1975: A Break From Having No Power In The Teacherage

             After three days in camp living with no power in the teacherage , the adventure was pretty much over, and we decided to take the “Water Taxi” to Fort St. James.  The Water Taxi was a covered boat that made bi-weekly trips back and forth between Takla Lake and Fort St. James, by traversing through the various connecting lakes and rivers.  A distance of about 135 miles.  

            Takla was the most beautiful lake.  The river south of Trembler Lake was rough with rocks and rapids, forcing the pilot of the boat to swerve back and forth the river to stay in the channel.

Once back in “The Fort,” we fired up the old Scout again and drove over to the Stuart River Campsite for a night in the tent.  Vincent, our dog who had slept during most of our river trip, by evening, had a double dose of energy which took a lot of our effort to calm down.

    Next day our drive to Vanderhoof to attend a School District meeting, was accented by Vincent barking at all the cows and horses he spotted along the side of the road.  The principal’s meeting that I attended was pretty irrelevant to my situation, but I was able to get some more school supplies, and quickly drove on south to William’s Lake so we could pick up our mail at P & T, the corporate owner of the Silvacan Resources camp, and make arrangements to fly in on the DC-3 the next day.  

            Later, while grocery shopping in WIlliams lake, we heard some hubbub in the store and the grocer yelling.  When we investigated, we discovered that Vincent, our small Pomeranian dog, had somehow managed to jump out of the window of our parked car and then entered the grocery store in search of us.

View my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

1974: Personalizing Our Fully-Finished Mobile Home Teacherage

     That second year when we arrived at the Silvacan Camp with all our possessions, we had a new, fully furnished mobile home waiting for us to live in.  Having a new mobile home was certainly a big step up from the small 1950’s travel trailer we had lived in over the winter.  However, while really nice, the furnishings in the trailer, did not really match our tastes.  It had a trendy shag carpet, terribly ugly patterned wall paper, tacky velvety-looking furniture, and wood paneling, all of which were not exactly our favorite style for an interior living space.

    We did have all of the other furniture and items that we had brought with us.   Most of those things were antiques, old Navaho rugs, and other items that had caught my eye and purchased with my very meager salary, over my two years working at the Goodwill, so the interior of our teacherage, became a real hodgepodge of styles, but it became our home for the following two years, while I was teaching in the one-room school at the Silvacan Resources Mill.

    See if you can pick out the things that came with the mobile home, and the things that we immigrated to Canada with.

Take a look at my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca

The Long, Lonely, Drive To Prince George

     I had an appointment up in Prince George, so I had to drive the 220Kms (135 miles) from McBride to Prince George yesterday.  It is always a long ordeal to drive up there.  Yesterday was no exception.  In McBride it was raining when I started out, but by the time I had driven for an hour, the dramatic looking clouds had begun to break up, so I pulled over to take the photo above.  Once I got to Prince, the skies were clear.

    By 2:00 I had gotten everything done that I had to do, so I headed back home. There was still a bit of fall color on the thinning leaves of the cottonwood trees as I got back to the mountains around McBride, so I pulled over to take the photo below.

    I always find it interesting how much cooler it gets driving through those forested 135 miles between Prince George and McBride.  It was 11°C (52°F) in Prince George and I noted that the temperature had dropped to 7°C (45°F) as I drove the long curvy and hilly drive home.  When I got back home in McBride, I checked the outside temperature again, and found, like in Prince George, it was also 11°C.

View my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

1974: A New Teacherage And School Building

             Our first day back in camp was going to be a busy one, as we forced ourselves off of the shag-carpeted floor of the new mobile home that was to be our teacherage.  We were still groggy from a poor night’s attempt at sleep.  I borrowed a camp truck and towed our trailer full of our possessions, over to the new home and began to unload.          

            That afternoon, Shawn, Sharon, and Victor, three of my students who were in camp, came to peak into their new school and help me in the move all the new and old school supplies into our new brand new school building.  The new school, like the teacherage, had been moved to the camp and set up during our summer vacation and still didn’t have heat or power  hooked up.

    Without electricity, a lot of the excitement diminished as we unpacked  and arranged of our possessions in our new home.  My wife couldn’t cook, it was too dark to read, or listen to any of the music from on our record player or reel to real tape recorder that we had crossed the border with.  That evening our supper consisted of soup, which we heated on the fondue set that we had brought with us.

            The photo shows shows my wife at the door of our new teacherage.  Note all of the mud.  Our new school building was a doublewide trailer,  (I couldn’t find a photo of it).

My paintings can be seen at:  davidmarchant2.ca

1974: Getting All Our Possessions Up To The Silvacan Resources Camp

              I have mentioned many times that the Silvacan Resources Mill, where our one-room school was located, was a fly-in camp with no road access.  There was however access by rail, but taking the BC Railroad was an extremely slow way to travel, taking about 10 hours from Fort St. James.  Not something that was very convenient.  

               The only way for us to get our utility trailer full of all our possessions was by that train.  I contacted BC Rail, and made arrangement for a flatbed train car to carry our utility trailer from Fort St. James up to the Silvacan Resources camp on Takla Lake.

            This being done, I drove over to the train yard, and had a flatbed rail car moved to the loading ramp, then carefully backed the trailer up onto the flatbed.  I then had the job of securing the trailer to the flatbed.  I did that using some metal cables which I had purchased.  I also blocked the wheels to prevent the utility trailer from rolling back and forth on its train ride.

            The train wasn’t scheduled to leave until the following day and we were paranoid about leaving all of our worldly possessions just sitting there unguarded, in the empty train yard overnight, so we decided that we would spend the night sleeping in the Scout, which I parked beside the flatbed train car holding  our trailer, to keep an eye on it.

                We spent a pretty miserable night trying to sleep in the car, while at the same time watching for nothing, and by the time the sun began to come up, we were both feeling horrible, but with the daylight, some railroad workers appeared, and so we felt we could safely drive into town for some breakfast and last minute preparations, before we returned to the railroad and climbed onto the BC Railroad passenger car on the train for our trip into camp.

                The train finally left at 1:00 in the afternoon.  We, and all of our possessions, gently and slowly rocked our way back and forth, as we spent time wondering what the new teacherage would be like, and thinking about all the school preparations that would need to be done for the upcoming school year.

               Traveling with us in the passenger car there were about 10 other people, mostly First Nation’s individuals who were making the trip, and after a bit of small talk, we settled in, lulled by the motion and click-clacking of the wheels on the track, nodded off and then suddenly jerking back to consciousness, for the next 10 hours, as forests, rivers, and lakes slowly slid passed the window.

            Upon arriving at camp in the dark at 11:00 at night, we hung around until we were sure that the flatbed carrying our trailer, was going to be transferred to the railroad siding, then we slowly headed to the camp office, where we got the keys to the new mobile home teacherage, we walked to it, and let ourselves in. 

                The mobile home had the water hooked up, but not the electricity or heat, and since our bed and bedding were still on our trailer, we just ended up sleeping on the green shag carpet on the living room floor, of our brand new home.

You can see my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

A Killing Frost

     Regular readers know that the changing of the seasons and their significant signs are very important to me.  Last night we had one of those significant signs of fall;  a killing frost.  The overnight temperature dipped down to -4°C (25°F).   We have already had a few slightly below freezing temperatures, that didn’t really kill the tougher plants in the garden, but last night, put the nail in their coffins.  

    Knowing that the hard frost was coming, I repotted the geraniums that were growing in our window box, brought them inside, and put them on my bedroom window for the winter.  The tops of the potato plants are now dead, so I can dig up the remaining three rows of potatoes.

    The hosta plant by our front yard had started to turn orangish a week ago, but I thought they looked particularly interesting this morning, so I took the photo below. 

Take look at my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca

David Milne: Extraordinary Gardener

     Today there will be a gathering to remember David Milne.  David was an extraordinary gardener.  I was always impressed at David’s love and dedication in nurturing and growing roses, alpines, and succulents.   He approached his love of plants like a scientist, keeping databases and doing research.  He had a large rose garden full of roses of various varieties and colors, that he tended with loving care.  

    David loved alpine plants and built a natural-looking, rock garden to be a home for the wide variety of alpines that he grew.  (photo below)

    David also loved succulents.   The conservatory he had in his house was full of hundreds of unusual and exotic plants, many of which David grew from seeds.  Last year, he had started so many plants, that he had a succulent sale for the community. (photo at the very bottom)

You can view my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

1974: Bringing All Our Possessions Across The Border

             We were dreading the border crossing into Canada, since we didn’t really know what expect, crossing with all of our possessions, but I handed my official immigrant forms to the Canada Custom Officer, and a list of all of the possessions we were bringing into Canada, and waited.  He gave a cursory look to the list, then peaked under the tarp on the trailer to see what was there.  He nodded his head and seemed okay with everything.   

                 I was secretly giving myself a sigh of relief, when the Canadian Custom Agent asked, “What about the trailer?”

                My heart sank, “The trailer, I forgot all about putting the trailer on the list.”  I explained about how my father gave it to me and answered all of the questions he had, and he said, “Okay” and then waved us on, across the border.

            We then gave a genuine sigh of relief as headed toward Fort St. James, BC, but we still had a few things to worry about.  Since we didn’t really have a home in Canada and had been living in a small camping trailer in the lumber mill camp where I was teaching, we had been depending upon the school district’s promised that a new full-sized mobile home would be there as a teacherage for the upcoming school year, but we hadn’t received any conformation that that had actually happened, and that there was a mobile home in camp waiting for us.   If it wasn’t, what were we going to do with all of the possessions we had just brought into Canada.  It included a lot of big items,  like furniture.  We would have no place to put it.

        I was relieved when I called the school district office and it was confirmed that the mobile home had been moved into camp, so all we had to do was to get all our possessions up to the camp, which had no road access into the place. 

View my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

1974: Moving All Of Our Possessions Up To Canada

 

            My father owned a 6’ by 8’ utility trailer with sides, which he gave to me so that we could move our worldly possessions.  It was in fairly rough condition and in-between our visiting with family and friends, I reconstructed it, replaced the floor and repainted the trailer.  

    I had accumulated a lot of furniture and household items while I was doing my alternative service as a Conscientious Objector working at the Goodwill in Indianapolis, but the trailer was fairly small and so we had to make a lot of difficult decisions as to what things we were going to take with us to Canada and what things we were going to sell.  Into the trailer went my decorative wooden antique bed, the oak bookcase with inlayed wood parrots, two big oak rocking chairs, a dresser, some small oriental and Navaho rugs, all my records, record player and my reel to reel tape player.

            Books, clothing, blankets, lamps, guitars, and cookware were all squeezed under, in, and on top of all the available space left in the trailer and what didn’t fit there found passage in the nooks and crannies of our our International Scout vehicle.  I went to a farm supply store and bought a heavy canvas tarp, which I tied down tight over the top of the trailer to protect all our possessions from the rain.

    When we finally said our goodbyes and headed back to Canada, I am sure we looked like “Okies” heading West during the Depression, with our Scout packed to the brim and with the tarp stretched over the trailer flapping in the wind as we drove across America.

           Above is a photo showing the old utility trailer that carried all of our possessions up to Canada, fifty years after it made the trip.

View my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

1974: The School Year Wraps UP, Summer Vacation Begins

      The year would been a long hard slog for me in a normal school, just because it was my first full year of teaching and I was in another country, but the fact that it was a one-room school, and we had to do without so many normal school supplies and equipment, let alone a school building, made job even more difficult.  It was also hard because EVERYTHING fell on my shoulders, and I was forced to deal with it alone, but finally the school year had ended, summer vacation was upon us, and there was a promise of better things to come, next year--a new mobile home for my wife and I to live in, more school equipment and materials, and an actual school building!                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

    One would assume that summer vacation would be a leisurely time for a teacher, but our summer was very hectic because we had to get all of our worldly possessions in the US, moved up to the isolated mill site in Canada.  This meant we had to first drive down to Indiana to collect everything.  

Our summer vacation began with us hitching a ride on the Silvacan Resources’ DC-3 flying to Williams Lake, where we had left our car.       

            We loaded the Scout up and headed East, down the Trans-Canada Highway through Banff National Park, then south to Waterton National Park for a quick look, and an overnight campout.  Onward we drove, crossing the US border, then onward to Great Falls, Mount Rushmore, Devil’s Tower, across the prairies to Chicago, and then south to Evansville. 

            Traveling back to Evansville, was sort of like a quick vacation.  We watched a lot of interesting topology flash across our Scout’s windows as we drove across North America, but we couldn’t spend much time sight-seeing.  

             The photo below shows the Mill’s DC-3 loading up for a flight to Williams Lake.  The olive green truck was the vehicle I used as our “school bus”, to pick up the kids of the Jack family, who lived on the shore of Takla Lake.  ''

Take a look at my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca

1974: Shocked By Students With Problems

                  While a majority of the students in our one-room school were pretty normal kids, there were a few with deep emotional problems that caused me frustration.  

           Working in an isolated mill was often a job of last resort for many of the workers.  A lot of those mill workers had problems that kept them from getting jobs in Williams Lake, so they signed on to work at the isolated fly-in Silvacan Resources Mill on Takla Lake.   Some of them moved their families to the camp and their kids were my students.  

            Some of my students in my school had come from fragmented and alcoholic families, and they had experienced some rough turbulent times, which had a negative affect on their personalities.  I was sometimes shocked by their violent outburst and explosive tempers.

        Victor, was one of those who had such problems.  Despite his smallish size, he could be a bully, and sometimes seethed with hate.  Once when I assigned the kids to write a paper with the theme:  “A Wish”, I was horrified to read Victor’s paper and discover that “his wish” was to see Shawn (one of his fellow students) dead.  I have often wondered how some of those kids ended up when they became adults.

        While I was constantly trying to get my students to enjoy the nature that surrounded them, by giving them the wildlife magazines I had subscribed to, and in our science classes, I was a constantly frustrated at catching them doing things like throwing rocks at the swallows who where trying to build nests in the birdhouse I built.

View my paintings at:davidmarchant2.ca

Gum Boot Jogging

     Getting exercise is important at all ages, but certainly in my old age, it is something that I need to do and force myself to do daily.  Every morning, I do laps around my pond.  I jog on the level areas of the dam, then through the wooded area on the opposite side of the pond, I walk rapidly.  The total distance of my four laps amounts to a more than one kilometer, not a great distance, but enough to increase my heart rate, and breathing.

    There is one aspect of my jog/walk regime that differs from most other people doing similar exercises .  The main difference is my footwear.   Instead of fancy, expensive running shoes, I do my jogging in gum boots (also known as “Wellingtons” or “rubber boots”).  Wearing gum boots are not that comfortable, but the path around the pond has high grass, and is generally very wet from heavy dew in the mornings, and I don’t like to get running shoes and socks all damp and wet.

    Of course, I also don’t wear any fancy jogging clothes for my exercise, just jeans, a jacket, and a hat, because it is starting to be cool in the mornings.

    I’m sure all this sounds rather strange to all of those urban joggers, but it works alright in the rural setting where I live.  The photo below, show part of the path where I do the walking.

View my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

1974: Floating On Cheztainya Lake

         In June, my wife was able to make a rare trip out of camp to Williams Lake on the mill’s DC-3 with our dog Vincent in the dog crate, because we needed to restock our supplies.  Four days later when she and the mill crew returned, she surprised me with a small yellow, inflatable boat, that we could use to paddle around in, out on the Little Lake (Cheztainya Lake).  

        The inflatable boat allowed us to expand our explorations of the still pristine areas around the Silvacan Resources Mill.  On our floats we saw loons, bear, and a caribou.  My wife was really surprised on one of our hikes to the lake, to see a hummingbird.  I didn’t really expect to see one way up in the northern middle of BC, and my wife, who had grown up in big city Germany, had never before seen a humming bird, and thought they only lived in South America.

    Since Spring was traditionally the season for Track and Field, I spent one of my Sundays  digging and then filling with sand, a pit that my students could use for broad jump.  I also built a standard for high jumping and used the sand pit for that too.  In our physical education class we started doing races, and some of the field events.  The kids really enjoyed doing all the track events, something many of them had ever experienced.   Watching them try the events made me happy that I had taken the trouble to make the sand pit.

View my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

More Robson Valley Fall Colors

     I am still enjoying the yellows of the aspen and cottonwood trees in the Robson Valley.  The photo above was taken from the Hinkelman Road/Holmes River Bridge.  Below is a shot from our deck. We have to enjoy the colors while we can, because we have the winter months ahead of us, whose color palette is mostly made up of grays and whites.

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

David Milne Loved Our Valley

 David Milne was one of my closest friends.

    David Milne's talented and generous life came to an end on Sept. 28th, when he succumbed to a rapidly advancing disease.  David's many friends and acquaintances were shocked and saddened by his sudden passing.

    David was born in England, and dedicated his life to Art.  He played a banjo in a skiffle band, and taught art in a university (one of his students was Trevor Jones),  before David moved to New York City to further advance his career as an artist.  There he found some success, even painting some large pieces for well known buildings, but he  quickly tired of the New York “Art Scene.”  With the advent of computers, David slowly evolved into a business doing desktop publishing.

    In 1967, David took a break from his artistic endeavors to travel into the wilds of BC in order to do some climbing on Mt. Robson.  Upon his arrival, David was so taken by the pristine beauty of the Robson Valley, that he longed to have a home here and  bought a small humble farm property on Hinkelman Road, which he purchased for $6,000.

    He continued to spend his winters working in New York City, but regularly returned to the Robson Valley for his summers, to live a rural life on his property.  During those summers, he quickly established friends in the Blackwater Coop, a ragtag group of counter-culture Back-to-the-Landers, who were able to buy food and supplies from the Coop, and share their labor amongst the group, building their houses and developing their homesteads.

    During his winters in NYC, he studied architectural magazines, dreaming and planning of the home he hoped to sometimes build on his Robson Valley property.  

            Twenty-five years ago, David and his wife Lyuba were in the Valley on 9-11 when the terrorist crashed planes into the Trade Center Towers.  David and Lyuba extended their stay in the Valley for weeks, to avoid the chaos happening in NYC.  When they did return, they found the interior of their Manhattan loft, coated with ash from 9-11.

    They also discovered that, as a result of the uncertainly and confusion caused by 9-11, the many jobs their desktop publishing business depended on, dried up.  They soon decided that the time had arrived for them to sell their loft, immigrate to Canada, and build David's dream home and studio in the Robson Valley.

    David spent his retirement pursuing his intense interests in plants (roses and succulents) with the dedication of a scientist.  He designed his dream home, which he had built, and experimented and developed the beautiful chemical glazes for Lyuba’s ceramics.  All the while, maintaining his lifelong love of the Arts and Music.

    Dave’s abundant friendliness and generosity spread easily through our small community and his parting leaves a hole in many local lives.

    Certainly, much appreciation is given to all of the staff of the McBride Hospital for the compassionate concern and the warm, thoughtful, personal care that was given to David during his ordeal.

View my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

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