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