1974: No Time Off For The One-Room School Teacher

         Because my wife and I lived in the isolated fly-in mill camp (which we couldn’t really leave except for Christmas, Spring Break, and Summer Vacation) and my students also lived in the camp, every time they saw us, they came over to see what we were up to.  I guess you really couldn’t blame them for there was not much for them to do in camp.  There was no TV reception, only rare radio reception some times at night, no playground, or sports activities, so my wife and I pretty much became their source of entertainment.

    On the Canada’s Victoria Day holiday (middle of May), I got the day off from teaching, so after our lunch, my wife and I were taking a nap.  There was a knock on our trailer door, so  I got up and went to see who it was, I was some of my students, had run out of things to do on their day off, so they came over to the teacherage and wanted to do stuff with us.  I told them that we were going to take a nap for an hour, and that they could come back then.  

          I was sort of hoping that after an hour, the kids would have found something else to do and forget about us, but that was not to be.  They spent the whole hour sitting on our door step, waiting.  Obvious they were determined to do something with us, so after our nap, we went outside, and we and the kids hiked the half a mile to the Little Lake.  

        I had ordered a small little 8 inch mitre saw, from the beautifully photographed Lee Valley Tool Catalogue (porn for woodworkers) and I had a few other basic tools, so often in my free time, I kept myself busy woodworking.  The mill allowed me to use the scrap wood which was laying around the camp everywhere, and so as the weather became nicer outside, I would sit on the front steps and started on some woodworking projects. 

         I made a laminated cutting board (which we still use 50 years later), a birdhouse, a ladder, some “flats” for growing plants, and a dog carrying crate for Vincent our Pomeranian, that we could use when we could catch a flight out of camp,

Take a look at my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca

1974: Some Aboriginal Troubles

             The Jacks, the Indigenous family that lived down on the shore of Takla Lake (photo) and whose kids made up about half of our one-room school’s population, were a constant source of both interesting stories and frustration.  Ralph, my third grader skipped school one afternoon, and was caught breaking into a nearby forest ranger cabin.

    The Jack girls developed impetigo, so I had to tell their mother not to send them to school until they had seen a doctor and were cured.  When I talked to their mother, her  face was all purple and bruised from being beaten up by her sister.  

            While the West family caused me some irritation, it was Hazel, a Native woman who lived in Camp with her husband and family, that caused me the most grief.  Hazel, who had a job cleaning up the bunk houses, was the camp gossip that really created  trouble on several fronts.  Her son Darwin was in my wife’s kindergarten class and he was a nice kid, but periodically, Darwin’s older brother Jackie, came to camp to live, then disappeared, then returned again.  

             Jackie was in my seventh grade when he was around, and he was a bully to the smaller children, causing me constant trouble.  His attendance was very irregular, and later he and Rene, Shawn’s older brother, who was high school age and not in our school, was double trouble when he and Jackie were together.  Eventually, the two were caught stealing from the bunkhouses, the cook sheds, and some Indian cabins, so they were asked to leave camp.

    One day Frank the Mill Boss, asked to talk to me, and informed me that it was going around camp that I was a convicted dope pusher.  This was, of course,  news to me, and Frank said he didn’t believe it for a minute, but thought I ought to know.

    I was pretty sure that it was Hazel who was probably the creative author of the rumor,  but I just let the whole thing slide.  It was discouraging though, any one that knew me, also knew how straight I was.  I didn’t even drink alcohol or coffee, let alone, take or sell drugs.

View my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

1974: Silvacan Camp Water Problems

         Over the April 6th, Easter weekend, as the winter’s snow began to melt, the camp’s water, which was taken directly from a nearby creek, turned brown and began to smell.   So I sought out a new source for water.  I figured that we could get clean, fresh water from the still frozen-over, Little Lake.  My wife, our Pomeranian dog Vincent, and I planned an excursion to the pristine lake, taking with us a borrowed ax and a container for some water. 

        The lake was still covered with snow and ice, (photo below) and I thought I could just chop through the ice to get some water.  Chips of ice flew in all directions as I hacked away at the ice with the  ax.  It was hard work, I had to make the hole wider and wider as I chopped deeper and deeper into the ice. 

        I chopped down about twenty inches and never broke through the ice to water, so finally, with a new appreciation of the severity of Canadian winters, I accepted the fact that getting water by chopping through the Little Lake ice was a futile mission.  

        Luckily, we were able fill our containers down at Takla Lake, using the hole in the ice that the Jack family maintained throughout the winter for their water.

Take a look at my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca

1974: Some Camp Changes After Spring Break

        Upon returning to the camp  after our Spring Break, I was once again overwhelmed and consumed with preparing worksheets, teaching, grading, and the many other school activities.  Before Spring Break the camp had begun constructing a store, which upon our return, had been completed, so we could then actually purchase some food items, unfortunately, so could my students, and they filled themselves with sugar fueled energy from candy and pop.

        The camp’s maintenance men did not have a stellar reputation for their work.  They had once "fixed" a leak in a sewage pipe by wrapping the pipe with duct tape--which of course didn't hold, causing  a flow of sewage across the floor in a bunkhouse.  

        One of the carpenters bragged to me about when he was putting plywood skirting around the base of a mobile home, he saved himself a lot of time by just putting in enough nails to hold the plywood to the two-by-four supports, then instead of driving in more nails to adequately secure the plywood to the supports,  he just drew little dots on the plywood with a pencil, that looked like the heads of additional nails.

        The camp maintenance crew did come through for us though, and got the small stove in the old travel trailer that was our home, functional.   Although we still ate our meals in the camp cook house, getting the teacherage stove fixed did enabled my wife, who was always a skilled cook, to renew her culinary skills. 

         However, the refrigerator in our kitchen still didn't work, but fortunately, we could now buy things "fresh" (not really an accurate word in describing the produce) from the newly completed camp store and we just stored left overs and items needing to be kept cool, in the snow on our roof.  This, naturally, provided a motivation to a few of my mischievous students, to scheme about to swiping our juice off of the roof.

View my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

Pack Rat: Captured And Relocated

      A couple of days ago, I blogged about suspecting that I had a Pack Rat trying to take up habitation  in the upstairs floor of my barn.  I saw the telltale pile fresh leaves that Pack Rats generally collect when they are planning to settle in.  Yesterday I cleaned out all of the leaves and then set a live trap, hoping to capture the beast.  I baited the trap with some fresh lettuce leaves, the heart of a red cabbage, and a scattering of sunflower seeds.  I don’t know which of those foodstuffs attracted the rodent, but when I checked the trap this morning, there the poor critter was, nervous, and wondering what it had gotten itself into.

    I put the live trap with the Pack Rat into the back of the car, then put Kona, who always enjoys a car ride, into the back seat.  Although I couldn’t smell any odor from the Pack Rat, which are known for having really smelly nests, Kona immediately smelled the critter and got all hyper, even though she couldn’t see it in the back of the car.

    The natural habitat for Pack Rat nests are spaces made by boulders and rocks, so I drove down the road where I found a place I thought might be suitable for the beast (photo below).  When I opened the trap, the Pack Rat made a beeline toward the big rock slab and slipped underneath it, hiding in the dark.  

    I was happy about being able to trap the Pack Rat so quickly, and finding what seemed a better home for it.

You can take a look at my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca

Some Robson Valley Fall Colors

     I haven’t been in the upstairs level of my barn for a while, but the other day I went up there looking for something.  What I saw surprised me:  There was a big pile of cottonwood leaves scattered around.  I figured out pretty quickly how they got there--I must have a pack rat thinking to live up there.  This happened once before in 2011.  

    Pack Rats are cute and friendly looking rodents, with rounded ears and a fluffy tail.  They are often mistaken fro squirrels, because of their furry tail.  In fact, I saw what I thought was a squirrel several times climbing up the outside wall of the barn, but I now realize it was a Pack Rat.  

    Looking at them, you might think they would make a nice pet, but they have one manor disadvantage, their smell.  The Pack Rat themselves stay clean but they create a smelly mess wherever they live, so I plan to live trap the critter and take it somewhere else to live.

    Pack Rats eat foliage and I expect that is why this one has collected all of the leaves.  They are nocturnal and generally live in crevasses made by boulders, like what exists in the rock slide high on the slope across from our house.  They will of course, also take up residence in vacant buildings (like my barn).

    They get their name because they have an interesting habit of collecting bits shiny manmade objects like bits of glass, aluminum, coins, and bottle caps.

    The photo below shows a Pack Rat that I caught in a live trap and relocated in 2011.

Take a look at my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca

Looks Like I Have A Pack Rat In The Barn

     I haven’t been in the upstairs level of my barn for a while, but the other day I went up there looking for something.  What I saw surprised me:  There was a big pile of cottonwood leaves scattered around.  I figured out pretty quickly how they got there--I must have a pack rat thinking to live up there.  This happened once before in 2011.  

    Pack Rats are cute and friendly looking rodents, with rounded ears and a fluffy tail.  They are often mistaken fro squirrels, because of their furry tail.  In fact, I saw what I thought was a squirrel several times climbing up the outside wall of the barn, but I now realize it was a Pack Rat.  

    Looking at them, you might think they would make a nice pet, but they have one manor disadvantage, their smell.  The Pack Rat themselves stay clean but they create a smelly mess wherever they live, so I plan to live trap the critter and take it somewhere else to live.

    Pack Rats eat foliage and I expect that is why this one has collected all of the leaves.  They are nocturnal and generally live in crevasses made by boulders, like what exists in the rock slide high on the slope across from our house.  They will of course, also take up residence in vacant buildings (like my barn).

    They get their name because they have an interesting habit of collecting bits shiny manmade objects like bits of glass, aluminum, coins, and bottle caps.

    The photo below shows a Pack Rat that I caught in a live trap and relocated in 2011.

You can view my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca