1973: The Very First Day of Silvacan Elementary School

             The day I opened Silvacan Elementary School was certainly unlike opening day of any other school in BC.  First off, because the Silvacan Elementary was in the enormous Stikine School District, which encompassed the entirety of the whole northern half of BC, and the school district wasn’t sure they would be opening a school at the mill site, because they hadn’t been able to find a teacher (until I took the job) there were absolutely no school supplies at the mill. 

            There were no books, no desks, no chalkboard, and no necessary school supplies, like paper or pencils.  There was nothing, just the mill’s recreation hall, complete with its pool table, Coke machine, and stale cigarette-smelling air.

            Another unique aspect of Silvacan Elementary’s opening, was that it took place late, two weeks after all of BC’s other schools had opened, because of delays in my wife and I being issued our Canadian Immigration papers.  That problem was resolved when a custom official who knew of our urgency because the BC schools had already started, just secretly told me to just say I was on vacation when I crossed the border.

    That first day of school was certainly not one where a lot of academics were taught.  Frank had driven down to the Jack family that morning and returned with 5 of the Jack kids, (with ages ranging from about seven to 12) which he dropped off at the “school”.  I had moved one of the Rec Hall tables, and some chairs into a corner.

            I had a lot of experience working with kids, both in my education training, and working at the Evansville Boys Club, for several years running  recreation programs.  I thought I was ready for anything that rambunctious children could throw my way, but I wasn’t ready for these extremely shy aboriginal kids.

        I had no experience being around First Nation children.  They meekly entered the room which was in the logging camp’s Recreation Hall and I welcomed them and motioned them over to sit around the  table which I had set up.  Once I had them seated, I began to talk to them in an attempt to find out their names and ages, so that I could get a sense of where they were academically. 

        To my dismay, despite my gentle questioning, all I got in reply were bowed heads and silence.  I couldn’t get them to even look at me, let alone speak.  It was a horrible feeling of inadequacy that overtook me.  (I learned later that First Nations people consider it rude to look people straight in the eye, so they probably had negative opinions of me from that first introduction.)

Luckily, after a time, I gained the confidence of Ralph (photo) who I determined was at about at the third grade level.  Ralph began to open up a bit.  Soon, the others began to timidly join the conversation.

      I got another surprise, when I urged Ralph to recite the alphabet for me. 

He confidently began:

“A,B,C,D,E,F,G…”

“That’s great, Ralph, go on.”

“H,I,J,K,L,M,N,O,P,

I was beaming.  “Keep going Ralph”

“Q,R,S,T,U,V,W,”

“Great, finish up,” I encouraged, and nodding my head to indicate that he was doing great.

“X, Y, ZED.”

“ZED?”, My head jerked back in surprise, I had never heard of “ZED”,  “What’s ‘ZED?, I asked, Do you mean “ZEE”.  

“No,” Ralph replied confidently, and all his siblings confirmed and chimed in, “ZED!!!”

This first lesson in the school was a lesson for me.  I had just discovered that Canadian English and American English were not the same.  Canadians didn’t have a “ZEE” at the end of their alphabet, they, like Ralph said, had “ZED”. 

        The rest of that first school day was spent having the kids drawing some pictures, after I scrambled around and found some paper, some pencils, and crayons, which my wife and I had fortunately brought with us when we crossed the border.

View my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

We Now Have Fiber Optic Cable To Our House

     Surprisingly, in our very small (800 people max), rural and isolated community, (100 miles in either direction to a larger urban center) we are now getting fiber optic connections to our houses.  A crew came out yesterday to put the cable into our house.

    It was a complicated chore, involving digging a tench and burying the cable across our driveway and lawn, then tunneling under our sidewalk, before actually getting to our house.  

    I was busy playing music at our jam, as they finished doing there work, and it was dark when I came home, but this morning when I took a look at what they did, I was impressed.  The cable is now buried, and the crew did a really nice job of cleaning us after themselves.  They had raked and smoothed out the gravel in our driveway back into place, and sewed some grass seed on the trench that crossed our lawn.  All of the work didn’t cost us anything.

    I don’t know if we will be taking advantage of the fast internet that the fiber optic cable can provide, since I already have Starlink satellite internet, so don’t really need the fiber optic service.  I would have preferred that the phone company would have upgraded their cell phone tower to go from G-3 to G-5.  Oh well, maybe someday.  

     The photo below shows the fiber optic connection box on our house.  The crew found a beat up statue of a dog amongst the flowers along our sidewalk and in a joke, placed it at the foot of the cable.  The white object on the left is the water hose that goes to our forest fire sprayer on our roof.

View my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

1973: I Become Silvacan Elementary School

 The photo shows the Camp’s Recreation Building (on the right), that also served as our school.

    Since all of the other public schools in BC had already begun classes two weeks earlier, I had to do some quick preparations and create a school and begin teaching immediately.  This was a big job because, I WAS the school, as I quickly learned.  Not only was I the only classroom teacher, I soon discovered that I was also the principal, the maintenance man, the janitor, the secretary, the health nurse, and the “school bus” driver.  

             There was no one there to help guide me in these tasks, or to tell me what to do.  I had to figure everything out for myself.  It certainly didn’t help that I had never even been in a Canadian school to witness the daily routines or the educational materials used, and since there had never been a school at the Silvacan mill, there were absolutely no educational supplies at all, since the school district hadn’t been sure that they would be able to find a teacher.

            During my four years of university, which gave me the training and education to earn my bachelor degree in elementary education, no one had ever even mentioned teaching in a one-room school, let alone explain how to manage one.  All of my practical, hands-on experience had been in large multi-teacher city and suburban schools.  What I found myself thrust into, was a totally new and unknown experience.

    Frank (the Silvacan Mill’s Camp Boss) told me that the school, (named Silvacan Elementary School) would be held in the camp's "Recreation Building".  I quickly planned for classes for the next day, although I hadn’t a clue as to how many students I might have, what grades they might be in, or what their abilities might be.  

            Since it hadn't been a certain that there was going to be a school at Silvacan, the mill workers didn’t yet moved their families to the camp.  There was however a First Nation's  family that lived in a cabin (photo below) down by the dock on Takla Lake, where our had plane landed, who had school-aged kids, and they turned out to be my only students when the school opened.

You can see my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

1973: Exploring The Mill Camp

   We looked into the recreation building which housed a pool table and coke machine and some tables and chairs.  We walked down the wide dusty “main” street of the camp. Past the metal Atco portable bunkhouses and a couple of small frame houses which lined the road until we saw the mill, which was just a big metal framed structure, with some open sides and a tin roof.

When it was time for us to eat, we made a delightful discovery; the cookhouse where we were to eat all of our meals was amazing.   Isolated mills make a point of feeding their workers well to keep them happy.  When we opened the door, took in the warm, delicious, and fragrant  aromas, then looked down the steaming counter at the wide variety of offerings, we knew that living in this remote corner of BC wasn't  going to be a year of total depravation.  There was so much good food available for the taking, and we could eat as much as we wanted—it was going to be a smorgasbord for every meal. Steaks, Chinese food, Yorkshire pudding, all kinds of fancy desserts.  Here is how replied to my parents who were curious about our eating arrangements:

       Meals? 

            We have no meal tickets, everybody knows everybody.  Up here we are trusted to pay $150 for the whole month for the two of us.   That gives us three meals at day.  We haven’t paid yet because we are waiting for the bank to send us an account number.

        Meals, who cooks:  

            Harold and Nuella, are our cooks.  They really are friendly people and very good cooks.  Tonight we had big, big steaks, peas, sauerkraut, wieners, potatoes, salad, fruit juices, and cake.  We are free to take all of the fruit and cookies we want.  It is a really good deal.

View my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

1973: Shown Our First Canadian Winter Home

     I have lately started blogging about my first job that allowed us to immigrate to Canada.  The job I took was starting a one-school and teaching in an isolated fly-in mill camp in the BC Interior.  Today’s blog tells of our first look at where we would be living during our first Canadian winter.

            Frank dropped us off in front of an early 1960’s model, small blue and white, travel trailer.  Attached to its side was an ugly box-like plywood addition, that featured a small square window and plain wooden door in front.  We were told that this dwelling was where we would be living, and  he explained that since the stove and fridge in the trailer did not work, we could eat at the cook shed before the workers came in for their meals.

    We dragged our luggage up the two wooden steps, opened the door to what was to be our abode for the winter.  The “mudroom”, which was the Canadian term given to the rectangular wooden addition, was just a big empty space that ran down the entire length of the 18 foot travel trailer.   This room had only one  item in it--an orange 16 inch metal cube, with a screened fan in the front and a one inch thick, heavy duty, insulated electrical cable snaking out of the  back and attached to the wall--it was an industrial-strength space heater.

            From the mudroom, we entered through the aluminum and louvered- glass door of the trailer into the tiny kitchen/dining room, complete with a small two by three foot formica topped table, sided by padded upholstered plastic booth-like seats on each side.  

    The tiny table jutted out from a window, which allowed us to admire the bleakly painted plywood back of the mill office as we dined.  Behind the left booth seat was the kitchen area, which included a tiny stovetop, oven, and refrigerator that Frank had told us didn’t work. 

    Along the “kitchen” wall were cabinets and the kitchen sink.  From the kitchen, a narrow passage/hallway led back to a bathroom and then the bedroom, which was basically just a bed with a cramped space that allowed one to walk along one side of its sides to the end of the bed.  There must have been a closet or chest of drawers somewhere also, but I can’t remember them.

    The tiny bathroom that was squeezed between the kitchen area and bedroom, featured a very small tub/shower, a sink, and an airplane-type toilet, featuring rubber flaps at the bottom of the toilet bowl.

        I don’t think we were too critical about our accommodations, it was small, but adequate, and besides it was all part of our northern adventure.  In fact, later when the camp bosses wanted to move us into a larger, but no more glamorous trailer, but we opted to stay where we were. As soon as we had stashed our luggage, we were out the door to explore our new world. 

My paintings can be seen at:  davidmarchant2.ca

1973: Arriving At The Isolated Mill Camp That Will Be Our Home

 What happened after our flight on the Beaver float Plane:

        On our side of the lake, within sight of the dock, half hidden among the trees, was a log cabin which was the home of the Wests, a First Nation family, partially represented on the pier by the two silent kids, who quietly watched our every move.

          The pilot opened the plane’s cargo door and removed our suitcases from the Beaver’s storage area on side of the plane, and laid them on the pier.  We picked them up then nervously waited, unsure of what we were supposed to do, or what was going to happen next.

    The Indian kids continued to stare at us, then the man in work gear and a jacket, introduced himself as "Frank," the camp boss.  He helped us with our luggage, as he directed us toward a dark muddy and battered pickup truck.  We put our luggage in the back of the pickup, then my wife and I opened the door of the cab, slid onto the seat, and Frank bounced us up the dirt road to the mill camp.  

    Frank snaked the truck up the slope and around the curves, weaving from one side of the road to the other to avoid the deep mud holes.  We were traveling through a canyon of trees, which totally obscured the view, except for the rutted bare dirt margins of the road.

    We could tell from the lack of weeds and bare earth along the sides of the dirt road that it was a fairly recent construction.  It had been sliced through a tall thick stand of mature timber, so all we could see in edge of the bare right-of-way, was a thick, living wall of gray tree trunks topped with the bushy green needles of their foliage, so thick that you couldn't see through it.   The naked dirt that lined each side of the road was accented with a chaos of  scattered junk logs, tree trunks, and root balls.

    After traveling the two miles up from Takla Lake, we entered a large flat dusty area which had been cleared out of the forest.  Around this clearing were clustered, in a seemingly random fashion, a hodgepodge of buildings--some wooden frame and the others portable aluminum ATCO buildings and trailers.  

          Beyond the small, one-story, wooden frame mill “office," stood scattered bunkhouses, cook sheds and kitchens and a large "portable," a double-wide trailer that served as the recreation center for the workers.  A couple of small frame houses and several regular mobile homes, housing for mill staff and a few families, lined the “thoroughfare” as it ran off in the distance giving a view of the mill.  It all looked raw, haphazard, and utilitarian, but this was to be our home for the next three years.

You can see my  paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

Caution: Falling Objects (Spruce Cones)

     We have a very tall spruce tree standing less than a foot (30cm) from the edge of our roof.  We also have a metal roof.  Those two things together, result in a constant cacophony of noise each year at this time, when a squirrel, dangling high up in the tree, starts to harvest spruce cones for the winter.  The cones stream down from the tree and bang, as they bounce off our roof, throughout the day:  Bang...Bang...Bang.

    The banging started three days ago, and is still going strong.  There are plenty of cones yet on the tree to be harvested.

    The ground around that corner of the house and our shade deck are covered with cones, and the debris from cones as a result of the harvesting squirrel.  I will be happy when the critter has reached its cone quota. 

View my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca