EPISODE 562 CONRAD BLONSKI…a boy you should have met….he would have tested your humanity

EPISODE 562    CONRAD BLONSKI…a boy you should have met….he would have tested your humanity


alan skeoch
March 31, 2022



Penny Arcade Photos - Free & Royalty-Free Stock Photos from Dreamstime
Big Bill Martin parents ran the Sunnyside Penny Arcade.  They were ‘Carnies’…Carnival people
like Conrad Blonski.   Bill told me many stories about the fat lady made of wax that melted in the sun each
year…and was repaired.  Conrad’s mom never had enough profit to go big time…but she managed
to keep her son Conrad close to her.

THE CONRAD BLONSKI STORY…TOUCHED ME DEEPLY

Conrad Blonski.   Why did I think of him today?   The last time I saw him must be 60 years ago, maybe longer.
He was one of my students at Parkdale Collegiate in Toronto.   Why think of him specially?  Like other teachers
I taught thousands of young people.  Why was Conrad so memorable?   He was not a top athlete although he
loved sports…knew every player on the Argonauts or Toronto Maple Leafs.   He was a student, yes, a regular
student…not the whiz bang destined to become a heart surgeon.  He was memorable because he just loved
our school.  Loved it with every fibre of his being.  Could Could gnot get enough of the school.  Knew his fellow students
well and admired some of them who were outstanding athletes.  Why remember Conrad on this bright sunny
morning at the end of March?

I suppose one reason is that he attached to me like a bandaid.  He wanted to be an athlete but just could not
do so.  So I appointed him as manager of our Junior Football team.  He loved the job.  Kept a close eye
on every player.  And he had a way of winning their attention.  I am sure any student reading this story
will remember Conrad.  He was an enthusiast.

What was his life really like?  He must have a pair of doting parents who infused optimism into him.
Not so.  Conrad only had his mother.  And she was having a tough life indeed. She was a ‘carnie’,,,
a Carnival person.   In those days Parkdale had many Carnival people’s children.  Big Bill Martin for one.
Bill was a fellow teacher and friend from university days when we played football together.
His parents ran the penny arcade at old Sunnyside.  “We had a big fat fake lady in a glass booth
who greeted and lured Carnival goers into our arcade.  She was made of wax and sat in a west facing
booth.  The wax melted a bit each year and we patched her.  She became quite grotesque.”

I noticed Conrad was very chummy with Big Bill.  How come? “Carnival people stick together.”
Then I asked Conrad about the Carnival business.



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“What do your parents do?”
“Only my mom and me.”
(Single parent family…lots of those at Parkdale.)
“Mr. Martin says you are Carnival people”
“We are…mom has a popgun booth.”
“Popgun booth?”
“Little canvas booth where people fire corks  a cigarette packs.”
“Popguns?  Corks?  Must be inaccurate.”
“They are but some people do knock off packs.”
“What are the prizes?”
“Cigarette packs…knock off a pack, win that pack.”

Conrad and his mom would travel from country fair to country fair in the fall
seasons.   One day I met them by accident at the Acton Fall Fair.  Sure
enough the guns were out and the cigarette packs lined up.  We talked a
bit.  His mom loved Conrad.  I sensed their lives were tough…catch as catch can.
How could they afford hotels when on the road?

“Where do you sleep Conrad?”
“Right here…on the floor.”

That response knocked me for a loop.  Made me understand a lot more about
Conrad.  He loved Parkdale Collegiate because it was the biggest thing in
a very tough life.  I got to know him better.   He didn’t suck around…not under
my armpits as they say.  But he was never far away.   Marjorie and I had
him out for supper one evening.  Conrad could not stop talking. He was so
excited.  For Marjorie and I this was no big deal.  For Conrad, being invited
to a teachers’ home was a very big deal.  I still hear his joyful voice on sunny
days like today.

Eventually Conrad finished his schooling.  And that was the end of the best
part of his life.  Not much I could do to help him.  One day I heard his mom
had died and Conrad was living in a substandard basement somewhere
near Parkdale.  He was poor.  He was just getting by.

Then one day he appeared at Parkdale to say hello.   We met near the
school office.  Conrad was as cheerful as he had always been but somehow
I got the feeling things were not good.  He never said that.  Gave no indication
that he was up against the wall.  But I sensed it.  




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“Conrad, here is a bit of money…go out and have a good time.”
(I really meant go out and get food..)
“No, sir, do not need it.”
(Giving charity is very demeaning.  I  prefer to do it anonymously then
no one has to be embarrassed but this time I forced $20 into Conrad’s
hand)
“Payment for all the work you did for me as team manager…not much money.”

Then Conrad disappeared for another few years.  He was a grown man but
still in difficulty.  Other ex students dropped by and said Conrad was having trouble.
Living in a single room somewhere near Parkdale.  That worried me but I
did nothing to sleuth Conrad out.   Too busy.  Too many new students to
teach.  Too much joy in our family life to give Conrad any attention. If I
could even find him.

Then he reappeared in the hall. Looked me up and handed me an
envelope.

“I won $60 at Bingo…here is the money I owe you. Thanks.”

And away he went. Next day, my brother Eric phoned me.  “Somebody
from Parkdale sent me $20.  Why?”  Eric and I worked together at
Parkdale for several years.  He knew Conrad.   Why Conrad sent 
Eric $20 I will never know.

I think he was paying us for making a few years of his life enjoyable.

alan skeoch
March 31, 2022

P>S>  Some Parkdale students remember Conrad.  How is he? I heard
he died a few years ago…hope not.

P.P.S.  I cannot help but think of two fellow teachers, Lynne Roddick, and
Leila Buckler, who did much more to help students like Conrad…even to
the point of taking them into their home when disasters struck.  I admired them
for that.   They acted quietly.  At some point I must tell the story of Leila Buckler.  I wrote that
story many years ago.


DR. NORMAN PATERSON — SCIENCE IN ACTION

EPISODE  560    DR. NORMAN PATERSON == SCIENCE IN ACTION


alan skeoch
March 27. 2022

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NORMAN PATERSON CONFIRMS MY EPISODES “WORST JOB IN MY LIFE””

Groundhog River…’That was my first summer with Huntings. I had spent 1956 and 1957 doing much the same thing with Dominion Gulf. Floyd Faulkner came with me. I have some similar photos  I agree that the Groundhog River is the arsehole of Northern Ontario. I look forward to your new series of episodes.’


With Rinso and scrub board Dr. Norman Paterson washes his clothes…bush 1956
Norman had a Ph.D in Physics..but still had to wash his own clothes.


Norman Paterson Author - Home | Facebook


Have you ever been trusted?  Trust is something to value and never betray.  When Dr.
Paterson sent me into the bush in that summer of 1958 he trusted me even though he 
hardly knew me.  I doubt he even new my name on that first job but he trusted me even
though my place in the scientific pyramid of geophysics as at the bottom.  I would be the
‘hewer of wood’ …the man with the blazing axe trying by compass and will power to locate
the mysterious anomalies picked up by a magnetometer dangled from an airplane flying back and
forth in a grid over the trackless forest below.  

“Now Alan, this job is secret.  We have been hired
by McIntyre Mining Company to pin point strange magnetometric readings in an absolute wilderness.”
“Floyd Faulkner will be your crew chief.”

Who could resist that?  Secrecy. Strange discoveries, wilderness, New friends… Trust.

I had some mining experience having spent the summer of 1957 working with a portable magnetometer
in the bush north of Chibougamau, Quebec.   Two of the men on that job startled me
They made up the readings.  “There is nothing here so let’s avoid the torment of the flies
and just make up the readings for every second line.”   That cheating bothered me although
I kept my mouth shut.  I never told Dr. Paterson about it.  I wanted to be trusted.
No matter what.  Come hell or high water,  I would try to find these anomalies and
record the data  we got from Ronka horizontal loop E.M. unit or the magnetometer.
Maybe we would find a mine.  But I would never know that.  I was at the bottom of
the geophysics pyramid in 1958.   Dr. Paterson was at the top.




WHO IS DR. NORMAN PATERSON?

Who is Dr. Norman Paterson.  His name has cropped up often in my diaries.  When we first met
I was hired as a person willing to ’slog through the bush’ in search of anomalies (unknowns) picked
up by airborne geophysical instruments.   As a slogger I  was useful but not as a geophysicist whose understanding of  global
mineralization was really necessary.   Interpreting my results was never my job.  My job was
simple.  To record data in the field.  Data?  Background Blips!  And occasionally ‘anomalous’ blips.

Better let Dr. Paterson introduce himself….his book


EBRUARY 21, 2019

Mining Geophysics:
A Canadian Story The people and events that made Canada a global leader in mining exploration in the 20th Century

canadianminingmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Book-Cover-200×300.jpg 200w, canadianminingmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Book-Cover-768×1152.jpg 768w” sizes=”(max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px” style=”max-width: 100%; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; border-top-left-radius: inherit; border-top-right-radius: inherit; border-bottom-right-radius: inherit; border-bottom-left-radius: inherit;” apple-inline=”yes” id=”CD593341-786A-4040-ACE7-5D6DA12A275E” src=”http://alanskeoch.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Book-Cover-700×1050-1.jpg”>

Written by Norman Reed Paterson

This is a story that had to be told. It is the story of how a handful of Canadians, awakened by the potential of a new technology, inspired to apply it to their country’s resources, encouraged by a sympathetic and proactive government, and funded by investors who were willing to take risks, made Canada the foremost nation in the world in the exploration for mineral resources.

 “This book introduces readers to most of the key participants in the exciting 1945–1975 period of initial growth in mining geophysics in Canada. Now all but a few of these “heroes” have passed on. Thus, we are exceedingly lucky that Norman Paterson—a central participant in the growth era and a person skilled at putting pen to paper—is willing to record his memories of them.”

– Gordon F. West

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IP crew, Bill Gilbey, David Murphy, Alan Skeoch, Roger Nichols, John Lloyd, Marathon, 1960

The building of a Canadian mining community

It is the story of cooperation between academics and industry. A story of initiative and persistence in the face of unusual challenges. A story of entrepreneurship, sound technical expertise, and an innovative and creative spirit. 

What is not generally known is that these pioneers created a professional community that has been responsible directly or indirectly for almost half the post-1950 mineral discoveries on the planet, trillions of dollars of distributed wealth, and a Canadian reputation throughout the world for honest, reliable, and leading-edge mining exploration.

“Stories could go on forever and when geophysicists get together, conversation is always lively. Often I hear things about events that I have forgotten or would rather not know about. But that is mining geophysics. If I have conveyed the spirit and excitement that prevailed in the first 75 years of the 20th Century, then this book has done the job for which it was intended.”

– Norm Paterson, pg 142

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Lundberg AEM, 1940s

Over the years, Canada has deliberately or by chance squandered its lead in several areas of technology. Of course, the Avro Arrow comes to mind. Medical advancements, such as our work in the development of life-saving vaccines and in neuroscience research, were once the envy of the world. Lack of government support has been blamed for the exodus of our best research scientists to south of the border.

Certainly, our abundance of minerals is one reason that Canada shrugged off its unfortunate history and became and remained the world leader in mining exploration technology. As this book points out, we also owe some of our success to government support and—in some cases—leadership.  However, behind all this were some key players (including a few whose origins were other countries) who, through determination and willingness to take risks, showed the world how to find (and make) mines.

This book tells the story of those players and what they achieved.

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AFMAG, Arizona, circa 1963

An excerpt from Mining Geophysics: A Canadian Story

“1975 marked the end of an era of experimentation, both in the laboratory and the field. Every day we were driven to try something new, not knowing whether what we were trying out would work or not. More often than not, it was the geophysicist who designed the instrument, not an electronics engineer. The geophysicist carried out the interpretation, often with little or no geological education. When computers appeared on the scene in the mid-1960s, it was the geophysicist who designed the algorithms and wrote the code. By and large, geophysicists spawned new companies, raised capital, and managed business affairs. 

After 1975, most of that changed. Specialization took over from the one-man band. Though most geophysicists had some training in electronics and still formulated the input and output requirements, engineers—often without any geophysical education—designed the increasingly complex microcircuits. Computer scientists took over most of the data enhancement and processing requirements. Geologists, usually with a background in Geophysics 101, started making “pseudo-geologic maps” from magnetic or resistivity images. Wisely (in most cases), business graduates assumed the role of CEO and ran the day-to-day affairs, though raising capital still relied heavily on the geophysicist who had the vision and anticipated the future business path.  Foot-slogging in dense bush became less necessary as anomalies could be pinpointed by GPS and sometimes drilled without ground follow-up, and ground surveys were replaced by helicopters and more recently, drones. Portable instruments of all types became so automatic and easy to use, geologists and prospectors took over some of the ground truthing and reconnaissance work that was formerly the task of geophysicists. 

Although mining exploration expenditures in Canada have levelled off to about double those in 1975, there are more than five times the number of mining geophysicists as there were in the 1960s and 1970s. KEGS membership ballooned from about 50 in 1960 to more than 900 in 2018. Close examination reveals that many of these are computer specialists who, if asked to sketch the magnetic response of a dipping tabular body at different latitudes on a black-board, would not know where to start. 



Pre-order now for April 2019. Available in both hardcover and e-book format.
https://store.cim.org/en/mining-geophysics-a-canadian-story


About this Author

When the modern age for exploration geophysics began more than four decades ago, Norman Paterson was one of its leaders. Today, he is known worldwide for his innovations in geophysical technology and skilled practice of geophysical techniques and interpretation.  

Paterson has been praised the world over for the sound balance he achieved between the practical, applied science of geophysics and his professionalism and integrity. No matter where in the world his assignments took him, he always served as an excellent ambassador for the Canadian mining industry.

(YOU WILL BE MOVED BY HER INSIGHTS.  I WAS.)

At coffee time after the service in our local church, a tall, well-groomed man in a classic tweed jacket approached me. “Norm Paterson,” he introduced himself. “I understand you’re an author. I’m working on my memoirs. I wonder if you have time to look at them. Offer any advice?”

I explained that I was currently Chair of The Writers’ Union of Canada (TWUC) and quite hard pressed for time but I encouraged him to carry on, complete a first draft and if he had any questions along the way, I gave him my card to contact me. I didn’t hear from him again until over a year had passed and I had completed my term as Chair of TWUC. Having my first novel published way back in 1971 when I was only 27, over the years many people have approached me with expressions of wanting to be a writer. I do believe there’s a book within everyone. Getting it out is the hard part. It’s rarely done. Few people have what it takes.

But I do like to encourage and help older people to write their memoirs. The trick is not to leave it too late. Normally it should be done in your early 70s, before memory problems usually set in. I figured this Norm guy was in his 70s. I felt guilty that I hadn’t sufficiently encouraged or helped him. So, when I saw him, over a year later, in the church basement, I approached him and asked him how he was doing with his memoirs. He laughed in his ready, delighted manner and said, “Oh they’re finished and printed up. You can read them… if you’d like to.”

I read them with quiet amazement. They told of a high achiever’s life, a family man inducted into a Hall of Fame. Norman was a geophysicist which, I gleaned from his memoirs, was a kind of brainy miner who developed instruments to discover mines, instead of having to dig pits to discover mineral rocks.

While doing his undergraduate degree in engineering physics at the University of Toronto, at the end of the Second World War, Norman met Sally in physics class and they married after graduating. A woman doing physics in the 1940s, I mused, is a good match for a geophysicist. And it certainly was. I read on about a long good marriage, Sally raising their four children while Norman got his PhD then worked with geophysicists discovering mines across Canada and internationally. Eventually Sally could join him on his more comfortable international expeditions. India, Brazil, Thailand, Botswana, to name a few.

Meanwhile, Norman had formed one and then another company based in Toronto but operating internationally, using and inventing new instruments to map and explore the world’s natural resources. Between 1960 and 1975, the new mine discovery rate expanded from one mine per year to more than a dozen.

For his inventions and explorations, Norman Paterson was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. He was also an adjunct professor in geophysics at Queen’s University. He retired from full time work in 1992 but continued consulting work including trips to Venezuela and Mexico. In 1999 he was inducted into the Canadian Mining Hall of Fame.

I calculated he would have been 73 then. The right age to do his memoirs. But he was too busy working, including volunteer work. One of his projects was working with a Grey County environmental group in regulating the extraction of water for bottling and exporting. He did an in-depth study of global warming, adding to his long experience in writing scientific papers. I read a couple of them and found the writing clear, concise and pretty much jargon free. It was not so surprising then that his memoirs flowed with a casual pleasant prose.

In retirement Norman and Sally had moved to a scenic farm property in Beaver Valley where their pastimes of tennis, swimming, hiking, skiing could be more easily pursued. Add to that Sally’s love of creating beautiful gardens and landscapes and Norm’s love of painting them. But, as Sally later explained to me, “Norm can’t stop working. He’s always writing things up. He needs a project.” Maintaining the farm property was getting in the way of that. They sold it and moved into a house in nearby Thornbury. One of their sons runs a resort in Costa Rica, a perfect place to spend the snow shovelling months. So, in their 80s they built a winter retreat near their son in Costa Rica.

I did more math and calculated that Norm, born in 1926, had approached me about doing his memoirs when he was 87. Not 77! I sincerely congratulated him on actually doing his memoirs, not just talking about doing them, and doing them extraordinarily well. The material was well organized. It had perfect grammar and punctuation, good humour, intelligence and wisdom without a hint of moralizing throughout the narration of his life story. “This is a treasure to leave for your family,” I said with finality. “I wish more people could do this.” “Now I’d like to write a novel,” he said.

Oh no! I groaned inwardly. How many people have said that! And they say it to authors who have spent their lifetime flailing around in the mugs’ game of writing. Struggling to make time to write, to earn a living in order to write, trying to make each book its own perfect book, trying to feel again the privilege of being a writer when disappointment strikes.

“Really?!” I said, thinking of what Margaret Laurence, the matriarch of Canadian literature had replied when yet another person said to her, “When I retire I’m going to write novels.” “When I retire,” Margaret responded. “I’m going to be a brain surgeon.” But I said none of those things to this retired 88-year-old geophysicist. He seemed to me to have the delighted anticipation of my 8-year-old grandson. I said, “Let’s have a conversation about what kind of novel you want to write.” “Nothing very great,” said Norm. “A little mystery.”

We had further conversation. Then Norm and Sally went to Costa Rica for the winter. Four months later Norm returned with a full first draft of his novel, Finding Mildred. I don’t personally choose to read mysteries. I always fail to care who dunnit. But I appreciate believable characters, a strong story line, good dialogue, vivid setting, realism and a story that deals with something of importance. Finding Mildred has all of those qualities. And I love that it is set in our area. So few Canadian writers now set their stories in Canada.

Norm’s novel is a light but intelligent ‘read’. It touches lightly but importantly on the subject of drugging in retirement homes. You can see the orchards, walking paths, pleasant homes and life style of our community on southern Georgian Bay. Even I got caught up in the chase for the villain at the end. There was only minor editing to do. Well within a year, Norm had written and self-published this short novel. He did the charming painting for the front cover.

He had a well-attended launch at The Blue Mountains Public Library and continues to have the book sold at Jessica’s Book Nook in Thornbury.

The following year he did it all again with another short mystery titled The Case of Mary-Rose. This one is set on a cruise ship and gives us some interesting info on the Panama Canal. Mary- Rose’s case involves a light, tastefully written incidence of what I would call off stage date rape. Norman Paterson is too classy to use such expressions. I see Mary-Rose as a bit of a vixen and suggested she have a more modern, telling name. I was pushing for Pirette. Norman retained Mary-Rose. I learned Norman Paterson has always stood his ground.

By now I was bragging about my friend and colleague, Norm who published his second novel at age 91, just a year after his first. Norman the Phenomenon, I was calling him. I whose previous novel, City Wolves had turned into a ten-year project with all the research involved. And it was taking me nearly as long to make progress on my current novel. Norm had the sensitivity and wisdom not to remind me of that.

Then the ground began to be taken out from under him. Sally, his true mate of nearly 70 years began to feel very ill. For years she had been nudging him to do the most important book he could do, a history of mining geophysics in its hay days, the 1950s to 1970s. Norman had evaded it. I know the feeling!

Sally was found to have inoperable cancer. Norman tended her faithfully. After she died bravely and peacefully surrounded by Norman and family, Norman did something I’ve never seen a husband be able to do adequately. He wrote a Lives Lived about Sally for the Globe and Mail that did full justice to her fine character and outstanding achievements. He accepted the slight editorial help that was needed.

And then, before he could let himself sink into the dark hole of grief, he pulled himself up to write the most important book of his life, as requested by Sally. A book on the history of geophysicists in the 20th century.

He did it within the space of a year. It was eagerly accepted, edited and published by the most prestigious science publisher, CIM, The Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum.

Mining Geophysics: A Canadian Story. The people and events that made Canada a global leader in mining exploration in the 20th Century, by Norman Reed Paterson was published in March 2019, when Norm had just turned 93. With insight, gentle humour and clarity, it tells of the great people, the learned guys who got their feet dirty, using their inventions to explore and map mines across Canada and internationally.

Entertaining and educational, it can be ordered at bookstores and on-line. It belongs in every library, including yours and mine. I will be giving it to my grandkids when they are considering career paths.

Norman Paterson doesn’t endorse my calling him Norman the Phenomenon. “I’m just Norm who enjoys a good conversation,” he tells me. His next project is in support of developing geothermal sources of clean energy. |E|

MY FINAL WORD

In all those years I worked with (and for) Dr. Paterson I tried to keep the real me hidden.
I was really an historiana teacher.  Not a lofty geophysicist.  Not an engineer.   Even though I spent
ten summers of my life doing the work of engineers.  I was startled to discover that Norman Paterson
had a hidden life beyond the blips of anomalies.  He wanted to be an author.  And he became one when
he turned 87.

Norm asked me to speak to his friends in Thornbury a few years ago.  Dr. Paterson we have several
things in common.  On one job you mentioned that in your early days doing field work you took
your wife along with you into the semi-wilderness.  Well, Norm, I took Marjorie with me on the last
two summers working for you.  Perhaps you did not know this  On the final job, in Merrit, British Columbia
…a seismic job to determine if the open pit was stable.  Big job.  Marjorie joined us on that
job,  The Mine geologist and the mine manager assumed Marjorie was a hooker I had met
in Vancouver.  No matter how many times I said she was my wife, they snickered.  “So, Marjorie,
you may as well accept that.”

When you thanked me for that speech, I remember you saying “Alan was always a bit precocious.”
Which could be true.  But one thing was certain.  Trust!  I could be trusted to do the job no matter
where in  the world I was sent.  Alaska, Yukon, Ireland, Niagara Falls, Timagami, Marathon,
Paradise Lodge, Pokiok Falls, Merritt.     Thanks Norm.


alan skeoch
March 39, 2022


EPISODE 560 NASTY MARCH SNOWSTORM… SOMETHING FORGOTTEN

EPISODE 560    NASTY MARCH SNOWSTORM…SOMETHING FORGOTTEN


alan skeoch
March 2022

WILL winter ever end?  Some of the most bitter weather was saved up for the last of March.
No big story here just a snowstorm turnaround that has happened to everyone.

  Just something that we have all done in our lives.




We played a game of Scrabble as  the wind howled and snow fell.   Then decided to
pack up and head home.   Headed down the road with relieved… when Marjorie said” “Did you get my purse?”
“Never saw it.”  “Turn around — purse is on back porch.”


Fwd: BLACK CHERRY LOGS TRANSFORMED

EPISODE 589    BLACK CHERRY LOGS TRANSFORMED


alan skeoch
March 2022


Once upon a time we had a beautiful black cherry tree living beside our house.  Mature. Reaching
for the patch of blue sky above our spruce grove. Then we cut it down.   The reason we did this
is not clear because that happened years ago.

Waste not want not.  We had the logs cut into lengths for the saw mill and what resulted is in
the final picture below.  In short, the cherry tree is still with us…used every day.  In this case
loaded with special entertainment foods as Marjorie has everything set for a game of bridge
with her friends.









The Black Cherry tree is gone.  Sort of.  Not really gone. Let’s say transformed.  Look out the window.  That is where the tree once stood.  Now it still
stands nearby loaded with food.

alan skeoch
March 27, 2022

Black cherry trees make wonderful furniture as the planks age to a deep reddish colour…warm, inviting,  But do not eat the wood or
chew the sawdust.  Poisonous.   The wild cherries, however, are sort of edible. Birds love them.   As for the logs, it is a shame that so
many wild cherry trees are cut into firewood.   That should never happen.  The new saw mills, using heavy duty band saw blades can
convert logs into lumber cheaply.  

EPISODE 557 MA[;E SYRUP MAKING IN 1970 ALAN SKEOCH AND FAMILY


EPISODE 557   MAPLE SYRUP MAKING IN 1970

alan skeoch
March 25, 2022

SOME of our fellow teaching friends drove or flew to exotic places on the March school break
in the 1970’s.  We had a better plan.  March Break was maple syrup time.  Simple to do.  I had a huge
supply of sap pails and piles bought at farm auctions.  All I needed was a brace and
bit.   Lorne Saunders said we could use his maple trees over on he Fourth Line
of Erin Township.  Must be 500 trees available.  We only needed 20 or 30.  But we had to
get the trees tapped on those special warm days and cold nights of the month of March.



‘Our two boys were delighted.  Here Kevin found a weird fungus on one of sap
running afternoons.  March is a wonderful month where it feels great to be alive
after being cooped up in the house for winter.


Don’t get me wrong.  Sap tapping days can have big snowstorms.   Winter is still present.  But weakening.



After drilling a gentle hole and tapping the pile in place, the sap usually begins to run right away.
Make sure to drill the hole so it  slopes down gently….so sap can run.











These old orange pails looked best. Like flowers in the forest.

Some days no sap would run because the weather was freezing.



And it was easy to know when the sap gathering days were over.  The spears of wild garlic
popped up all over the forest floor.  And flies began to cluster around the sap spiles.  The sap
changed….like milk that has gone sour.



Our wonderful coonhound Tara enjoyed those sap collecting days as much as we did.  
She stuck close to us which is strange for  a  coonhound because there were so many
scents to follow.  I think she liked sap collecting as much as we did.  When the snow was thick on
the ground I got the idea of harnessing her to the sleigh loaded with old milk cans full of
sap.  That did not work well.

The sap collecting was sort of silly really.  We had to drive 45 miles to the farm where the trees were tapped.  
I assume some of our friends thought we were a little tapped in the head.



We parked the truck beside the the forest ,  loaded the sap and then drove all the way
back to Port Credit for the boiling.  That’s nearly 100 miles just to get 30 gallons of sap on
good days.  None on bad days.  



Previously I had gathered a good pile of driftwood from Sunnyside Beach in West Toronto.  My fuel. I needed
lots because it took 40 gallons of sap to get 1 gallon of syrup.








Sometimes the Fifth line froze solid with ice on those March afternoons.   Enough for Marjorie and Kevin to skate
down the line.



Then our sap collecting days ended when some bastar parked beside the maple bush with
with his 22 calibre rifle and shot holwa in our sap pails.   That was depressing.  Bu we got 
three good years of syrup making.  Joyful as you can see in Kevin’s face.

CAUTION:  Later we were told that all our maple syrup pails were dangerous.  Lead soldered
bottoms.  Lead poisoning.   Never noticed that on those great days earlier.  Our maple
syrup was black…dark black.   Most good syrup is light brown.  Ours had lots of charcoal
from the wood smoke and ashes .  No matter. Those were halcyon days.

I bet dollars to doughnuts most readers wish they had been with us back then.

Seems our other son, Andrew,  remembers because he is collecting sap as I write.  And
using modern aluminum pails.   

alan skeoch
March 26, 2022

EPISODE 556 THE SKEOCH FARM AUCTION…FERGUS FARM OF NORMAN SKEOCH

EPISODE 556   THE SKEOCH FARM AUCTION…FERGUS “HOME” FARM OF NORMAN SKEOCH…a few memories


alan skeoch

March 23, 2022
    

NORMAN SKEOCH,  youngest of the James Skeoch family , owner of the Home Farm, Nichol
Township, Wellington County, Ontario, Canada  (circa 1950)


Selling the home farm of our branch of the Skeoch family was an unpleasant task.  And the first part
of that task was the auction sale of Uncle Norman’s farm equipment.  Each piece of equipment had
a personal history.  Particularly the Massey Harris combine harvester (circa 1950).  To get a crowd we
published a giant poster which was plastered to fence posts and telephone poles and store windows 
in the vicinity of the Fergus farm (Wellington County).  Somehow my aunt Elizabeth got wind of the poster
plan and insisted the 1920 family picture be deleted.   Too bad really as I had hoped the poster would
be a family heirloom some day.   









NORMAN SKEOCH, circa 1975, repairing combine with a hammer.



    MEMORIES OF THE HOME FARM MASSEY HARRIS COMBINE HARVESTER

    DATELINE 1975


“ALAN, how would you like to take the Ford tractor and the side delivery rake…turn over the hay in the south field.”
“Love to…”
“Hay got a little damp in the rain…too wet to bail.”

That must have been in the MID 1970’s.  Uncle Norman (Skeoch) was running the Skeoch farm alone by then.  Uncle Archie had
died in the west.  Choked to death.  Which left Norman alone on the Fergus farm.  It was mid summer, beautiful day, smell of growth in
the air coupled with the perfume of new mown hay.  A gaggle of guinea hens ran here and there yapping to beat the band.

Uncle Norman surprised me that  day.  That was the first and only time he ever entrusted me with a farming operation.  Hell, I didn’t
even know how to start the tractor let alone guide the side delivery rake accurately down the windrowed timothy.   

“No problem, just
push the starter and put her in gear.  Do it now.  I’ve got to work on the combine.”

The combine?  Archie and Norman had pooled their resources back in the early 1950’s to buy what was then a brand new Massey Harris combine harvester.
By the late 1970’s it was no longer new.  The red paint of its halcyon days had faded to a rusty red hue.   The great hulking machine had lost its
novelty.  New combines had replaced this one.  Huge, self-propelled machines that could consume wheat, oats or barley fields as if they were morning
porridge in a lumber camp.

“Needs some repairs.”

Seemed odd to me that Uncle Norman was going to repair the machine with a big ball pain hammer.  But what did  I know?
So he began hammering as I drove down past the barn to the south field. Elated to be trusted.  Determined to ruffle up the wet hay as perfectly as
possible.  What a grand afternoon?  What a great job?  Could I do the turning twice just for the hell of it?  Best not.  So I returned to
the barn where Uncle Norman was pounding the Massey Harris combine as if it was some enemy in mortal combat.



“Job’s done, Uncle Norman.” , I was proud of myself…turned over a field of wet hay successfully,
“Harrumph1”  
“What’s up?”  Norman seemed distracted…but still had his good humour.
“Picked up a son of a bitching rock … bent the goddamn master cylinder.”

         Amazing how the Skeoch brothers could make cursing seems like fine English.

“Can it be fixed?”
“Not today and not with this goddamn hammer.”
“Rock?”
“Yep, still in  there…”
“Can it be fixed?”
“Nope…dead…dead as that guinea hen I hit with the mower…damn,damn, damn!”

So, while i was enjoying myself, Uncle Norman was trying in vain to attempt to harvest the oats whose golden tassels were waving in the summer breeze.

“What will you do?”
“Have to get a custom machine in to harvest the oat field.  Have to pay for that.  Farming can be a losing proposition.”


        DATELINE  1977


That comment made me think of another visit to the Skeoch farm.  Uncle Norman was in the stable and a big five ton truck
had backed up close to the stable door.  A boarding ramp had been lowered.  Painted on the side of the truck were
the words  “dead and disabled animals,  call ….”

“What’s up Uncle Norman?”
“Had to call the dead wagon…heifer in the barn got the bloat…blew up like a goddamn dirigible…dead…alfalfa, I think.”
“Bloat?”
“Happens once in a while with cattle.  if I had seen her I could have driven-in the bloat knife right into her gut and let the gas out of her.  Happened so goddamn fast
that I couldn’t reach her in time.  Now she’s wedged in the barn, blown up…take a look if you want….”

And there she was, Dead as a doornail, lying on her side at the stable door.  Huge.  Seemed too big for the doorway. Wondered if she
could be deflated somehow but Uncle Norman and the dead wagon man hooked her up with a cable around her back hooves and hauled her
through the door and up into the back of the truck.

“What happens  to her now?”
“Depends  how long she’s been dead,” said the dead wagon man.  Which  was not really a straight answer.
“Dead  loss to me, for sure,” responded Uncle Norman.

Farming is a chancy kind of business.  Lots of things can and do go wrong. Often.  I was a teacher…i.e. on salary… and it never occurred to me
that Uncle Norman’s income from farming must have been a pittance.  So small that the loss of a heifer and the loss of the Massey Harris
combine might have pushed him over the edge into near bankruptcy.    His expenses  were small.  For most of his life he was a bachelor
Never travelled much.  Couldn’t really because his truck was so badly battered that it raised  eyebrows on the road.  That condition coupled
with the fact he had four or five dogs as passengers, their heads jockeying to get in the open air from the passenger window.  There was no back window
making the truck rather chilly on winter days.  The dogs had torn up the bench seat so badly that there was more stuffing than leather.  Looked like a

        nest.  But he only needed to drive it into Fergus for a few sacks of grain ‘chop’ for the cattle.  And maybe a stopover at the Fergus Legion for

        draught of beer.

        

THE ORCHARD…A HIDDEN ARCHEOLOGICAL SITE


Up in the orchard archaeologists had identified the fragmentary evidence that ancient people…perhaps Neutral aboriginals…had once lived and laboured
on Skeoch land.  NO. Reverse that comment.  The Skeoch’s laboured on what was once aboriginal ground.


 But that was supposed to be a secret lest souvenir hunters destroy any remaining evidence.


MANGER … HIDEOUT FOR A CASE OF BEER. MOLSON’S GOLDEN, 1979

       “Would you drink a bottle of beer, buckshot?”

      “I would, yes.”

      And Uncle Norman opened the stable door, slid by a wheelbarrow and rummaged under the hay in the first manger.  Presto.  Two bottle of beer.

That was the last time I remember seeing him alive.  He died in 1979 and when his Safety Box was opened  and the will read I got a big surprise.  My cousin John Skeoch….’long’ John Skeoch…and I
were named as executors in the will … not as recipients but executors.  We had to carry out Norman’s wishes.  He left the farm to his  brothers and sisters and their families.  Holy Smoke!
That meant one unpleasant task was placed in our hands.  We had to sell the farm.  How else could the farm and its contents be divided? It had to be converted to cash and then divided
equally as possible to the families of Lena,  Elizabeth, Greta, Archie, Arnold, Arthur and John.  And, in the cases where some had pre deceased Norman then that share had to be further
subdivided.   This was going to be messy.  




        THE MASSEY HARRIS COMBINE 


Today,  one memory of that ‘executing the will’ ordeal stands out in my mind.   That Massey-Harris combine harvester.

    Who owned it?  Was it Uncle Norman’s?  Or Uncle Archie’s?  Well, it belonged to both of them.  So in order to avoid family squabbles we decided that whatever we got from the machine

    at the auction then that amount would not be divided up but go directly to Uncle Archie’s surviving family members.  Seemed wise at the time.  But wasn’t.  

       Auctioneer Max Storey took charge.   Everything was up for auction which meant bidding competitions that usually arrived at a fair value.  What is the fair value of a Massey Harris combine
      bought in 1950 and sold in 1979 with a rock imbedded in the master cylinder?

“Next is this Massey Harris combine harvester.  Not running right now
so you are buying it as is.   Open bid?”

Silence. No bidding. Eventually the scrap man bid around $40 for the machine…might be worth $100 in the scrap yard but it would cost quite a bit to get it there.
The $40 satisfied no one.  We would have been wiser to have avoided trying to be nice guys.  Got us only anger. Being executors in a will where there are many
people to satisfy is not easy.  And sometimes things being sold have higher emotional value than market value.   


    THE CAST IRON PIG SCAULDING POT


    Then there was the question of the huge cast iron pot used for pig slaughtering and/or maple syrup.  Uncle Norman had given me the pot a few years earlier.

To avoid dispute I did what I thought was an honourable thing.  
To avoid trouble I returned it to the farm auction and was resolved to buy it back at whatever
price.  Bidding was spirited  I won.  That honourable effort got me no praise.  Instead a member of the Fergus Legion got really angry with me.

“Norman brings this cauldron to our corn roasts every year…has done so for decades.  It’s ours”
“Then why not bid for it?”
“Who do you think was bidding against you.”
“Why stop?”
“Price went too high.  But that is our pot…need it for the corn roast.”

I said nothing but just loaded it into our truck.  Seemed being honourable was not a good idea.

THE REAPER WAS NEVER FOUND


Somewhere buried in a fence row must be the ruins of the Skeoch Reaper, made famous

when the Fergus newspaper in 1932 featured a picture of Grandfather James Skeoch reaping
his grain field with the Skeoch family reaper which, in 1932, was long past its glory days.



The Skeoch farm, our ‘home “ farm in Nichol Township, Wellington County, dated back

to 1846 give or take a year or so.  The stone house was built around the turn of the

20th century using field stones from the fenceroaw   The barn built earlier using beams
harvested from the once majestic stands of white pine.  

Above is a picture of James Skeoch, my grandfather, using an ancient reaping
machine to cut grain using the power of two horses.    I never knew him.   

Most of my memories of the home farm are centred around Uncle Norman.
My cousin John Skeoch and I did the best we could to follow the instructions
in Uncle Norman’s will.   In the end there were so many people getting shares
tha the individual amounts were small   Might have been better if Norman had
willed the farm to one person.  Then it would still be our ‘home’ farm unless
the town of Fergus grew larger.

Somewhere I have pictures of the auction day.  The pictures are not stunning
because the auction day was cold and dark…a November day.    Perhaps coming
in next Episode…or later.


Left to right….Norman Skeoch, Archie Skeoch, Arthur Skeoch, Arnold (Red) Skeoch
Front row…Elsie (Freeman ) Skeoch, wife of Arnold, 

alan skeoch
March 24, 2022

EPISODE 558 PART 67 Set. 7 to sept 10, 1958 TO 1958 WORST JOB I EVER HAD



Note:  This is the last part (7) of the WORST JOB I EVER HAD.  Sounds rather
juvenile at times…I was just a kid entering a grown up world.   This would have
been a better story if I had only interviewed Walter Helstein more.  His accident 
was the endow the adventure…a sad ending.

EPISODE 558   PART 7   SEPTEMBER 7 TO SEPT  10, 1958.        WORST JOB I EVER HAD

 

September 7, 1958









I suppose a bad ending was predictable for poor Walter Helstein.  In early July. When he crawled out of
the float plane and beheld his new home, he may have considered  quitting.   His new home
was an untouched virgin patch of boreal forest on a small precipice overhanging a huge river
whose waters were rolling north to James Bay..the Hudson’s Bay…then the Arctic.
Walter said nothing.  He just smiled in his disarming way.  A grin.  And then he got to work
cutting the clearing and raising the tents.

Walter was older than all of us.  Three times older.  Perhaps in his 60’s.  He was out of shape
from lolling around South Porcupine getting bit jobs now and then.  He had no idea he would
spend the next months sleeping rough…on a wire cot or pine bough bed — both.  He had no
idea that food would be wormy and in short supply.  He had no idea that he would be expected
to use a blazing axe to mark over 200 miles of nearly invisible trails through a green wilderness
of twisted spruce and cedar forest .   He had no idea that much of the summer would be spent
in a swamp with water percolating through larger and larger holes in his high cut leather boots.
He had no idea that his trial  would have a tragic ending. 

 He was careful
most of the time but also tired of stretching his legs of moss covered windfalls.  He was careful
to avoid the sharpened spikes of tag alders cleared for compass bearings.  

Walter Helstein nearly made it.  He nearly survived.


WALTER HELSTEIIN TRAGEDY

DEAR DIARY

Tragedy struck today when  we came upon Walter Helstein unconscious  on the trail with an alder spike driven through his hand.   We think he was
lying there for an hour or two with this very serious wound.  He was much older than the rest of us so followed distantly behind sometimesl

so his absence was not a problem.  Walt always caught up never failed to do his part of the job.  We were a good team I felt.  To see him lying there

on the trail was frightening.  Was he dead…heart attack?  No.  He fainted it seemed.

We revived him and helped him get back to our campsite where the wound was
washed and bandaged.  Walter took some  sulpha pills to numb the pain.  Not sure if that works.  Pain is severe.  We were afraid this  would happen.
 Walter had  a habit of stepping on moss covered windfalls rather than stepping over them.  Slippery rotten windfalls are dangerous. 

Walter has  been with us for the whole summer which surprised us all for he seemed  too old and too out of shape for the kind of work we were
doing.  But Walt persisted and turned out to be a joy to work with.   He is 40 years older than me yet we worked as a team blazing trails that
criss crossed some very nasty parts  of this wilderness.  


Walter must get to a hospital before infection sears  ub,. We radioed  an SOS to Austen Airways in South Porcupine.  Contact failed.  Weather is bad with
heavy cloud cover.  Doubtful if the Beaver could find Kapik Lake so fogged in right nowt…so small…especially when he ceiling is so low.   Nothing we could do as nightfall arrived.

  We made Walter as comfortable as possible and fired up the tinware stove.


A terrible picture but maybe that makes it more authentic. Walter was badly  hurt.  Sorry about  the picture. My camera was finished…so I include 

a better picture of Walter Helstein.   He was a good man who ‘was just getting by’ in a hard world.



We were helpless.  Hoping that Walter would be rescued. Made radio contact but plane was grounded in fog

and rain.   

We  left Walter in the tent for the day  and set out  to find our last underground conductor.  We failed to find it.

Distance covered   34,000 feet

September 8, 1958


Walt was in severe pain all night. Moaning. By morning his hand was swollen and red fingers of  infection were apparent.  Walter’s natural good humour  ended.

September  8, 1958

:”THE JOB IS OVER!”

 

Everything came to such s brief ending.  “ Al, you fly out with Walter — get an ambulance or a taxi to the Timmins hospital. “

The drone of the engine was heard then the Beaver popped out of the low ceiling, circled once and set down.

  Walt was stretched out in the back.   Both of us were finished.  As soon as we landed at South Porcupine Walter was taxied to the Timmins hospital.
Sad.  I would never see Walter again. Never tell him how much I had enjoyed working with him.  There was not time for farewell..
The taxi was waiting as soon as  we got tied  to the dock.  I  could see the pain in  Walter’s face as he waved good bye.


There are some people that are unforgettable.  Walter Helstein is one such person.  
  Look Closely  Walter is standing in water…over his boot tops.  His blazing axe in his hand and  his tea cup  tied to his braces with the stub of  a cigarette in his mouth.   Much of our summer was
spent in such conditions.   After his tragic accident I never saw him again but heard  that he spent 8 months in the hospital. 



Although this picture  does  not look like I was enjoying myself.  And  much of the time i was not.  But actually I was quite proud  of myself.
I had survived  just threw two temper tantrums when the job got unbearable.  Walter never threw a tantrum but
instead  laughed  at me along with Floyd  and Bob.  Actually I came to love the job…to love the battle with nature…too find I could  survive
in the worst of conditions.   My success in this job led to another six years working for Hunting Technical and Exploration Services.
In  retrospect the jobs were a great privilege…something that few human beings will ever experience.  




By the end of the summer Walter and I had  walked and blazed 206.3 miles on our own
trails through the bush.   That is almost the distance  from Toronto to North Bay.  Hard  to
believe?  



The clerk in the Airport Hotel hesitated  when I  asked for a room for the day only.  Little wonder…two months growth of hair and beard, pants 
patched with Canvas, Gum rubbers with my socks poking through holes and a  packsack that looked like  I had been living rough for a long time (which’
is true come to think of it.)  He relented.  I Had my first real bath of he summer and then called  Timmins airport to reserve a flight this evening.

What was Ito do with the skull and antlers of that bull moose we found earlier in the summer.  Unlikely to be loaded on an Air Canada flight.

.  I asked CN Express  to ship the skull along with my baggage back  to Toronto.  Tricky kind of baggage.





  Phoned  home…mom and dad surprised.  “Be home tonight.”
Then got a shave, haircut and  a big ice cream sundae.


Bob and  Mack arrived shortly after 12 and we loaded our equipment in the Land  Rover. which had  been stripped of all easily detached
equipment…hub caps and spare tire.   Bob  drove me to Timmins Airport where I got my first restaurant meal since July. 

I boarded the Viscount just as the sun was  beginning to set on the western horizon. “Would you like a Peak  Freen biscuit and glass
of lemonade, sir?”  Wow!  This was  going to be a great flight.  I nursed the lemonade for a long time and just nibbled  at the shortbread…loving
them both. 

We landed at Sudbury, then North Bay and  finally Toronto about mid night.  What a greeting.  Russ Vanstone, Red Stevenson, Jim Romaniuk and
my brother Eric  along with mom and  dad.  Eric  had a huge hand printed  sign saying “Go back, Al.”  Jim Romaniuk asked about the
lonely hearts letters.  “Let me have them Al, Might find a girl friend  there.”  “Try the girl from Florida with the pencilled note…she’s ready to
move up here if you send her the fare.”   Russ drove us all home to our place where mom and  dad 
had prepared  all  kinds  of food.  After that I fell asleep in a real bed.
 

September 9, 2019

Dr Paterson phoned early in the morning.  “Can you come to the office, Alan, maybe help with the results…there are things we need to know urgently.”
So everyone was gathered around the aerial photos hoping I could remember where the top anomalies were located.  I am not sure how much
help I could provide.  “McIntyre Mines  want to know right away.”  That comment reminded me that our summer living rough was really a big secret.
I really could not spot all the anomalies where we got high readings but did the best I could.   Dr. Paterson was very serious and professional…a bit
intimidating.  I am not sure that he knew my job had been swinging a blazing axe most of the summer.  I certainly did not say that.  I did put a word
in for Walter Helstein hoping that the company would help  out or totally pay his medical bills.  Not sure what happened to Walter but heard by
the grapevine that he never fully recovered.  Floyd told me later that Walter spent 8 months in the hospital.  Some danger he would lose his arm.

 That may have been hearsay though since our company had wound up the Groundhog River job  Miners are nomads.  When a mine is closed they

take off;


 There was one
nice outcome of that last meeting.  Dr. Paterson looked  me in the eye and said, “How would you like a job next summers an operator-Technician on
a job we have lined up in Alaska?”  Wow!  Alaska!   “

my answer was short and simple.  “Count me in.”

THE BUSHMAN’S THONG


What about the BUSHMAN’S THONG?  Good question, .   I am  very proud of my Bushman’s thong.  IT still hangs on my Boy Scout shirt

in the cellar at the farm.  Reminds me of that summer of 1958 every time I see the shirt and Thong.  I know this diary sounds rather juvenile.

True!  I was just a kid back then.  A Rover Scout.  Fucking Al!


ALAN  SKEOCH
MARCH 2019






EPISODE 557 PART 6 AUGUST 27 TO SEPT 6, 1958 WORST JOB I EVER HAD

Note: The end of these “worst job” stories is coming soon…i.e. part 7…wanted to get the
stories in print even if most readers were not interested.  Provides a distraction from
the terror of Ukraine and the madman Putin.

EPISODE 557  PART 6    AUGUST 27  TO SEPT 6,  1958    WORST JOB I EVER HAD

alan skeoch
March 18,2022

DEAR DIARY



Black and White Bear | Grizzly bear drawing, Bear drawing, Bear sketch

THIS bear picture was taken on the Yukon or Alaska job.  It highlights how we did not want to meet bears…i.e. close quarters.  If we made lots of
noise the bears were not a problem.   These are Grizzly bears.  One of which had to be shot by a armed officer.  The bear of the Groundhog river was a Black Bear.  He got too close
for comfort one evening. (see below)  He was not shot.  We were unarmed on all except for one job in 10 years.




August 27, 1958

I woke late tonight with a funny feeling.   Did not know why for a few moments.  Admired how the moon lit up the inside of our tent.  Then a cloud passed  by
blotting out the moon.  Only it was not a cloud.  it was the bear…he was on the other side of the tent wall…maybe three feet from my body encased
in my sleeping bag.  His  shadow blotted  out the moonlight.   I held my breath.  Then his  shadow just moved  down the tent wall and out of our
lives.   He stole no food  that night.  Probably he could smell us and I am told bears  do not like the smell of human beings.  Our smell was particularly
strong that night.



What you can do to protect yourself from the painful bite of deer fliesDeer Fly High Resolution Stock Photography and Images - Alamy
This is an example of deer flies in action.  They can be terrible.  Drive animals out of the forest into the lakes.  The phenomena
I noticed where a thousand (guess) deer flies wedged themselves into a ball under our dock is not mentioned in deer fly
behaviour.  At least not that I can find.   They all appeared to die in the cluster.  I do not know why.



In the morning we tore apart Base Camp #1 and  packed everything on the dock and  shoreline.  Late in the afternoon the Beaver float plane arrived and was  
loaded for the short hop to Kapik Lake a  few miles to the west where we set up our new  Base Camp.  What a difference.  The new camp is  nestled in a climax forest 
of birch  and poplar trees high on a hill where  fresh  wind blows. Not so many flies resulted.  We were out of the swamps.  

A strange thing happened the day we left Base Camp #1..   Something not really  relevant but strange all the same.  Our makeshift dock began  to attract great clouds of
deer flies.  Deer flies are nasty creatures that like human  flesh and human blood.  Chevrons on their wings. They had  been torturing us every day since our arrival.  Yet this
day, August 27, 1958, they were  not biting.  Instead they were clustering in pods under the dock.  Wedging themselves into a great pack of their brethren
and dying all pressed together.  Hundreds of them, maybe a thousand.  Made no sense but it is a clear unusual  memory.  We did not try to dissuade them  from this  mass suicide.

MACK DEISERT ARRIVES…ONE TOUGH HOMBRE


Our new fourth man  was  Mack Deisert standing on  the pontoon while the pilot clears up  a few details, perhaps  related to money.
Mac was quite an entrepreneur.  No fucking around with him.
Mac  arrived  just as we were moving to Kapik Lake with all our gear…August 27, 1958


We had a new employee arrive to replace Robert Hopkins.   Mack Deisert is  a tough man who is familiar with bush life.  Also an expert on heavy mining tools.  For a time he worked  underground
in the gold  mines of Timmins.  Why he no longer was a full time miner became evident as we talked around the camp fires.  “There were all kinds of  ways to
high grade gold from the  Timmins mines.  Lunch pails worked  for a  while but stealing gold that way was a little too obvious…small amounts  under fingernails or in false  teeth specially
made by local dentists.  Some gold was smuggled out in shoe  heels…sounds stupid  I know but remember just an ounce of gold  was worth money…high graders  got 50% of the face value of gold.  Lots of buyers in Timmins.  A miner or a shift boss sees a streak of raw gold
in a hunk of rock…not common but occasionally  appears…he  slips a chunk in his pocket then  gets to a place where he hammers the chunk and get smaller piece with more gold…then has to figure how to
get it out.  A wink to a foreman might do  it.    Most of the high grade gold is ground down right in the mine.  A miner comes upon a vein with raw gold…  he just chips  out a chunk
knocks of the crap and keeps a bit of gold for himself. Small pieces are easy to hide.  Think ‘body cavity’. Some say millions worth of high grade gold hidden and  sold in Timmins.  Miners today  are checked by security guys
every shift.  Big signs in the mine condemn high graders.   Those  signs would  not be up if there was not a problem.  Illegal  gold…common knowledge  about 
who to contact.”  Mack seemed to know a lot about high grading gold…maybe he got caught and that was why he took a job with us.  Or he was just telling a good
story around  a campfire.  Whether his stories were true or not , Mac was certainly an  entertaining character.  

TIMMINS — LOTS OF GOLD HIGH GRADERS WITH INGENUITY


HighGold Mining Inc releases mineral estimate on Johnson Tract deposit  showing one of the highest-grade undeveloped projects in North AmericaHighGold Mining Inc restarts drilling at Timmins projects following  coronavirus suspension

www.mining.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/19574967_10155257983451578_8225746921495811735_o-1-300×167.jpg 300w, www.mining.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/19574967_10155257983451578_8225746921495811735_o-1-768×427.jpg 768w” sizes=”(max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px” apple-inline=”yes” id=”9F3864C6-6778-414E-AC10-007AAE1F4EB4″ src=”http://alanskeoch.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/19574967_10155257983451578_8225746921495811735_o-1.jpg”>
These miners celebrated with special cake when Porcupine Gold Mines ‘Dome” mine closed on December 31, 2017, after 107 years.  A nearby
mine at South Porcupine opened in 1910 and produced an estimated 67 million ounces of gold.  That does not include the
gold that was ‘high graded’ and sold to criminal buyers for $12.50 an ounce in the 1950’s.  Today, 2022, gold sells for $2,000 
an ounce.  I wonder what the high graders get today.  Just to test your criminal minds think how you could sneak an
ounce of raw gold out of a Timmins gold mine.    Not too easy today…body checks.

MACLEAN’S MAGAZINE, 1950 “FIRE A SHOTGUN DOWN TIMMINS MAIND STREET…YOU WILL HIT HALF A DOZN HIGHGRADERS”


Ontario mines lose a million dollars a year to high-graders. Quebec and B. C. mines are robbed of another million. (One B. C. high-grader was stopped at the Blaine, Washington, custom station carrying $55,000 in a single shipment.) But police cases in recent years have amounted only to the apprehension of individual miners with small quantities of illegal gold. Yet, as one mining official said recently, “Fire a shotgun down the main street of Timmins or Val d’Or and it’s even odds you’ll hit half a dozen highgraders.”

Men like these bring gold out of the mines by the use of every stratagem human ingenuity can devise. It is carried in specially built false teeth, in false bottoms of lunch pails, within bars of soap, inside plugs of tobacco and hand-rolled cigarettes and within the body openings. Some simply carry it in their hands, or under their armpits, as they pass through a shower room completely naked, leaving their work clothes on one side and picking up their street clothes on the other. Their lunch pails travel across the change room—commonly called a “dry”—on a conveyor belt subject to police scrutiny.

      MACLEAN’S, How Gold Thieves Get Away With Millions,   Don Delaplante, July 15, 1950

DEAR DIARY


 To Mack Deisert a blazing Axe was  child’s play.   He was unlikely to hurt himself for he knew
the consequences  of a wilderness injury.   Mack considered  our job an interesting interlude where he could

pick up a few bucks in a week or so.  Strong as an ox.  Wish he was with us earlier.s


Sometimes posture reveals much about a person.  Take a look at Mack leaning against the bush plan.

“I heard you need a man for a week or so?  I’m available.  If not, I’ll fly back to South Porcupine.”



DEAR DIARY


Supper was special.  Fresh food.  We dined on veal cutlets, string beans, potatoes, tea and ‘fresh bread’.   Our bread was soon stale…turned dry  
or mouldy…good bread got very 
crusty as time wore on in camp.  Mouldy  bread  was garbage.  Dry bread was usable even if hard as a gold brick. The  way to soften dry bread up
was a French Toast concoction we made regularly…water, powdered milk, a couple of
eggs while they lasted, some butter and a hot frying pan.  French  toast could be stretched out and become a bush lunch when lathered with
peanut butter.   Tasted really good.  We could do the same thing with porridge.  Hot in the morning.  Then a slab of cold porridge oats as a jelly like lunch. How?
If firm enough the cold  porridge could also be lathered with peanut butter.   All this was  washed down with tea boiled in a
fruit can tin with a wire looped over so the billy tin and then hung on a stick over an open fire.  When we  ran  out of real tea  we used Labrador tea, a
local plant whose leaves were fuzzy on the bottom. Easy to  find. Questionable alternative. No alcohol on the job.   Beer would weigh 
far too much anyway.  Although Floyd did sneak a mickey of Scotch which he shared equally as if it was liquid gold.

August 28, 1958









Rain…wonderful  rain.  So  we got a day of rest…well not quite that for we had to get our new campsite ship shape.  Two tents put up fast

lest the rain get to our sleeping  bags.  Then a new feature. We had to cut and split birch firewood as summer was over. Frost on the pumpkin as

they say…frost on the swamp apples is more appropriate.


KAPIK LAKE — Our camp was somewhere here as was the abandoned canoe.
The pilot from Austen Airways had to be careful landing as the lake was small with
islands in he middle.


Kapik Lake is not
big, just enough room for the Beaver to take off and land.   We were very surprised to discover other humans had preceded us.
“What’s that over on the other side?” “Looks like a canoe.”  Sure enough, some
person  had abandoned  a canoe on the lake.  No sign of a cabin or campsite.   We rescued it. complete with
paddles and had  transportation for leisure evenings to tour the little lake.  Maybe this was here for fly in fishermen.   Maybe Kapik Lake 
was full of fish.  Little good that would do us for we had no fishing gear.

Kapik Lake was inhabited by some strange mole like creatures on one of the little islands and a family of Loons
who serenaded us regularly.





Maybe Kapik Lake was one of those fly in fishing lakes that rich  people use which came complete with a cook to fry up
whatever they catch.  Our use of the lake was far less fancy.   Rich fishermen, if hey arrived while we  were there, would have
been flabbergasted at our basic diet of porridge.  I cut these cartoons our of a local paper after the job  was over.  Made
me laugh.

Walt put the tea bags in with our pork and beans tonight which gave us all  a good laugh.   Then Walt asked “Do you want to
to know how to speak Eskimo (Inuit is term today)?” and proceeded to teach us the language which I think he made up as he went along.  Then again
he did work as a diamond driller at Rankin Inlet. 

August 29, 1958

Walt and I cut line south 221 degrees. Easy work this time because the big trees shaded out the brush.  What a luxury…we could slap our
axes on one side of a big poplar then the other and move by easy  line of sight.  Summer was over suddenly and the trees were changing colour
The bush forest was becoming a land of red and gold.  The negative side of this season change was  the arrival of cold  weather.  All summer
we had been complaining about the hot  sweaty days.  Now we complained about the cold.  Bonus was big time.  Far lfewer flies…none at times.

Distance covered   12,000 feet (easy day)

August 30, 1958

Rain again.  Spent most of the day in our  sleeping bags.  I planned  my short term future.  University bound.  Thoughts of the University of Toronto made 
me very nervous.  Dad was  a tire builder and mom was a seamstress.  Most my other relatives were farmers.  So the prospect of  a university education
was novel and made me nervous not that I told anyone.   My good friends Russ and Jim would be doing the same thing and  were probably nervous as  well.
Money made on this job would pay my first year fees of $400.  Some friends wondered why I took the job.  Two answers.  First, because I loved the job.

Second, to pay university fees of $400 per year as non resident “city boy”.


Our radio weather report warned of heavy frost tonight so we started to assemble our new air-tite wood stove.  The hole in the tent left by the bear was the exit 
point for the stovepipe.   The big birch trees in this  climax forests means we have lots of excellent firewood that splits with ease.   Comfort!  And the smell
of the wood  stove is like the best perfume imaginable.

The only bad  news today was that our fresh  meat had already gone bad.  It would not pass the nose test.

September 1, 1958

Cold  … really cold all day.  Just above freezing which meant the raindrops on the forest leaves were like little ice daggers penetrating our clothes.We 
spent the day extending Bob And Mack’s trail to the northern anomaly.

Distance covered   33,000 feet

September 2, 1958

Another long hard  12 hour day.  We finished blazing our trail to where we figured  the anomaly was  located then did the survey with the Ronka and magnetometer.

My gum rubber boots have holes big enough for my socks to poke through which means I am working every day in wet feet.   Each night we pull off our boots
and  peel down the wet socks then massage our feet.   Bad feet would mean no work.   

Distance covered”   37,000 feet  (about 7 miles)

September 3, 1958

Another brute of a storm night and day.  The tent is  billowing in the wind like a great hot air balloon.

September 4, 1958

Bob and I finished  the north anomaly with both the Ronka EM unit and the magnetometer.

In the evening Walt and  I stalked  a crane in the shallows of Kapik Lake then stayed  out on the lake to watch  the sun set.  Magnificent.

Distance covered    33,000 feet



September 5, 1958

We finished cutting trail to south anomaly then did reconnaissance survey with the Ronka EM unit and the magnetometer.   No conductor
was discovered.

Well, we  are in food trouble.  All our staple foods have  been  consumed…bread, meat, potatoes,  fruit and butter.  So we have to make do with
what we can concoct which tonight constituted a can of peas and  carrots, big pile of  rice topped with bacon fat gravy and followed by cookies
for dessert.

Mack and Walt really entertained us  with fascinating stories of the ‘high graders’ operating in the Timmins gold mines…Dome MinE Company and  MacIntyre Mines, etc.


Distance covered   32,000 feet

September 6, 1958

Stayed awake all night as lightning flashes and  thunder made  sleep difficult.  Very dramatic.  We kept the wood fire burning most of the night and as a result
felt really cosy in our tent.   In the morning I began packing my rucksack for the job is nearly over.   Trans Canada Airline has Viscount air service to Toronto which
sounds exciting.   This was my last day as  cook so  I made a large stew of whatever odds and ends  I could find including the bacon rind on our slab of pork
sowbelly.    Not such a bad  dinner.   To give it a little more body I slipped in a  cupful of rolled oats.  Inventive.

END EPISODE 556 ..   PART 7     AUGUST 27, TO SEPT. 6, 1958   WORST JOB I EVER HAD 

NEXT EPISODE  PART 8   TRAGEDY AND ESCAPE FROM WORST JOB I EVER HAD

EPISODE 555 PART 6 AUGUST 21 TO AUGUST 26, 1958 WORST JOB I EVER HAD



EPISODE 555  PART 6   AUGUST  21 TO AUGUST   26, 1958                WORST JOB I EVER HAD


alan skeoch
March 18,2022

DEAR DIARY


WHOSE LOAD WAS HEAVIER?  MINE?
SO I THREW A TEMPER TANTRUM…NOT PROUD OF THE FACT I WAS LAUGHED AT

August 21, 1958

Robert’s hand is now discoloured which  is  a sure sign of infection.   First Aid  kit is little use at this point.  We must get him out.
So began the long hike to our canoe at the river and then motoring five miles upstream to our base camp where we sent an SOS
call.   Plane arrived  and  Robert Hopkins was no longer part of our crew.  Bob flew out with Robert to see he got proper medical aid.

I am not sure if Hunting Technical and Exploration Services (Huntech) has insurance coverage.  Apparently young people have less

value when compared with older persons with high saluting degrees.  Never gave that much thought. I am not valuable I guess. But that is just hearsay.  I do not want 
to test this hearsay talk from around the campfire.  Have no intention of cutting myself like Robert.  That is what everybody says before 
a catastrophe.


Walt and I spent day cutting line south 1,000 feet and  east 3,000 feet to a new anomaly.   With only three of us progress  is going to be slow.

We were startled to discover an old trappers shack deep in the bush.   About as primitive a building as can be imagined….Pyramid  shape.
The trapper must have used this  as a very temporary home because it was  really only a pile of logs leaning into each other.

  Sort of a place to crawl into when all-around is deep snow.   Just room for one man and a dog maybe.


Distance Travelled   7,400 feet


We came across this trappers shack in the middle of nowhere.   It must have been used  for overnight habitation.  Hardly liveable.

August 22, 1958

Bob Hilkar returned by float plane bringing good  news.  I passed  my Grade 13 departmental exams …enough to gain
entrance to University of Toronto.   All the money earned  on this job will just pay for my entrance fees.   Around $400.

  To tell the truth I am not sure why I am going to University.  Can I do the work?  And then what?  

NOTE: The President of Victoria College, University  of Toronto invited each new student into his office to ask them

why they chose the university.   I was speechless.  I had no idea.  Just moving along with the flow. Tongue tied.
How could Dr. Moore ever understand what a lifetime of prospecting would be life?  My real reason was to find a
girl my age to marry.  Now both those answers must seem stupid…but both true.  Quite a contort between
the trappers shack and Victoria.  


Victoria University, Toronto - Wikipedia


Walt, Bob and  I retraced our trail south to the farthest anomaly. Bad news!   Our cable joining the two Ronka coils broke which  meant
that all the walking to get to the site was wasted effort.  We returned to camp and  soldered he broken section back together.

Came across an abandoned beaver dam.   Looked like it have been abandoned for a long time but it still managed
to dam up a large basin of water.  Amazing little creatures.  Seems empty.  Trapped maybe…or hiding from our crew of three.

Distance travelled   25,000 feet


August 23,  1958

Another attempt to run the Ronka over the southern anomaly failed when the big cable got severed  where it joins  the console.
This  was not easy to repair.   The break in the cable meant we had to retrace out steps once more.  Hours and hours
of wasted time.  

Walt and I did manage to cut a little more of survey line to the east.

Distance covered:  25,000 feet walking and 7,500 feet of new line cut

August 24, 1958




Canada's eastern boreal forest could become a climate change refuge

Rain!  Wonderful rainstorm.  No work on the anomalies.   Our survey situation is getting serious though for we are running out of time.
We plan a big push tomorrow and  will try to finish the entire area in next couple of days.  Must do  so because a relief plane is
due on August 27 when our Base Camp on the Groundhog River will be abandoned and  a  new base camp built on Kapik  Lake
far to the west.  We will get there by air with all our gear.

We had a bit of a laugh in the evening when Walt salted all our tea thinking he was  adding sugar.

August 25,  1958

Somehow between 7 a.. and  7 p.m. we managed to finish the remaining two anomalies.  Not easy to do but then again nothing on
this  job has turned out to be easy to do.   In spite of it all we felt nostalgic  as we sat around the campfire knowing that this camp
would exist no longer.  No one said very much really.  We just sat there feeling we were leaving a home in spite of all the adversities.

Distance covered:  44,700 feet  (almost 9 miles)




August 26, 1958

If I had  to pinpoint the worst day  on the job it would be today, August 26, 1958, when we abandoned the eastern fly camp.  There were only 
three of  us now…Bob Hilkar, Walter Helstein and me.   When this  camp was  set up there were four of us and we made three trips
into the camp with gear and food from caches along the way.  Time was short.  Plane coming to Base Camp to evacuate so we 

  had to triage.  Only carry out the essentials such as the goddamn Ronka (apologies to Mr. Ronka) and piles of other things.  Much would be

abandoned such as all remaining food and extra tools.

 To get out was going to be difficult so we began to pile absolutely essential
gear in three piles…one for each  of us.  “Discard  everything you can, boys.” said Bob.  So we did…the discard pile contained  rope, food,
Robert’s backboard, books, some cooking gear, even spare clothing.  In spite of that the piles we had to carry were back breaking.
The tent in particular was a load in itself because it was still wet from the rains.


  Put the 40 pound Ronka coil on top … then start to bitch about the weight…how many
four letter words do I know?  More than when I started this job that’s for sure.
This was  only part of the load.  On top of the rectangular pack was placed one of the Ronka hoops made of wound copper wire…a super heavy load.  what we left
behind will never be found  for no one will return to the eastern anomalies since the readings were low compared with the western
anomalies.  Then again maybe the trapper is not dead and will return to his trap line late in the fall and  find what remains of or  cache.
No, the bears will get there first.

TIME FOR ANOTHER  TEMPER TANTRUM  
(not proud of my behaviour that day)


I  am not proud of my behaviour this day.  My load  was  so big that each step was a problem.  Would  I make it to the river?  I became 
convinced that my load was  much heavier than Bob Hilkar’s and I said so.  “My load  is unbearable while yours  is  light.”
“Why don’t we switch  loads then?”, said Bob.  We switched.   I was wrong…terribly wrong.  His goddamn load included the wet tent…heavier
than my load.  He was our point man so I could  not see his face but I felt he was grinning.  He knew how heavy the tent had become and
was glad to switch.  I  could hardly start to whine again so had to grin and bear the situation.  Forget about the word  grin.  The pain
was  excruciating.   The end result was  hard to believe.  My load had been tied  to a sturdy metal pack frame.  By the time we reached  the river
that pack frame had bent into a circle and had to be discarded.  The other pack  frames were also ruined.   Somehow we all lived through
the trek.   Bob Hilkar did not say much but the look in his eye was an ‘I told  you so’ look.   

Our bad day was  not over.   When  we finally reached Base Camp  #1, we found it to be a shambles.  The black bear had returned
only this time he ripped  his way into our sleeping tent.   Nothing to eat in there so his or her decision was  a  mystery.   Any food
left in the camp was gone except for the canned goods some of which had been crushed but not opened.

Distance covered     15,000 feet   (nearly three miles)



EPISODE 555  END PART 6    AUGUST 21 TO AUGUST 26, 1958    WORST JOB I EVER HAD IN MY LIFE

NEXT PART 7   

EPISODE 555 PART 6 AUGUST 21 TO AUGUST WORST JOB I EVER HAD

EPISODE 555  PART 6   AUGUST  21 TO AUGUST   26, 1958                WORST JOB I EVER HAD


alan skeoch
March 18,2022

DEAR DIARY

August 21, 1958

Robert’s hand is now discoloured which  is  a sure sign of infection.   First Aid  kit is little use at this point.  We must get him out.
So began the long hike to our canoe at the river and then motoring five miles upstream to our base camp where we sent an SOS
call.   Plane arrived  and  Robert Hopkins was no longer part of our crew.  Bob flew out with Robert to see he got proper medical aid.

I am not sure if Hunting Technical and Exploration Services (Huntech) has insurance coverage.  Apparently young people have less

value when compared with older persons with high saluting degrees.  Never gave that much thought. I am not valuable I guess. But that is just hearsay.  I do not want 
to test this hearsay talk from around the campfire.  Have no intention of cutting myself like Robert.  That is what everybody says before 
a catastrophe.


Walt and I spent day cutting line south 1,000 feet and  east 3,000 feet to a new anomaly.   With only three of us progress  is going to be slow.

We were startled to discover an old trappers shack deep in the bush.   About as primitive a building as can be imagined….Pyramid  shape.
The trapper must have used this  as a very temporary home because it was  really only a pile of logs leaning into each other.

  Sort of a place to crawl into when all-around is deep snow.   Just room for one man and a dog maybe.


Distance Travelled   7,400 feet


We came across this trappers shack in the middle of nowhere.   It must have been used  for overnight habitation.  Hardly liveable.

August 22, 1958

Bob Hilkar returned by float plane bringing good  news.  I passed  my Grade 13 departmental exams …enough to gain
entrance to University of Toronto.   All the money earned  on this job will just pay for my entrance fees.   Around $400.

  To tell the truth I am not sure why I am going to University.  Can I do the work?  And then what?  

NOTE: The President of Victoria College, University  of Toronto invited each new student into his office to ask them

why they chose the university.   I was speechless.  I had no idea.  Just moving along with the flow. Tongue tied.
How could Dr. Moore ever understand what a lifetime of prospecting would be life?  My real reason was to find a
girl my age to marry.  Now both those answers must seem stupid…but both true.  Quite a contort between
the trappers shack and Victoria.  


Victoria University, Toronto - Wikipedia


Walt, Bob and  I retraced our trail south to the farthest anomaly. Bad news!   Our cable joining the two Ronka coils broke which  meant
that all the walking to get to the site was wasted effort.  We returned to camp and  soldered he broken section back together.

Came across an abandoned beaver dam.   Looked like it have been abandoned for a long time but it still managed
to dam up a large basin of water.  Amazing little creatures.  Seems empty.  Trapped maybe…or hiding from our crew of three.

Distance travelled   25,000 feet


August 23,  1958

Another attempt to run the Ronka over the southern anomaly failed when the big cable got severed  where it joins  the console.
This  was not easy to repair.   The break in the cable meant we had to retrace out steps once more.  Hours and hours
of wasted time.  

Walt and I did manage to cut a little more of survey line to the east.

Distance covered:  25,000 feet walking and 7,500 feet of new line cut

August 24, 1958




Canada's eastern boreal forest could become a climate change refuge

Rain!  Wonderful rainstorm.  No work on the anomalies.   Our survey situation is getting serious though for we are running out of time.
We plan a big push tomorrow and  will try to finish the entire area in next couple of days.  Must do  so because a relief plane is
due on August 27 when our Base Camp on the Groundhog River will be abandoned and  a  new base camp built on Kapik  Lake
far to the west.  We will get there by air with all our gear.

We had a bit of a laugh in the evening when Walt salted all our tea thinking he was  adding sugar.

August 25,  1958

Somehow between 7 a.. and  7 p.m. we managed to finish the remaining two anomalies.  Not easy to do but then again nothing on
this  job has turned out to be easy to do.   In spite of it all we felt nostalgic  as we sat around the campfire knowing that this camp
would exist no longer.  No one said very much really.  We just sat there feeling we were leaving a home in spite of all the adversities.

Distance covered:  44,700 feet  (almost 9 miles)




August 26, 1958

If I had  to pinpoint the worst day  on the job it would be today, August 26, 1958, when we abandoned the eastern fly camp.  There were only 
three of  us now…Bob Hilkar, Walter Helstein and me.   When this  camp was  set up there were four of us and we made three trips
into the camp with gear and food from caches along the way.  Time was short.  Plane coming to Base Camp to evacuate so we

  had to triage.  Only carry out the essentials such as the goddamn Ronka (apologies to Mr. Ronka) and piles of other things.  Much would be

abandoned such as all remaining food and extra tools.

 To get out was going to be difficult so we began to pile absolutely essential
gear in three piles…one for each  of us.  “Discard  everything you can, boys.” said Bob.  So we did…the discard pile contained  rope, food,
Robert’s backboard, books, some cooking gear, even spare clothing.  In spite of that the piles we had to carry were back breaking.
The tent in particular was a load in itself because it was still wet from the rains.


  Put the 40 pound Ronka coil on top … then start to bitch about the weight…how many
four letter words do I know?  More than when I started this job that’s for sure.
This was  only part of the load.  On top of the rectangular pack was placed one of the Ronka hoops made of wound copper wire…a super heavy load.  what we left
behind will never be found  for no one will return to the eastern anomalies since the readings were low compared with the western
anomalies.  Then again maybe the trapper is not dead and will return to his trap line late in the fall and  find what remains of or  cache.
No, the bears will get there first.

TIME FOR ANOTHER  TEMPER TANTRUM  
(not proud of my behaviour that day)


I  am not proud of my behaviour this day.  My load  was  so big that each step was a problem.  Would  I make it to the river?  I became 
convinced that my load was  much heavier than Bob Hilkar’s and I said so.  “My load  is unbearable while yours  is  light.”
“Why don’t we switch  loads then?”, said Bob.  We switched.   I was wrong…terribly wrong.  His goddamn load included the wet tent…heavier
than my load.  He was our point man so I could  not see his face but I felt he was grinning.  He knew how heavy the tent had become and
was glad to switch.  I  could hardly start to whine again so had to grin and bear the situation.  Forget about the word  grin.  The pain
was  excruciating.   The end result was  hard to believe.  My load had been tied  to a sturdy metal pack frame.  By the time we reached  the river
that pack frame had bent into a circle and had to be discarded.  The other pack  frames were also ruined.   Somehow we all lived through
the trek.   Bob Hilkar did not say much but the look in his eye was an ‘I told  you so’ look.   

Our bad day was  not over.   When  we finally reached Base Camp  #1, we found it to be a shambles.  The black bear had returned
only this time he ripped  his way into our sleeping tent.   Nothing to eat in there so his or her decision was  a  mystery.   Any food
left in the camp was gone except for the canned goods some of which had been crushed but not opened.

Distance covered     15,000 feet   (nearly three miles)



EPISODE 555  END PART 6    AUGUST 21 TO AUGUST 26, 1958    WORST JOB I EVER HAD IN MY LIFE

NEXT PART 7   



EPISODE 556     PART 7,  AUGUST 26 TO                  WORST JOB I EVER HAD IN MY LIFE

alan skeoch
March 18,2022



August 27, 1958

I woke late tonight with a funny feeling.   Did not know why for a few moments.  Admired how the moon lit up the inside of our tent.  Then a cloud passed  by
blotting out the moon.  Only it was not a cloud.  it was the bear…he was on the other side of the tent wall…maybe three feet from my body encased
in my sleeping bag.  His  shadow blotted  out the moonlight.   I held my breath.  Then his  shadow just moved  down the tent wall and out of our
lives.   He stole no food  that night.  Probably he could smell us and I am told bears  do not like the smell of human beings.  Our smell was particularly
strong that night.

In the morning we tore apart Base Camp #1 and  packed everything on the dock and  shoreline.  Late in the afternoon the Beaver float plane arrived and was  
loaded for the short hop to Kapik Lake a  few miles to the west where we set up our new  Base Camp.  What a difference.  The new camp is  nestled in climax forest 
of birch  and poplar trees high on a hill where fresh  wind blows.  We were out of the swamps.  

A strange thing happened the day we left Base Camp #1..   Something not really  relevant but strange all the same.  Our makeshift dock began  to attract great clouds of
deer flies.  Deer flies are nasty creatures that like human  flesh and human blood.  Chevrons on their wings. They had  been torturing us every day since our arrival.  Yet this
day, August 27, 1958, they were  not biting.  Instead they were clustering in pods under the dock.  Wedging themselves into a great pack of their brethren
and dying all pressed together.  Hundreds of them, maybe a thousand.  Made no sense but it is a clear unusual  memory.  We did not try to dissuade them  from this  mass suicide.

We had a new employee arrive to replace Robert Hopkins.   Mack Deisert is  a tough man who is familiar with heavy tools.  For a time he worked  underground
in the gold  mines of Timmins.  Why he no longer was a full time miner became evident as we talked around the camp fires.  “There were all kinds of  ways to
high grade gold from the  Timmins mines.  Lunch pails worked  for a  while but stealing gold that way was a little too obvious…small amounts  under fingernails or in false  teeth specially
made by local dentists.  Some gold was smuggled out in shoe  heels…sounds stupid  I know but remember just an ounce of gold  was worth money…high graders  got 50% of the face value of gold.  Lots of buyers in Timmins.  A miner or a shift boss sees a streak of raw gold
in a hunk of rock…not common but occasionally  appears…he  slips a chunk in his pocket then  gets to a place where he hammers the chunk and get smaller piece with more gold…then has to figure how to
get it out.  A wink to a foreman might do  it.    Most of the high grade gold is ground down right in the mine.  A miner comes upon a vein with raw gold…  he just chips  out a chunk
knocks of the crap and keeps a bit of gold for himself. Small pieces are easy to hide.  Some say millions worth of high grade gold hidden and  sold in Timmins.  Miners today  are checked by security guys
every shift.  Big signs in the mine condemn high graders.   Those  signs would  not be up if there was not a problem.  Illegal  gold…common knowledge  about 
who to contact.”  Mack seemed to know a lot about high grading gold…maybe he got caught and that was why he took a job with us.  Or he was bull shitting a good
story around  a campfire.  Whether his stories were true or not , Mac was certainly an  entertaining character.  

 To Mack a blazing Axe was  child’s play.   He was unlikely to hurt himself for he knew
the consequences  of a wilderness injury.

Our new fourth man  was  Mack Deisert standing on  the pontoon while the pilot clears up  a few details, perhaps  related to money.
Mac was quite an entrepreneur.  No fucking around with him.
Mac  arrived  just as we were moving to Kapik Lake with all our gear…August 27, 1958

Supper was special.  Fresh food.  We dined on veal cutlets, string beans, potatoes, tea and ‘fresh bread’.   Our bread was soon stale…dru  
or mouldy…god bread got very 
crusty as time wore on in camp.  Mouldy  bread  was garbage.  The only way to soften dry bread up was a French Toast concoction we made regularly…water, powdered milk, a couple of
eggs while they lasted, some butter and a hot frying pan.  French  toast could be stretched out and become a bush lunch when lathered with
peanut butter.   It Got to taste really good.  We could do the same thing with porridge.  Hot in the morning.  Then a slab of cold oats as a jelly like lunch
If firm enough the cold  porridge could also be lathered with peanut butter.   All this was  washed down with tea boiled in a
fruit can tin with a wire looped over so the billy tin could hang on a stick over an open fire.  When we  ran  out of real tea  we used Labrador tea, a
local plant whose leaves were fuzzy on the bottom. Easy to  find. Questionable alternative. No alcohol on the job.   Beer would weigh 
far too much anyway.

August 28, 1958

Rain…wonderful  rain.  So  we got a day of rest…well not quite that for we had to get our new campsite ship shape.  Kapik Lake is not
big, just enough room for the Beaver to take off and land.  “What’s that over on the other side?” “Looks like a canoe.”  Sure enough, some
person  had abandoned  a canoe on the lake.  No sign of a cabin so it might have been a fisherman or trapper.  We rescued it. complete with
paddles and had  transportation for leisure evenings to tour the little lake.  Maybe this was here for fly in fishermen.   Maybe Kapik Lake 
was full of fish.  Little good that would do us for we had no fishing gear.

Kapik Lake was inhabited by some strange mole like creatures on one of the little islands and a family of Loons
who serenaded us regularly.





Maybe Kapik Lake was one of those fly in fishing lakes that rich  people use which came complete with a cook to fry up
whatever they catch.  Our use of the lake was far less fancy.   Rich fishermen, if hey arrived while we  were, would have
been flabbergasted at our basic diet of porridge.  I cut these carrots our of a local paper after the job  was over.  Made
me laugh.

Our Kapik Lake Campsite





Kapik Lake aerial photo taken by  Huntec Canso aircraft

Walt put the tea bags in with our pork and beans tonight which gave us all  a good laugh.   Then Walt asked “Do you want to
to know how to speak Eskimo?” and proceeded to teach us the language which I think he made up as he went along.  Then again
he did work as a diamond driller at Rankin Inlet. 

August 29, 1958

Walt and I cut line south 221 degrees. Easy work this time because the big trees shaded out the brush.  What a luxury…we could slap our
axes on one side of a big poplar then the other and move by easy  line of sight.  Summer was over suddenly and the trees were changing colour
The bush forest was becoming a land of red and gold.  The down side of this season change was  the arrival of cold  weather.  All summer
we had been complaining about the hot  sweaty days.  Now we complained about the cold.

Distance covered   12,000 feet (easy day)

August 30, 1958

Rain again.  Spent most of the day in our  sleeping bags.  I planned  my short term future.  University bound.  Thoughts of the University of Toronto made 
me very nervous.  Dad was  a tire builder and mom was a seamstress.  Most my other relatives were farmers.  So the prospect of  a university education
was novel and made me nervous not that I told anyone.   My good friends Russ and Jim would be doing the same thing and  were probably nervous as  well.
Money made on this job would pay my first year fees of $400.

Our radio weather report warned of heavy frost tonight so we started to assemble our new air-tite wood stove.  The hole in the tent left by the bear was the exit 
point for the stovepipe.   The big birch trees in this  climax forests means we have lots of excellent firewood that splits with ease.   Comfort!  And the smell
of the wood  stove is like the best perfume imaginable.

The only bad  news today was that our fresh  meat had already gone bad.  It would not pass the nose test.

September 1, 1958

Cold  … really cold all day.  Just above freezing which meant the raindrops on the forest leaves were like little ice daggers penetrating our clothes.We 
spent the day extending Bob And Mack’s trail to the northern anomaly.

Distance covered   33,000 feet

September 2, 1958

Another long hard  12 hour day.  We finished blazing our trail to where we figured  the anomaly was  located then did the survey with the Ronka and magnetometer.

My gum rubber boots have holes big enough for my socks to poke through which means I am working every day in wet feet.   Each night we pull off our boots
and  peel down the wet socks then massage our feet.   Bad feet would mean no work.   

Distance covered”   37,000 feet  (about 7 miles)

September 3, 1958

Another brute of a storm night and day.  The tent is  billowing in the wind like a great hot air balloon.

September 4, 1958

Bob and I finished  the north anomaly with both the Ronka EM unit and the magnetometer.

In the evening Walt and  I stalked  a crane in the shallows of Kapik Lake then stayed  out on the lake to watch  the sun set.  Magnificent.

Distance covered    33,000 feet



September 5, 1958

We finished cutting trail to south anomaly ten did reconnaissance survey with the Ronka EM unit and the magnetometer.   No conductor
was discovered or confirmed.

Well, we  are in food trouble.  All our staple foods have  been  consumed…bread, meat, potatoes,  fruit and butter.  So we have to make do with
what we can concoct which tonight constituted a can of peas and  carrots, big pile of  rice topped with bacon fat gravy and followed by cookies
for dessert.

Mack and Walt really entertained us  with fascinating stories of the ‘high graders’ operating in the Timmins gold mines…Dome Ming Company and  MacIntyre Mines, etc.


Distance covered   32,000 feet

September 6, 1958

Stayed awake all night as lightning flashes and  thunder made  sleep difficult.  Very dramatic.  We kept the wood fire burning most of the night and as a result
felt really cosy in our tent.   In the morning I began packing my rucksack for the job is nearly over.   Trans Canada Airline has Viscount air service to Toronto which
sounds exciting.   This was my last day as  cook so  I made a large stew of whatever odds and ends  I could find including the bacon rind on our slab of pork
sowbelly.    Not such a bad  dinner.   To give it a little more body I slipped in a  cupful of rolled oats.  Inventive.

September 7, 1958

Tragedy struck today when  we came upon Walter Helstein unconscious  on the trail with an alder spike driven through his hand.   We think he was
lying there for an hour or two with this very serious wound.   We revived him and helped him get back to our campsite where the wound was
washed and bandaged.  Walter took some  sulpha pills to numb the pain.  Not sure if that works.  Pain is severe.  We were afraid this  would happen
for Walter had  a habit of stepping on moss covered windfalls rather than stepping over them.  Slippery rotten windfalls are dangerous. 

Walter has  been with us for the whole summer which surprised us all for he seemed  too old and too out of shape for the kind of work we were
doing.  But Walt persisted and turned out to be a joy to work with.   He is 40 years older than me yet we worked as a team blazing trails that
criss crossed some very nasty parts  of this wilderness.  We radioed  for an SOS service but failed  to make contact.  Weather is bad with
heavy cloud cover.

A terrible picture but maybe that makes it more authentic. Walter was badly  hurt.

We  left Walter in the tent for the day  and set out  to find our last underground conductor.  We failed to find it.

Distance covered   34,000 feet

September 8, 1958


Walt was in severe pain all night. Moaning. By morning his hand was swollen and red fingers of  infection were apparent.  When the Beaver arrived Walt and
I boarded.  Walt was stretched out in the back.   Both of us were finished.  As soon as we landed at South Porcupine Walter was taxied to the Timmins hospital.
Sad.  I doubted we would ever see each other again and  wanted to say how much I had enjoyed working with him.  There was not time for farewell though.
The taxi was waiting as soon as  we got tied  to the dock.  I  could see the pain in  Walter’s face as he waved good bye.


There are some people that are unforgettable.  Walter Helstein is one such person.   We worked together in one of the toughest jobs I have ever had and this picture of Walter will give you some idea of what
that job was like.  Look Closely  Walter is standing in water…over his boot tops.  His blazing axe in his hand and  his tea cup  tied to his braces with the stub of  a cigarette in his mouth.   Much of our summer was
spent in such conditions.   After his tragic accident I never saw him again but heard  that he spent 8 months in the hospital. 



Although this picture  does  not look like I was enjoying myself.  And  much of the time i was not.  But actually I was quite proud  of myself.
I had survived and done my job faithfully with just two temper tantrums when the job got unbearable.  Walter never threw a tantrum but
instead  laughed  at me along with Floyd  and Bob.  Actually I came to love the job…to love the battle with nature…too find I could  survive
in the worst of conditions.   My success in this job led to another six years working for Hunting Technical and Exploration Services.
In  retrospect the jobs were a great privilege…something that few human beings will ever experience.  


Our Kapik Lake camp…by this  time I had fallen in love with the job complete with the trials, loneliness, failures, successes and
even the Spartan food.   There is a term for that condition…”Bushed”   I remember as if it was yesterday as the plane circled the
lake coming to get us out.  That circling meant the end of the adventure.  But I did not want it to end.  Such an experience  could
never be replicated.    Maybe we should just send Walter out.  He needed help urgently.  Maybe the rest of  us could continue
searching for  anomalies  until freeze up.  Thoughts only.  I knew it was over.   No more carving trails to places where human feet ha
never trod before.  No more comradery around a night campfire with stories, obscenities, laugher.  No more contact with any of
the crew ever again except for Floyd Faulkner who next summer insisted on calling me by the affectionate term , Fucking Al.


By the end of the summer Walter and I had  walked and blazed 206.3 miles on our own
trails through the bush.   That is almost the distance  from Toronto to North Bay.  Hard  to
believe?  Even today, March 27, 2019, I find  it hard to believe myself.



The clerk in the Airport Hotel hesitated  when I  asked for a room for the day only.  Little wonder…two months growth of hair and beard, pants 
patched with Canvas, Gum rubbers with my socks poking through holes and a  packsack that looked like  I had been living rough for a long time (which’
is true come to think of it.)   Had my first real bath of he summer and then called  Timmins airport to reserve a flight this evening.  Next was a little 
tricky.  I asked CN Express  to ship my baggage back  to Toronto.  Why Tricky?  Because a big part of the baggage was the skull and antlers
of that bull moose  we found on the bank of the Groundhog River.  Phoned  home…mom and dad surprised.  “Be home tonight.”
Then got a shave, haircut and  a big ice cream sundae.


Bob and  Mack arrived shortly after 12 and we loaded our equipment in the Land  Rover. which had  been stripped of all easily detached
equipment…hub caps and spare tire.   Bob  drove me to Timmins Airport where I got my first restaurant meal since July.  Huntec had 
promised to cover room and board for the duration of my employment with them.   No luxury involved, that’s for sure.

I boarded the Viscount just as the sun was  beginning to set on the western horizon. “Would you like a Peak  Freen biscuit and glass
of lemonade, sir?”  Wow!  This was  going to be a great flight.  I nursed the lemonade for a long time and just nibbled  at the shortbread…loving
them both.   Now,  decades later, I can still place myself  on that Viscount rolling and lifting into the sunset.

We landed at Sudbury, then North Bay and  finally Toronto about mid night.  What a greeting.  Russ Vanstone, Red Stevenson, Jim Romaniuk and
my brother Eric  along with mom and  dad.  Eric  had a huge hand printed  sign saying “Go back, Al.”  Jim Romaniuk asked about the
lonely hearts letters.  “Let me have them Al, Might find a girl friend  there.”  “Try the girl from Florida with the pencilled note…she’s ready to
move up here if you send her the fare.”   Russ drove us all home to our place where mom and  dad 
had prepared  all  kinds  of food.  After that I fell asleep in a real bed.
 

September 9, 2019

Dr Paterson phoned early in the morning.  “Can you come to the office, Alan, maybe help with the results…there are things we need to know urgently.”
So everyone was gathered around the aerial photos hoping I could remember where the top anomalies were located.  I am not sure how much
help I could provide.  “McIntyre Mines  want to know right away.”  That comment reminded me that our summer living rough was really a big secret.
I really could not spot all the anomalies where we got high readings but did the best I could.   Dr. Paterson was very serious and professional…a bit
intimidating.  I am not sure that he knew my job had been swinging a blazing axe most of the summer.  I certainly did not say that.  I did put a word
in for Walter Helstein hoping that the company would help  out or totally pay his medical bills.  Not sure what happened to Walter but heard by
the grapevine that he never fully recovered. 

 There was one
nice outcome of that last meeting.  Dr. Paterson looked  me in the eye and said, “How would you like a job next summers an operator-Technician on
a job we have lined up in Alaska?”  

Now after reading this account, would  how  would  you have answered Dr. Paterson?

my answer was short and simple.  “Count me in.”

What about the BUSHMAN’S THONG?  Good question, keep reading.  You may think it is some  kind of underwear but that thought
is about as far from the truth as possible.   Who is proud of underwear? I am  very proud of my Bushman’s thong.

ALAN  SKEOCH
MARCH 2019




NEW BOOK: “MINING GEOPHYSICS: A  CANADIAN STORY”  by Dr. Norman Paterson

P.P.  “From 1950 to 1960,…127 mines were discovered, of which 40 were credited to geophysics.” (P.6, Paterson)

 In March 2019, just as I was transcribing my journal memories from the Groundhog River job, a book arrived in our mailbox.  Dr. Norman Paterson, my boss way back in
the 1950’s and1960’s had just written a book titled “MINING GEOPHYSICS: A CANADIAN STORY…The people and events that made Canada a global leader in mining exploration
in the 20th century.”  ($20 plus $12 postage, published by the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum, 2019)   It is a wonderful record of those heady days
between 1957 and 1975 when big changes were happening in the search for orebodies within the rock mantle of our earth.  Personally…I  was flattered  to be included here
and there in the book for I had no idea at the time that we were on the cusp of scientific  breakthroughs. I was  a very small part of the story. Was Dr. Paterson even aware
of the difficulties we faced translating theory into practice?  Of course he was.  He did lots of field work.

WHAT HAPPENED TO OUR CREW?

Walter Helstein spent eight months  in the Timmins Hospital…from September 1958 to March  1959. At one point amputation was considered but Walt, true to form, was just
too tough to lose an arm.
Floyd Faulkner became the chief field man  for Hunting Technical and Exploration Service. He retained  his gruff manner behind which was a great sense of humour
Bob Hilkar returned to Calgary
Robert Hopkins returned to Elliot Lake
Mack Deisert stayed  and  married in South Porcupine
Alan Skeoch returned to Toronto as a first year student at Victoria  College, University of Toronto.  For the next six summers
alan worked for Dr. Paterson and  his assemblage of top geophysicists.  Alan became an historian with a specialty in 
Economic History eventually doing an  M.A. in machine  design.

DID WE FIND  A MINE?

Nothing happened.  All those anomalies were ignored even though some of them were very promising.  The client, McIntyre Mines. concluded the area was  too
rough for a diamond drill crew to operate so  the project was  abandoned in the 1950’s and 1960’s.  I am unsure of its  status today in 2019.

HOW ARE MY MEMORIES  DIFFERENT?

DR. Paterson tells  some of the humorous things that happened in those days.  My journals  hopefully reveal even more of the human face of mining exploration
.  Some details may make you laugh, others will make you cry. Still others will make you say ‘he must be kidding’.  Truth?..it all happened.
 It was a very personal Odyssey for me.  A privilege really.   Alaska, Ireland, New Brunswick , Timagami,
Niagara Falls, Chibougamau, Marathon, Paradise Lodge,  Merritt BC, Yukon Territory…not as a  tourist but as a person probing the surface of the earth and  marvelling
at the characters I met.

WHY DID  I KEEP SUCH A DETAILED JOURNAL?

I was  a Rover Scout, the senior part of the Boy Scout movement.   Some Boy Scouts were and are badge collectors. There was only one badge of honour
that excited me.  It is called the BUSHMAN’S THONG.   My journal detailing the Groundhog river job was submitted  and I got my thong.  I am not sure
the official readers of my application really believed everything written in my journal.  There was some scepticism.  But what I have written did actually happen
and my Bushman’s Thong still hangs on my old scout shirt.



PICTURES  OF GROUNDHOG RIVER JOB