BUILDING OUR LOG CAMP AT SANDBAR LAKE
There was a bunch of us - "'Slack Dick" Swanson, Mickey Linklater -oh, there was a gang of us. We used to swim the logs across the lake. When we were building the camp out there, we had all the peeled logs, everything was up. The structure was there, waiting for next spring. We needed to get money for a roof - to buy the boards.
During the fall, we noticed Mickey come in with a load of wood with his boat. He'd haul it in, all these logs. We wondered, "Where the hell is he getting these logs from?" We found out the next spring. When we went back to the camp there was just one tier of logs left! Herd gone and sawed the whole thing down and brought it to town for firewood! We could have killed him! We watched him go by every day with a boatload of wood and we couldn't figure out where he was getting all that wood!
When Mickey died a few years ago, I heard that he had shot his trigger finger off in the war (to get out of the war). When he was laid out in the church, I had to see if it was true that he'd shot off his trigger finger. There he was, in the coffin, one finger short!
I went to fight fires too. We used to set fires in the depression times. We would sit at McWatch's house, where George Creighton's house is now. We used to sit there at the fence with our pack-sacks ready. Ernie Morin would know right away and he'd come down and get a bunch of us to go out on the fire. He was the fire chief,
Once we sent Luigi Marchioni to set a fire one night. We sat there with our pack-sacks and waited and waited, Ernie Morin never came. "Where the hell did you set the fire?", we asked Luigi, He'd set the fire
on a little island on Westover Lake. It just burned the end of the island that's all! We gave him shit over that!
Once we set a fire down the river on Steven's lake, down below the rapids. We sat down at Bob Mercier's and waited. We had a couple behind the dump too.
The first job that I had was when we built the dam at the power house, in 1929, 1 was "cookee" for the Dominion Construction guys who were building the dam. One day the cook's wife was there. I was carrying the cups with my fingers inside the tip and she gave me shit for that, said I was going to pass germs in the tea. I quit then and went down the highway to mileage 30. I worked there for awhile for $5.00 and a can of tobacco a month, Then I heard that Crawley-McCracken paid $15.00 a month inside in the cookery and I worked inside, in the kitchen for $15 00 a month as the cookee. Then the wages went up 25 cents an hourto work outside, so I went outside on the road. I became a scoreman for a Finlander from Nemegos. We made planks out of jackpine and balsam. That's what we did all day. A scoreman goes ahead and knocks the head off a free with a seven pound axe - a broad axe. You mark the white pine and the balsam ....you peel the bark and mark it, then you score the timber and he comes along with the broad axe. The balsam was the easiest to get.
That was building the highway (today known as Highway 129, Chapleau to Thessalon). I was on the building gang after that, building camps for the men. The last set of camps we built was at Flame Lake, but we never used them. The highway quit in 1934. It closed down and stopped right there at Flame Lake. It never got anywhere...camp 30, 35 and 43. Camp 47 was Flame Lake.
That's where Kenny lost a team of horses. We had to walk around a big hill there...a big hill. They were dynamiting a big rock-cut. They were hauling rocks to the edge to get them off the road and the rocks pulled the horses over the side and they went down and it killed them. That's just this side of Flame Lake. The highway still goes along the side of that cliff. When you were kids I used to stop and show you that cliff. That was on the right-of-way.
I was with Ken Ross's uncle, Jim Porter. He was my partner on the right-of-way. We each had a certain strip to clean. Once we came along to a white pine. Holy God it was about three feet at the butt. He wanted to chop it down with an axe. "Gripes", I said, "we're not going to chop that!". Mickey Linklater decided to give me a hand to saw it down.
That was in 1934...the depression caused the work to stop.
The highway was still working at White River though...the Trans-Canada. I got a job up there. But it only lasted about a month and it closed, at Mobert...Whitefish Lake, it closed down. It was depression and there was no money. That's when we came back home and waited for bush fires!
My brothers...I worked alone. My brothers didn't come with me, They all had their own jobs. I didn't want to work with some of them! Then they went on the railroad. They all went down to the railroad in 1939-40, when the war started. That's when the railroad hired people.
In 1935, I was cutting cordwood for Leclerc. I cut for Fortin. Leclerc used to be right across the river. I cut dry wood.
In the depression, in the late 30's I had a steady job with Ad Andrews. I also worked with the Undertaker. I worked with Ad Andrews and anytime a. case came up I went with Bill Gamble, the Undertaker. It was a part-time job. I did everything with him. I got sick the first time I worked with him! Oh cripes, I got
sick! He gave me the stomach pump! I asked Arthur Grout for a raise but, "Oh no", he said, "I can't afford a raise". Then the next day he hired young Kenaghan, steady. He was crooked, that Grout!
With Ad Andrews I worked as a tinsmith and plumber, I remember going up to Localch with him once to do some plumbing for Bill Pellow. Ad got mad because he couldn't solder a joint He threw a hammer down the stairs and just missed the mine boss's wife. He used to get so mad...he used to swear!
Once I took three guys to Borden Lake, Bill Gamble, Ad Andrews and some other guy who used to work in the ladies department. Going over the portage, we saw a snake with a frog in his mouth. Bill Gamble and the other guy stood up in the canoe...couldn't save the frog...and they upset! That was funny that day! They had all come to Chapleau together, those three men.