1975: My Accident on the Camp's Outdoor Ice Skating Rink

      A few nights after our day of feasting on junk food, my wife and I decided to walk over to the skating rink and get some exercise on our ice skates.  It was a very windy night, with strong gusts and after a half an hour of normal skating I decided to get creative. 

            One of the popular winter toys for my students, at the time, was a “Crazy Carpet.” It was sort of a flexible sled, which just consisted of a heavy plastic sheet with hand grips on the front.   Like the name suggests, the kids would sit on top of it and pull up the grips so the Crazy Carpet curved up in front of their legs like a toboggan, then fly down the hill.  

            I noticed that there was a Crazy Carpet laying on the side of the rink so I grabbed it and tried to use it like a sail, letting the wind propel me across the ice.  At some point in my ice-sailing, I slipped and fell slamming my cheek against the ice.   I don’t know what happened next.

            I assume my wife took me home to the teacherage, because I have no memory of the event, but I woke up on our couch, and and kept asking her what had happened, and my wife would repeatedly tell me that I fell on the ice and hit my head.  I then would doze off, wake up again, and ask her the same question.  I kept doing that over and over.

        Needless to say, she was getting pretty concerned.  There were no doctors in the camp, or within 120 miles of the camp, and no roads out to drive to a doctor.   The only way out of camp would was to fly.   

             The next morning I taught school for a half a day, and then was able to get a seat and fly out on the company’s DC-3 which traveled the 370 miles back and forth to Williams Lake, twice a week.  Once in Williams Lake, I went to the hospital and got an X-ray.  The doctor told me just to take it easy for a few days.  We spent the weekend in Williams Lake then flew back to camp in -30°F temperatures on Monday morning.

Take a look at my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca

The First Snowfall of the Season--Beautiful

     First let me apologize for the lack of blogs over the last few days.  I have a good excuse;  I had to take my wife up to Prince George for a hip replacement.  

    When I woke up last Wednesday, looked outside and saw all of the snow that had fallen overnight, I was full of apprehension, because we had to drive the 135 miles through curvy, hilly, terrain to get up to Prince George, and snow, unexpected animals, and big trucks on the highway can really make the trip dangerous.   

    Fortunately, what snow had fallen on the highway had melted or had been cleared, so the first three quarters of the drive was not a problem.  However, once we got closer to Prince George, the highway was covered with hard-packed snow, very much like ice, but we arrived in the city safely.  Prince George did not get the 6 inches of snow that McBride got, and up there, the ground was bare.

    As you can see, the snowfall we got in McBride was beautiful and made our mountainous landscape, magical to behold.

    

View my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

1975 A Day Of Unhealthy Eating

                 In my diary I noted Jan. 27, 1975 as “Sweet Tooth Day”.  I finished my lunch by munching on what was left of a cake my wife had made the day before, then when I got home after school, I managed to finish off the rest of the cake.  Shortly thereafter, I wandered over to the cookhouse to visit with Adrian the new cook and discovered that he had just made some cream puffs, which I was happy to sample for him.  

            When I got back at the teacherage my wife was just fixing some popcorn, so I made some iced tea to compliment the snack.  I then walked over to school to do my nightly classwork preparations for the next day.  After a couple of hours, my wife popped in and so I called it quits and we wandered over to see what was going on with Adrian in the cookhouse.  It was good timing, because Adrian’s had some left over cheesecake after feeding the mill crew.  

    By that time we were feeling pretty guilt ridden about all the sugar we had consumed, and we  probably felt a pretty energized too, because we decided to lace up our ice skates and spent a half an hour skating circles around in he camp’s new outside ice rink in the brisk night air.

Take a look at my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca

1975: Back To Our One-Room School, And The Weather Is Cold

             After our Christmas break when we returned to the isolated camp, our one-room school, and teacherage, winter was in full force.  The furnace in the teacherage was acting erratically, not the kind of thing you want to happen when the temperature outside was -35F Inside of the teachrage the temperature was also frigid making, it difficult for us to roll out of our warm bed.  Once I was dressed and my breakfast eaten, I crunched my way across the hard snow to the Camp Office to borrow the truck so I could pick up the two students that lived down on the lake shore, but the truck refused to start in the frigid temperature, so the two Jack girls stayed at home and missed school for the day.  

            During the day the camp electricity generator quit, leaving our school without heat or light, so I created an unscheduled physical education period.  The students and I bundled up, put on skates, and spent the afternoon outside skating, at the camp’s newly completed ice rink with the temperature at  -20° F.

            My wife and I had purchased an aquarium and some tropical fish during the Christmas break and since we had no radio or television reception in camp, we would spend a lot of time sitting in front of the aquarium, watching the fish swim back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.

    I received word that Mr. Jack had gotten drunk and had taken an axe to the kitchen table, so Mrs. Jack was leaving, with Hannah and Madelaine.  I gathered up their school supplies and workbooks, so the two girls could take them along with them, but then as always, their plans changed and they were back.  It was somewhat gratifying as their teacher, to discover that the girls had actually worked ahead in their workbooks in their absence from school.

            My male students were continually busy doing the usual things to irritate their teacher.  Shawn sprayed me with rug cleaner, and so I punished him (and myself) by making him stay after school for detention.  Victor “borrowed” and lost the school snow shovel, so I had to then borrow one from the camp.

            Below, our aquarium room.  How about those trendy 1970‘s curtains!

Take a look at my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca

1974: Halloween And A Sad End To Our Christmas Trip

             As a teacher, I always enjoyed priming my students for upcoming holidays, especially things like Halloween which became the subject of many of our art classes. Halloween had never been a part of the First Nation Jack family’s traditions, but Madelaine and Hannah were quick to adopt it.   In our art class we drew spooky pictures, talked about costumes, masks, and trick or treating.  We had the camp fly in some pumpkins and we carved a jack-o-lantern in school.  

    We planned to have a Halloween party at school on Halloween night.  I made arrangements with the camp to borrow a pickup so I could drive down to the Jack family cabin to pick up Madelaine and Hannah, so they could trick or treat in camp.  When I got down to their cabin, I found that no one was at home.  I drove back to camp discouraged, only to discover that the two Jack girls were already in camp with their bags full of treats.

    The winter was soon upon us.  The camp put a crew to work building a lighted outdoor hockey rink.  This was a certainly a welcome site, since there wasn’t much of anything for the kids in camp to do during those cold dark winter nights.

    My wife and I were eagerly awaiting the Christmas vacation.  I had been in camp since school began in September, and was looking forward to getting out into the world again and flying to Indiana to visit family and friends.  The trip however turned sour for us when we went to visit relatives at their house.  While there, Vincent our Pomeranian dog rushed out of an opening door onto a busy street, and was hit by a car and killed.  It left us devastated.

View my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

1974: Teacher Job; Bussing and Babysitting

          I didn’t really mind my new job as “school bus driver” because it gave me a chance to view Takla Lake in the changing seasons and light.  The job was not without its problems though.  One afternoon I drove Madelaine and Hannah back home after school, but when we got down to their cabin, we found that the rest of their family were gone, so I drove them back to camp to wait.  Although I let them off at the camp office, the two girls were soon knocking on our door and ended up over at our teacherage.  

        To help them pass time, I began to read to them some stories, but soon there were some more knocks on our door and most of my other students had come over to join Madelaine and Hannah in our living room.  It didn’t take me long to suggested we all go outside and play some games. 

        On one of my daily school day trips down to the Jack’s house to pick Madelaine and Hannah, the company truck blew out a tire, and the two first graders and I had to walk all the way back up to camp before I could start the school day.

Take a look at my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca

1974: The Jack Girls Back And We Need A Vet

             During the first week of October, I got word from Camp Boss Frank that Madelaine and Hannah Jack would be coming back to our school after all, but I would have to be the “school bus driver”, and start picking the two girls up before school, and take them home after school.  I was allowed to use one of the mill’s trucks to do it, since I had no vehicle in camp.  I was happy to have Madelaine and Hannah back in our school, even though it meant losing some of my free time.

    I found it interesting to see the difference in Madelaine and Hannah, my two new first graders.  Hannah was quiet, shy, and inattentive, while Madelaine was a ball of fire that couldn't be held back.

    One day we had an unexpected science class, when one of my students brought a moose brain to school to show the class.

      It didn’t take long after the school year began, before I again found myself getting very  bogged down with the my workload; daily creating the numerous work sheets I needed for the various grades, all of which I had to make from scratch, and then spending hours at night grading the work I had my students do.

    Life in camp was full of unexpected problems.  Because of the camp’s  isolation, dealing with many of what in normal places would be easy, became very problematic and complicated when there were no means of getting out to civilization.  

            One night we let our dog Vincent outside for a while and when he came in, we discovered that his eyelid was torn.  We needed a vet to deal with it, but since it was a weekend, and there were no flights in or out of camp, there was little we could do about it. 

    When Monday finally came, my wife and the dog (in the wooden carrying crate I had made) caught the mill’s DC-3 to Williams Lake, so she could take Vincent to the vet to deal with his eye wound.  

            With the eyelid stitched up, my wife planned to catch the DC-3 back to camp on Wednesday, but due to bad weather, the DC3 couldn’t make the flight.  The plane was able to return to camp on Thursday, but it carried only freight for the mill, so my wife and Vincent weren’t able to get on it.

    On Friday, I woke up to the worse fog I had ever seen in camp.  It worried me that if my wife couldn’t fly in that day, she wouldn’t be able to get another chance until Monday, but luckily, the fog burned away, and the DC-3 carrying my wife and Vincent, landed in the afternoon.

You can see my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca