. He was a skilled carpenter and using only his axe had cut the logs and planed them to make rough boards for the door, table, and shelves. From the camp he would set up trap lines in the woods to trap beavers and otters for their pelts. Before leaving for his camp he would drop into the local Indian reserve to pick up a strong Indian woman who had accompanied him for many years. She was his partner and helped him to set up and then look after the camp, kept a fire going because the temperatures would commonly drop to -20 C degrees or more, fish and gutted the animals he brought back to roast, cooked his meals, and skinned and hung out the animal pelts to dry. At night they would lie close together under blankets and furs to keep warm.

Henri was semi-literate, spoke French, English and a local Indian dialect and kept track of his money. I recall he had about one or two years of formal schooling. His worldly interest seemed to be limited to the forest and the wild life around him. I think he was a happy man in control of his life. He loved to talk with us about his experiences and adventures in the woods and these conversations were invariably filled with his good humour. He possessed the many skills required to survive and make a good living alone in the woods. He was a true entrepreneur. He could do anything with his axe and I recall while in the camp he made for us in a few minutes oars for the long boat and then hollowed out a dug out canoe. When it was hot at night in the lumber camp he would take his blankets and sleep outside, despite the swarming insects, rather than put up with the snoring and musty air in the bunkhouse. He wasn’t a drinker like most of the men I worked with, and managed to build up savings in the bank from selling his pelts and the money he earned in the camp. His dream for retirement was to go off with one of his Indian women and own a cabin not far from a town

He was clearly very intelligent and I wonder what kind of life he would have had if he had grown up in a middle class home and gone to school.

The Japanese: When Japan bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941 and joined with Germany to fight against the Allies the Canadian Government interned Japanese Canadians living in British Columbia because they were worried that they would become an internal threat to National Security. They were interned in work camps and their livelihood destroyed. These Canadians of Japanese descent were an industrious people and owned fishing boats, small farms and grocery stores and all of this was taken away from them and sold off at a fraction of its value. Many non Japanese Canadians benefited from this theft. The fact is they were exceptionally loyal Canadians and never at any time proved to be a threat to National Security. This is a disgraceful and criminal event in Canadian history that you must read about some day.

In 1946 and 1947 I met up with some of these Japanese who were working in the lumber camp after being released from internment. The men I met had been fishermen and owned boats on the West Coast. They were a quiet and relatively well-educated group who kept to themselves and were intent on working hard at bonus paying jobs to earn enough money to take up life again with their families somewhere in Canada.

One had been a judo instructor on the West Coast. He was a small wiry man, a few inches above five feet. One day a tall and tough looking man arrived in the camp and claimed he was Boston Blackie, a well known boxer. Actually radio had a detective series about Boston Blackie between 1944 and 1950 and this is where he probably picked up the name. Judging from the scars on his face and flattened nose he probably had been a boxer of sorts. In any case he was hired and joined a group of several men whose job was to peel the bark off logs that were to become railway ties, It was the highest paying bonus jobs in the camp.

Boston Blackie soon informed his fellow workers that they should pay him a share of their earnings or he would deal with them with his fists. This went on for several days because the men were afraid of him. Finally the Japanese man asked the men to let him look after it. He quietly went up to BB and told him bluntly that the men weren’t going to pay him anything. Boston took a mighty swing at the little Japanese who avoided the blow and then went to work on the big man with judo chops. In seconds Boston Blackie was unconscious and placed onto a passing box car resting for a few minutes on a railway siding. And that is how he left the camp never to be heard from again. I guess he never picked up his pay check and I wonder what became of him..

The Drifters: The largest group of men in the camp was between 40 and 55 and had a history of at best temporary work. Many had lived through the Depression years before World War II when millions of men in Canada were unemployed. They told me stories about hitching rides on freight trains and traveling across Canada looking for work wherever they could find it; sometimes during the harvests, or on road gangs from British Columbia to Nova Scotia and here in the lumber camps. Many would arrive with not much more than paper bags or a dilapidated suit case that carried their few worldly possessions. Some told me about a girl friend or wife and kids from long ago but with the life they were leading and without any money these were left behind and only dimly remembered. Many couldn’t read and count money. When they bought something they just handed someone money and took whatever change that was given back. I was even asked the question about where Europe is and asked if it was south of the camp somewhere.

They lived from paycheck to paycheck saving just enough to go into the nearest town to drink and look for a woman to spend time with. Many of them in a drunken state got into fights in town, usually about money or women, and the police would put them into the jail to sober up. It was a cycle I’m sure they repeated hundreds of times; it was a life of disappointment without hope and expectations. Listening to them talk on the front porch after work I learned that many of the men they fought with or stole from were their friends and they laughed about their jail time. They had few job skills other than what they had learned in these temporary jobs.

They were generally quiet and well behaved in the camp. The behaviour code of the camps was that you didn’t talk at the table, didn’t fight and get into arguments, or steal from each other while in the camp. If anyone stepped out of line they took justice into their own hands and it was rare that anyone did. I had a little experience with this. I was carrying in my wallet the picture of a girl I had been dating in Montreal. Another young man about my age looked into my wallet and paraded the picture around the camp as his girlfriend. When I confronted this young man some men nearby overheard our heated discussion and their response was, “Kid, I guess you are going to have to fight him to get it back”. He wasn’t any bigger than me so we fought and he returned the picture. Later we went fishing after work together.

Could they be violent? I guess the camp manager thought so because one day he entered the dining room when the men were eating. He said he had a simple message. “My teenage daughter will be staying with me for the summer. If any man crosses over the railway track to the side my house is on, for any reason, I will shoot him dead on site and I am a good shot.” He then went out and someone said, with heads nodding “Wow! I think he really means it.”

Dick Fleming and I saw one incident that led us to believe they shared an underlying potential for violence. One day we were working on the railway siding dragging railway ties into a box car. A rabbit appeared and one of the men threw his cant hook (a stick with a hook at the end that we used for dragging logs) at the rabbit and broke its leg. The men thought this was hilarious and in seconds we observed a group of man roaring with laughter as they beat the poor rabbit to death. You hear about how soldiers running amok have committed terrible crimes in Iraq and Vietnam and I often think back about that helpless rabbit.

The Students – We were treated like the others and if anything were tolerated as rookies who had a lot to learn. In that sense the trapper and some of the older men were quite fatherly and helpful to us. Our education didn’t count for much. Two students I recall were studying medicine and planned to commit their early career to working on the icebreaking ships that went into the Artic harbours. (I have a picture of one of these men carrying a log with me with us pointing in opposite directions). The Frontier college volunteer and ex Spitfire pilot I mentioned in Chapter V when he took charge when that poor worker was cut in two. I think he was a med student from Western. He worked full shifts like everyone else but in the evenings he sat around helping people to read and handle money. After a while I would help him One thing you had to be careful about was opening your big mouth and using your book knowledge, uninvited, to show off some things you knew about the world or even worse to correct someone who was passing on inaccurate information. Invariably you would be accused of being a liar. You will find in any work group someone they go to for answers even though they know nothing.

The DP’s (displaced people). The war in Europe and the Far East was over and millions wanted to leave their war torn regions to start a new life in a Canada. They were warmly welcomed and several million arrived in the years that followed. At that time the rule was that they had to serve some time for about two years away from the cities so they began to arrive in the mines and lumber camps. Many, if not most, had acquired skills like tradesmen, accountants and even having completed courses that would lead to professional degrees so they were just serving their time until they could return to the cities. Most were young and very hard workers. We saw just the early trickle of a few arrivals in the camps with the big migration happening later when I was working the following years in the mines.


How did we spend our time when we weren’t working?

The basic work week was 6 days a week and 10 hours a day. There was overtime too. I recall two occasions where I was ordered (not asked) to work both the day and night shifts – 36 hours without sleep working near whirling saws - because the night worker was drunk in town and didn’t show up. When night fell most workers behaved like birds and went to sleep. Nine o’clock in the evening and the snoring started in the bunkhouse.

I recall that many just sat on the porch after work, didn’t talk to anyone and just stared out over the lake. I guess they occasionally saw something swimming in the lake like a moose escaping from the insects, a fish jumping or a couple of busy loons fishing. Sometimes when dusk settled in the Northern Lights would take over and light up the sky with a brilliant emerald and shimmering glow that flashed across the sky in waves. I remember commenting once to some nearby workers sitting there “ Wow! Just look at that” They looked up and said, “I don’t see anything”. I guess you can get accustomed to anything.

I read a lot. My mother would load up my bags with many books that she liked (I wasn’t consulted) that included heavy reading like works from Henry James, James Joyce, Tolstoy, Thomas Mann, Joyce Carey, Victor Hugo, Pushkin and something light like a Hemingway or an Agatha Christie. I had no choice; there was no television, I don’t recall any radio or even newspapers, so I read books. I read what she gave me but looking back I am forever grateful.

I remember as well Dick Fleming and I going out to the railway track to watch the transcontinental train racing by because it kept us in touch with the city world we had left. We would see the people sitting in the dining cars and sometimes people standing on the platform between cars looking clean and well dressed. On occasion some young ones would shout out insultingly,’ Beaver!!’ which was a reference to our shabby work clothes and unshaven faces.

Fishing was a great pastime in my first year at the camps because we bordered a 50km long lake teeming with fish: pickerel, pike, bass and even the occasional muskie (muskellunge). We went out in the longboat that could take about six men. We brought a big pan in the boat to collect the live fish rather than letting them die. We built a stone wall around an inlet in the lake (we called it the crib) near the camp and dumped the live fish in there. Twice or three times a week the cook had us to go down to the crib to collect enough fish for the 40 or so men in the camp. The cook was always worried that the bears would get to the fish before we did and sometime this happened, but not while I was there. I guess the raw garbage at the end of the camp kept their bellies full.

Another big event for the men was the happy berry picking on Sundays. Happy women arrived by train and were greeted by happy men and with their baskets, picnic food and blankets they soon marched off to the woods and logging roads nearby. My impression at the time this was serious berry picking event to collect whatever the seasons provided: mainly blueberries and raspberries. Sure enough a few hours later they happily came out of the woods with their baskets full. It was agreed that the camp cook could take about half of it. When the milk train finally arrived late in the day, the women climbed aboard with their baskets after much fussing and goodbyes with the men. Later I was advised by some of the men that there was much more to this event than berry picking but I was young and innocent at the time and looking back it was just as well.