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

1974: Finally, S[ring Break (And A Dog)

         Of course, having led extremely austere lives for three months in the camp, we were very happy to finally be able to go on a shopping spree in Williams Lake, and stock up on the many things we needed for ourselves and our one-room school, because there were no stores of any kind, back in Camp.

         Having really enjoyed taking care of Chico, Shawn’s dog whenever his family left camp on long weekends, we really found ourselves thinking that it would be really nice to have a dog of our own. So during our Spring Break, we made looking around for a dog, one of our top priorities.  

            I don’t recall how we found out about it, but we heard that someone in a tiny place called Marguerite, BC, had Pomeranian pups for sale.  I had never heard of the Pomeranian breed, but we drove to Marguerite, found the house that were selling the pups, and bought ourselves a small, fluffy, white Pomeranian pup who we named Vincent, after Van Gogh.  It didn't take long for the tiny canine to become the alpha male in our family.

    Our family and friends back in the States, who knew about our move to the wilderness in BC, thought it was bizarre when they learned that we had gotten a small fluffy Pomeranian, instead of a Husky or German Shepherd, which seemed more appropriate living where we did.

            The photo below shows my wife in an old fashion-style sunbonnet she had bought, holding Vincent, while we are floating on the Little Lake, in an inflatable boat we had also purchased during our Spring Break.

You can see my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

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

Remembering My 911 Day

     Everyone that was alive at the time, probably remembers where they were 25 years ago, when they first heard those shocking reports of what was going on in what later became called “911”   Here is what I gleaned about the day from my diary:

Sept. 11/01 Tues. (A day to remember)

    At 7:00 when my clock radio went off this morning, the first thing we heard on the news was that an airplane had crashed into the World Trade Center in NYC.  This was personally interesting to me, since we had visited and been to the top of the World Trade Center almost exactly 6 months earlier.  (My second thought was, “That’s an interesting coincidence, just like in 1945 when a B-25 bomber accidentally crashed into the Empire State Building.” something that I had remembered in collecting trivia for my Trivia Calendar that I made)

        Then a short time later, we heard that a 2nd plane had rammed into the other tower, and It became immediately clear, that the first crash was not an accident.  We turned on the TV and then saw that the Pentagon had been hit by a plane.

        I had to force myself to tear away from the TV reports while all this was happening, but I had to go to work.  As I pedaled my bike to the office, I listened to my pocket radio.  I had my earplugs on listening to the CBC Radio as it reported on the disaster.

        I was on the highway at the area between the McBride frontage roads, when they reported that the first tower had collapsed.   I couldn’t help but utter, “Aww, no,” out loud.

        I was in shell shock for the rest of the day.  As I listened to the radio at work, one event after another unfolded; the 2nd tower collapsed, and another hijacked plane crashed in Pennsylvania.  The news was full of reports of other suspect aircraft flying around.  Planes from all over the world were being forced to make emergency landings in Canada.  I got very little work done that day.

        Everyone else at our forestry office was stunned too.  In the afternoon the District Manager had the whole staff gather in the foyer of the office, and in a big circle we held a moment silence for the disaster that was unwinding in the US.   There were construction workers in the building working on a new space in the Forestry Office, which added to the chaos of the day.

    Spent the night watching TV reports about the Twin Tower Attack.  

    The photo is from March, 2001

View my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

Six Months Before The Trade Center Disappeared

     Tomorrow will be the 25th Anniversary of 911, and already the news media is starting to talk about it.  In March of 2001, half year before the Trade Center vanished, my wife and I were in New York visiting friends, and as part of our trip we went up to the top of the Trade Center.  I still find it very strange to realize that up there on the top, I was standing where now, there is just air, because the building I was standing on is gone.

    I did take lots of photos of being in the Trade Center, but of course, I now can’t find them.  However, here are a few screen grabs that I took from a video of our New York Trip.  The photo below shows the plaza at the foot of the Trade Center, where you can see part of the iconic exterior of the building.  

    At the very bottom is a shot of the view from a window at the top of the Trade Center.

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