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Blacksmith shop at Balinafad: Rejuvenated

REJUVENATED BLACKSMITH

A few years  ago I took this picture at the back door of the Balinafad Blacksmith Shop which was no longer functioning as such.  Today,  I suppose this would be considered a  picture in bad taste.  To me it just said something about that blacksmith and men in general.
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Ah! March and the sap is running. ’22 RIFLE KILLED THE VENTURE’

OUR MAPLE SYRUP MAKING DAYS:
alan skeoch
March 2018
There is  an old expression…a sad  one…”My days are in the yellow leaf.”  This comes to mind always in the month of March because many years ago when the kids  were small and Marjorie and  I were naive that month was maple syrup month.  A family enterprise.  We tapped  the  trees in the maple bush at the back of the Saunders farm close to the fourth line road. By chance we purchased all the stuff we needed from a couple of farm sales…50 to 60 sap pails with hooks on the side, a bucket full  of smiles, a hand drill, a big boiling pan, another smaller finishing pan.  and, oddly, a dozen old milk cans.   The system worked.  On  week ends and after school we would zip up to the sugar bush, slosh  the sap into the milk cans,  haul them by sleigh to the truck and drive back to the city where a huge pile of drift wood had been gathered from the shores  of Lake Ontario over the winter months.

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ALASKAN JOB….NOT THAT GLORIOUS…BEAST OF BURDEN 1959

BEAST OF BURDEN:  DOWNSIDE OF THE ALASKAN  JOB

We had almost 24 hours of sunshine on the Alaskan job which  was great for my partner Bill Morrison because he loved fishing and the stream below our campsite was filled with salmon fighting their way upstream to lay their eggs. Huge fish…so large Bill could not even hold them up to measure them.  He needed no bait as the salmon were not eating.  Just hook them and drag them to shore.  They only wanted to Lay their eggs and die.  Brutal end  to their lives but a bonanza for Kodiak bears and fishermen like Bill.
“Alan, maybe Dr. Paterson was not completely honest about hour job up here.”
“Got me a US green card as a special person with special knowledge.”
“But there is another aspect to he job beyond Getting the Numbers.”
“Like?”
“Like carrying me here and there when I want to go fishing.”
“Carrying?”
“Cannot get my leather boots wet…”
“Do you mean part of my job description is being a Beast of Burden?”
“Don’t sound so indignant…accept my assurance that your job description involves aiding fishing.”
“Is that in writing?”
“No, Dr. Paterson…Norm…did not put it in writing.”
“Damn!”
“Now turn around, I want to fish on the other side today.”
alan skeoch, March  2018 (pic from 1959)
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Alan Skeoch … All worldly possessions YUKON JOB 1962

DUBLIN GULCH CAMP, YUKON TERRITORY, 1962
NOW THIS IS REALLY SILLY…(found in old 35 mm slide)
alan  skeoch
March 2018

Readers  come in all sorts … interested and bored,  large and small, old and young, critical and open-minded, full of evil thoughts and just plain joyful. Which are you?

Some readers  might be interested  in this small corner of the universe  in the summer of 1962.   Either Delete this silliness or consider it a game.  It’s a game….see what you can find.

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FLY CAMP…FROM PARADISE LODGE…YES PARADISE

WHAT ARE THOSE  WHITE THINGS IN THE STEW POT?

WE used canoes and a Cessna float plane on a fly camp west of Paradise Lodge … somewhere west of Paradise Lodge in that great wild boreal  forest that rolls  from

Sault Ste Marie to Manitoba and beyond. Of course we did not get that far for we were not ‘coureurs de bois.’ We were just a bunch of 20 somethings doing a job that few people really wanted.   Oh sure, lots of people wished they had a job like this.  Lots of people wish they could roll back the time clock and become some kid of adventurer.  But if the chance ever comes,  most Canadians would turn it down.
Take this  campsite.
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Dinners 1) Mississauga 2) Yukon NOT QUITE THE SAME BUT BOTH DELIGHTFUL

Dateline:  Mississauga in  March 2018, and Yukon Territory in summer 1961

Tonight we celebrated our daughter in law Julie’s birthday at a fancy and fine Italian restaurant in Mississauga. All the trimmings…real knives, forks, spoon, bruschetta, wine, beer, spaghetti with shrimp, Irish coffee…in short THE WORKS.  Happy birthday, julie.  I have a recipe for you below.

Then I came home and was combing through my mining days pictures, now converted to digital.  And what to my wondering eyes did appear but a supper in the bush.  Candlelight, dinner in a  washbasin (double duty), a bed made of balsam poles  and a bit of luxury with a real mattress.  This was the only job where a  real mattress was provided.  Never had  one that summer so do not know how this fellow, Bill Dunn, got this one.  Stole it probably, he was good  tat that kind of ting.  And he is all dressed for a fancy meal in long John;s…then ready for bed  after a basin full of slop.
I am amazed at the number of people who wish they had the adventures that came with mining exploration.  Maybe this picture will change minds.
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IRELAND 1960: “COW IN THE MINE,…OR SO I WAS TOLD.”

Note:  Only sending this to a few friends…sounds too self-obsessed…too much about me…too silly…but true hence the pictures.  I cannot believe that Barney and I took such risks  but we did.  Sense of immortality reserved for risk taking males when they are 22years old.  Article is too long for casual reading so I know some of you will press delete.  Good.  Do it. Why did I write this?  Because my former boss, Dr. Paterson  is writing a book about geophysical prospecting in the 1950’s and  he wanted  some material that gives a little twist on the job.  I sent him one short article.  Then I wrote this whopper.

 IRELAND, 1960:  “COW IN MINE,…OR SO I WAS TOLD.”

alan skeoch
March  2018

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Water Divining…SNAKE IN THE WELL

WATER DIVINING:  WHY?

(FOUND SNAKE IN THE OLD  WELL)

alan skeoch
March  2018
To find  underground water is about as easy as water sluicing off a Duck’s back.  So  here are a few tips for anyone interested.  My wife says very few people  are interested  in these stories but I will persist anyway.
Here is  a picture  of our son Andrew, doing water divining.  Not sure  if he is a believer.  That silly grin seems  to indicate scepticism.

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