....“Now Burch,” I said in
a sotto voce tone so the rest of the Timber Club lunch crowd could not
hear me. “I shall tell you the story of the Indispensable Man.
‘Tis a story of learning, of understanding and mostly of “sizing
up the situation.”
....“You see, my friend, you are
the corporate man – while I am of the inlet logger. Both of us
have wandered down the forest path and both have learned to appraise
our fellow chaps or “chapesses” – as the case may
be. How to tell the person for the right job. Who is the leader? And
who follows the leader? Really, old forester, is there an Indispensable
Man? Ah, watch the clam chowder–it’s a bit hot today!
....“Twas back in my early days of
running a camp–a mere broth of a boy, pink cheeked and crew cut.
The camp held 25 tried and true loggers and we logged with steam donkeys
and lived on a float camp in a steep-hilled lagoon.
....“Needless to say, the 25 were
all older than I – some it seemed, by a century! I believed they
were the best 1 and possibly they were. But, amongst them one man stood
out as a champion of loggers – Hooktender Fred.
....“Hooktender Fred was a relatively
slight man in appearance. Very wiry. He was a Swede from the Aaland
Islands in the Baltic and he had come to the logging camps of B.C. in
the id ‘20s with the great migration of people from Europe. He
was a calm spoken man, a bit stubborn, and on first knowing him, a bit
shy. He was, to my young eyes, the complete logger – the Indispensable
Man!”
....“Fred came to work for my father
at our up-coast camp about 1932. He worked his way up – as men
did then – slowly, to the job of Hooktender. Really he was foreman
for he was boss in the woods and walked alongside the other men hooking
up logs and battling the elements all day.”
....“I worked under Fred a great
deal and learned so much from him. He knew the right way to move a donkey
sled through the felled and bucked timber – and he knew how to
get production. I once spent three months with him when we built our
big A-
|
|
frame raft. We spliced cables up to one inch and three quarters for
two weeks once – till our wrists damn near fell off.”
....“Fred was very sentimental. With
a couple of shots of Jockey Cap rye in him he could cry like a baby.
His weakness was the Demon Bottle. Once started he could not leave go
until the devil was drained. Has it not often been such to so many fine
people we learn to like?”
....“Looking back through the mists
of years, I remember the crew I worked with in those days as a good
bunch – hard working and steady. We had a gang of five or six
that played two-bit poker in back of the cookhouse on Saturday nights.
The stays were longer in those days for most men – from five months
to near a year. It was the way of life on the float camps of coastal
B.C.”
....“I liked logging and thought
it was fun to work with a good crew. One of the fascinating things about
logging is that every day is different. A different hill or valley,
different challenges in getting production – and always on the
move.”
....“No standing by a greenchain
or smelling pulp or gluing plywood. Log-ging is different – each
day and all day.”
....“So, good Burch, the fun changed
for awhile with the passing of my father. From taking orders to suddenly
giving orders can be quite traumatic for a young, wet-behind-the-ears,
crew cut lad. But, you do what you have to do.”
....“A lot of ships could be floated
on the amount of booze that has been drunk in the bunkhouses up and
down this coast. And, one thing about my Indispensable Man – he
tried very hard to keep the water level up on those ships. And, for
every shot of Jockey Cap rye that Fred would take, he would shed a sentimental
tear for the memory of my father. It was a difficult time for he could
not get to work for his hangovers and his feeling of the blues.”
....“I knew no one else in camp who
could take his place - and no one wanted to. I was not used to hiring
men as my father had looked after that. Where in this world was there
a man who knew and could do what a sober
|
|
Fred could do?”.
...“Reasoning was out of the question. And, one didn’t
use idle threats on such a man. In desperation one Friday morning when
he would not go to work, I picked up his bottle by his bedside and flung
it out into the saltchuck. This hurt and he was angry with me and said
he would quit. Not really knowing how to follow-up this tender management/labor
scene, I went to work.”
....“When I returned to camp that
evening, the Indispensable Man was gone. Gone on a hired fish boat to
the local loggers’ stronghold – Port Hardy. What to do?”
....“It was obvious even to this
tender footed young leader that a New Man had to be found. But where?
Well, of course, at the same local loggers’ stronghold –
Port Hardy.”
....“It took six hours by gas boat
to get to Coal Harbour, 12 miles by road yet to Port Hardy. It was Saturday
evening when I docked at Coal Harbour and made arrangements for a car
to take me the further 12 miles early next morning.”
....“I had heard that a man that
once worked for my father, by name of Fishback, was in Port Hardy. Could
it be that he might handle this job? We would interview him in the morning.”
....“So, at seven a.m. on a Sunday
I arrived in a very quiet Port Hardy. I went to Nell’s Hotel and
inquired of the Chinaman cleaning up in the lobby as to the whereabouts
of one Logger Fishback. I was directed to Room Nine and knocked on the
door.”
....“Horrendous noises and snores
came through the door, so I slowly opened it and midst the rattling
and rolling of empty bottles, walked over to the brass bed.”
....“And there, Burch, I learned
the fallacy of the Indispensable Man. For there was my idol, Fred –
and the to-be-interviewed-man, Fishback – sound asleep, snoring,
with clothes on, among empty bottles. A scene most sobering for a young
logger.”
....“Well, you do what you have to
do.” “I woke Fishback, told him I needed him, and would
take him back to camp.”
“He rose from the bed, put on his shoes, threw some clothes in
a sack
|