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.

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