1974: Finally Spring Break and Leaving Camp

             Snow, cold, short days, and being bogged down at night planning and typing out for work with carbon paper, that would keep all the grades busy in my one-room school, was slowly wearing us down.  In the remote camp there was no TV reception, no phones, and only rarely at night, could we pick up a radio station (CBC), fortunately, the Silvacan Resources Mill Camp did show usually poor, second-rate movies in the Rec Hall twice a week.  Nevertheless, unable to leave camp for three months because of flight schedules (there were no roads out to civilization), my wife and I were beginning to suffer from “cabin fever” (being isolated and stuck in one place over a long period, usually winter).

            When March and our Spring break finally arrived, we were eager to leave camp and visit the outside world.  We took the “Sched” (the regular scheduled small plane that landed on the now frozen Takla Lake) to a Fort St. James, where we had left our truck in the fall at the Northern Thunderbird Airline’s parking area.

      We found the truck buried in snow, with a foot and a half of hard snow on its hood and much more snow engulfing the vehicle.  The good folks at Northern Thunderbird Air, loaned me a shovel to dig the truck out, which I finally managed to do, but in my enthusiasm to clear the snow from the hood of the truck, I accidentally snapped the radio antenna off with the shovel.

 Digging our Scout out of the snow was only the first of many problems we had to deal with before we could enjoy our Spring Break.  I couldn't get the truck started, and ended up having to get it towed to a garage where I had to buy a new battery.  

                Because we had driven up to Canada in the fall, parking the Scout in Fort St. James when we flew into Camp, then not returning there on our Christmas Break, the truck just sat there all winter.   On our Christmas Break we flew back to Indiana, and upon our return to Canada, we became Landed Immigrants, so we had a few legal thing to do during our spring break.

    I needed to register the vehicle in BC and get a British Columbia driver's license,  however, neither of those things could be done in the small village of Fort St. James, so nervously, I made an illegal drive of 100 miles to the big city of Prince George.  I was paranoid the whole way, afraid  that I would be stopped by the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police).  It didn't help my paranoia that the Scout's muffler fell off along the way, but we made it to PG, got the government paper work completed, and finally began with more enjoyable pursuits.

View my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

1974: Pets In The Mill Camp

         One of the things that led to continual stress for both my wife and I, was witnessing the constant mistreatment, cruelty, and neglect that were often given to the pets people had in Camp.  We could never understand why those people even had pets, if they didn't love them and treat them with kindness.  

        One time I got word that the Jack family was going to leave their log home beside Takla Lake and move down to Takla Landing, a First Nation’s Reserve located about 12 miles down the Lake.  That meant I was going to lose the family that contributed the greatest number of students to our school.  Then the next day I heard that in preparation to their move, they shot their dogs.  About a week later, the Jack family was back living in their cabin by the lake and the kids were back in the school.  

        Darwin was one of my first graders whose family lived in one of the few wood frame houses in camp.  After one of the four days off, when the family took the mill’s DC-3 to Williams Lake, Darwin’s parents came back with a puppy, then after a couple of months they forced the poor dog to spend most of its time, day and night, in a lidded box outside the house.  The dark windowless plywood box was about 48” long, 36” high, and 30” wide (1.2m X 90cm X  .75m.)   Darwin’s mother Hazel, liked to shock the other women in the camp by talking about killing kittens.

        Fortunately, a few mill families did treat their pets decently.  Shawn, a fifth grade student was good kid, whose family owned had a cute little dog called "Chico."  Shawn and Chico often accompanied my wife and I on our almost daily hikes to the Little Lake.  Whenever his whole family went out for one of the four- day weekends, they would bring Chico over to stay with my wife and I.  We, being real animal lovers, really enjoyed having Chico around and spoiled him, which caused problems when it was time for him to return to his real home, and the dog wanted to continue to stay with us.

        The photo above shows Shawn with his dog Chico on the left and another camp dog on the right.

Take a look at my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca

1974: Teacher In A One-Room School, Pretty Much On My Own

             The Stikine School District Office, the largest school district at the time in BC, was located in Fort Nelson.  It  had to pay healthy salaries for teachers in order to attract them for positions in very remote and isolated areas.  Living in the mill camp with absolutely no stores of any kind meant that there was nowhere in camp for us to spend our money on, except for the pop machine in the Rec Hall/school.

            We were never able to leave the mill camp because of the plane schedules, we ate fabulous meals free at the cook house, and did not have to pay rent for the little trailer that was the teacherage.  All of those things did wonders for our savings and it was gratifying to watch our pay cheques being deposited in our growing bank account. 

            I had been teaching for a half a year, without any visit, or communications, or direction from anyone from the Stikine School District, except for a few radio calls I had made from the camp office, when I needed something.  Then January, I was informed that the Stikine School District Superintendent was going to visit me on a particular day.  

    That news left me with both fear (the big boss is coming) and hope (maybe it will be helpful to learn how things are normally done in a one-room Canadian school).   However, the big day of the visit came and went,  but not the District Superintendent.  

            There was no communication sent to me about the reason for the no-show.  I thought maybe the District Superintendent couldn't fly in because of the bad weather, he was traveling from Fort Nelson, which was closer to the Yukon, that it was to Takla Lake.  I patiently waited for another day, then another, without hearing anything.

            Finally after three days, I went to the camp office and made a radio call to Fort Nelson to the Stikine School District office to find out what happened to the District Superintendent’s visit.  When the radio call finally got through, I was surprised to be told that my school, Silvacan Elementary, was no longer in the Stikine School District.  The district boundaries had been redrawn and I was now in the Vanderhoof School District.  

        No one had bothered to let me know.  At least the town of Vanderhoof was physically closer than Fort Nelson.

View my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

1974: Taking Advantage of the One-Room School Teacher

         A few days ago I mentioned that even though I was already being overwhelmed with work, just trying to stay on top of my workload in teaching in the one-room school at the Silvacan Resources Mill,  I was told by Frank the mill camp boss, that I should also start being the “school bus” driver for the school, ie,  picking up and returning my students from the First Nations Jack family, that lived two miles down a road (photo) from the camp.

            When Tracy Jack started kindergarten, I picked her up along with Madelaine and Hannah in the morning, but since she only attended kindergarten in the morning, I had to use part of my lunch break to drive Tracy back home at noon.  On one of those noon trips, when I got down to the Jack house, I was met by her older sister, Bernice, who walked up to the truck with a basket of laundry and asked me if she could ride with me back up to the camp.

           "Sure, just put the laundry in the back." I told her.

            This she did, but instead of letting Tracy out to go to the house, she told her to scoot over and I ended up driving both her and Tracy back to camp.  

            After they both got out, I scratched my head thinking, since Tracy is still here in camp, I spent my lunch hour not taking Tracy home, but picking up Bernice, so she could do her laundry.

            I often felt very taken advantage of by Ralph Jack too.  Ralph was a few years older than his sisters Madelaine and Hannah.  Ralph started out being very enthusiastic about school, since he was very good at adding and subtracting, but he became jaded, as math became more complicated, and subjects required more reading.  

            After about a year and a half, his attendance at school began to drop off (I ended up having to fail his older brother John, because he had missed so many days).  Several times I picked up Ralph and his sisters in the morning and they attended class, but then after the lunch break, Ralph disappeared, failing to return to school.  

            After school, I drove Madelaine and Hannah home, but then later that night, I heard a knock on the door, and there stood Ralph, asking for a ride home.  It was always a moral dilemma for me, I knew it would be a long walk home in the dark for him and I was sympathetic, but at the same time, I really believed that it was important for him to learn to live with the results of his decisions. 

        My driving them back and forth was for school and if skipped school, he lost out on the ride home.  I also reminded Ralph that the camp truck did not belong to me, and that he should ask Frank, the camp boss for a ride home.

You can see my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

1974: Bizarre Stories From My First Graders

       Having been saddled with the job of driving the camp truck down to the Takla Lake shore to pick up kids from the First Nations Jack family every school day, did sometimes lead to some interesting conversations.  

       One morning while hauling Madelaine and Hannah Jack up to our one- room school I heard a  memorable “fact” about moose. 

        When I had arrived down at their cabin, I found the whole family standing outside, with the father holding a rifle.  When I got the girls into the truck, I asked them what was going on.

           Madelaine, the most outgoing of the two girls told me that they had seen a moose with a calf and their father was going to shoot them.  

        I didn’t really know what the hunting regulations were in BC, but I was pretty sure that killing a mother moose and calf was illegal, but the situation was complicating because of the fact that these were First Nation's people, which probably had different rules.

        I did want to find out more information, so I asked, "Why does your father want to shoot a mother  moose and calf?"  Then Madelaine said something that almost made me drive off the road:  

        "Because, moose eat people,"

        I had always had an interest in North American Indian people and had read about their vast knowledge of the natural world and the respect they had for animals who they viewed as "brothers” or kin.  

        "Madelaine," I said shaking my head, "Moose don't eat people or even other animals, they just eat plants."

        “But that is what my father said.” was her reply.

        Trying to break the words gently to her, I responded, "Well, I think your father is mistaken."

        "My father knows a lot more about moose, than you do."

        Having been thoroughly put in my place, I just shook my head in disbelief and drove on silently up the road with my two first grade students. 

        On another occasion, driving the two girls up to school, Madelaine seemed a bit disturbed.  When I asked her what the problem was, she informed me that she had seen a tail sticking out from behind the trunk of a tree.  This information didn't get me any closer to discovering what was troubling her, so I asked her to explain.

        "We'll, if you see a tail sticking out from a tree, then an ugly man with long fingernails, and a magic key will come and try to get you.  The man had escaped from jail and can open any door.  He attacked my friend, but she was able to hit him with a stick, knock him out, and get away."

        That was something I didn't know, and you probably didn't either, but from now on, beware if you see a tail sticking out from behind a tree.

You can see my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

 

Frosted Lupine

    I read the other day that the beginning of September is the meteorological beginning of autumn, and certainly that seems to be the case in BC’s Robson Valley.  The leaves on our deciduous trees are starting to show a yellowish hue, the leaves of the Boston Creepers are crimson, and yesterday we had a light frost.

    In an attempt to stay healthy, I have been making myself do four laps, jogging/walking around our pond after breakfast.  Yesterday, during my laps, I noticed that out in the open, there was frost on the Lupine leaves.  I had to stop my laps to take some photos.  

    Fortunately, so far the garden hasn’t been affected by the frost, but the cooler weather has given me some concern about my corn plants, whose ears have not yet totally matured.

You can see my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

 

1974: "School Bus" Driver Added To My Teaching Chores

        Today I am returning to blogging about our adventure of immigrating to Canada and teaching in an isolated one-room school in a BC mill camp.  

        After the two week whirlwind visit with our family over the Christmas season, we returned to Canada, this time with our completed immigration papers.  There were no problems with the Canada Customs officials at our "crossing" at the Vancouver airport.   We were happy to have finally gained a new Canadian status--"Landed Immigrant."

        Upon our arrival back in camp, we were welcomed by the kids, bored, and surprisingly eager to start school again.  Of course, midway through the first day, they were already tired with it and eager for the school day to end.  After school they began their visitations to our trailer, to see what new things we brought with us.

        Because we were getting so much absenteeism because of the 10/4 day work schedule of the mill, I asked permission of the school district to run school on the 10/4 schedule.  I did it for about 3 shifts, but then I reverted back to the regular school schedule.  I found that after the ten straight days of school, I was too burned out, and the four days of "weekend" in the camp without much to keep us amused was also too long--we could only walk to the little lake so many times.

        During January, 1974, Frank, camp boss, who was continually having to keep hundreds of different "balls in the air," (keeping the mill, and all the  things associated with the camp going) decided to drop one ball--running the Jack kids back and forth from school, and told me I could borrow one of the camp trucks to do it, so added to my workload was the responsibility of “school bus” driver.  

         Because the First Nation Jack kids made up about half of our school population, and since the family didn’t own a vehicle, it was important for the school that they be driven back an forth every day to keep the school population up.

        Like most things, there were both good and bad aspects of this new job.  It was nice to drive the two miles down to Takla Lake in the morning, allowing me to possibly see some wildlife or a spectacular display of light on the sky as the sun came up.  

        On the negative side, it meant one more job for me that would take extra time.  There was not always a truck readily available, so that left me searching out someone with a vehicle or the keys.   The lifestyle of the Jack family and the lack of any kind of communication system with them meant that after I found a truck and drove down to their cabin (photo above), I sometimes found no one home, and I had spent time and the trip for nothing.

Take a look at my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca