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EPISODE 554 PART 5 AUGUST 9 TO AUGUST 8, 1958 WORST JOB I EVER HAD IN MY LIFE

EPISODE 554 PART 5 AUGUST 9 TO AUGUST 21, 1958 WORST JOB I EVER HAD IN MY LIFE
alan skeoch March 17, 2022
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I think this picture captures how miserable our job became. What the picture misses is the thrill of being alone in a real wilderness.
NOTE: My pictures are not great as all I had was a little Kodak Brownie that leaked light. Pics are sure authentic however. Without the pics you might think the whole ordeal was a construct of my mind. Believe it or not my former boss, Norman Paterson…”Doctor Norman Paterson”…the man who sent me on this secret mission. Well he just sent me a picture of his early days in mining exploration where he is using a scrub board and pail of water to wash his clothes. We did not have the luxury of a scrub board. As I read my Diary the memories flood back. Regrets? Not one. This was a rite of passage into adulthood. Adversity could be handled.
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> > > > Pilot delivering mail and taking Floyd out of the bush to a new job in Michigan. Imagine the shock we felt when our lead man, Flory Faulkner, was suddenly flown out leaving Bob, Walt and I to suddenly take over the project. We still had “miles to go before we sleep”, as poet Robert Frost wrote. > {CAPTION}
> > NOTE: There were other surprises on August 8. Our black bear had paid a visit to the Base Camp. Somehow he managed to climb the tree where our meat cache was stored. Or maybe he just lowered the rope. > Our 20 pound cooked ham was gone.
> How did the bear do it? > {CAPTION}
> > > The bear also ripped this hole in our cook tent and then rummaged around for food. He did not pop open the canned goods thankfully. > Why did he not use the front door flap? Some cans were bent but his teeth did not cut the can open. I suppose the bear damage could have been worse it it was a female bear with a bunch of cubs. Tracks indicated single bear.
> August 9, 1958 > > Bob Hilkar spent the day reorganizing our targets while waiting for a new > man to be flown in from South Porcupine. This gave us a chance to do our washing…clothes and bodies. We were all covered with > layer after layer of fly repellent along with smoke from our cook fires. The dirt is not all bad since it seems to make us less appealing to > the flies…moose flies, deer flies, mosquitoes, black flies, sand flies, ground wasps, blow flies. Why list them again? Because their presence is a constant reminder of how miserable our life had become. > > But good things happen. What a great day. We gorged ourselves on the fresh food knowing it would not last once the bear and the blow flies got wind of it. > So we had steaks, fresh vegetables, some bananas and one whole watermelon. > > The bear must have been watching close by on the opposite river bank. There he stood for a moment like a big black rock. > I got a shot of him with my camera but he was too far away and > too quick to clear out. > > August 10, 1958 >
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This picture gives some idea of the difficulties we faced in these boreal forest wetlands. Very charming from the vantage of an airplane seat…but a nightmare to cross in a straight line. Ronka E.M. unit surveys relied upon a scientific grid so that any anomaly could be mapped. Which meant obstructions had to be overcome. Pick a straight line through this swampland and then think of your poor feet. A;; that nice green stuff is spongy moss…bloody difficult to walk on. The larger green patches are tag alder bushes….the kind that Robert Hopkins sliced himself on the bounce back of his blazing axe. We really found open spots as big as this. All the same most of our work in 1958 involved swampy wetlands with windfalls. {CAPTION}

> We packed the canoe and headed downstream…i.e. north, for the Groundhog River flows north to James Bay which is part of > the huge Hudson’s Bay watershed. “Another swamp camp, boys, pack lightly.” We cut line eastward from the river for half a mile > where we struck a trap line and decided to follow it in the desperate hope we would reach the new anomaly without the work of > blazing. But we were disappointed for the trappers trail began to angle north rather than east. > > This must be the trapper who left his traps open for some reason when he took his first out in the spring. Or he had died. We were > constantly finding open traps on the creeks and beaver dams. Some had the skeletons of dead animals and a couple had > been recently snapped shut on the legs of a mink and a muskrat. Why do this unnecessary killing? Leg hold traps are really > inhumane for they hold the animal in great distress. Some animals chew their own legs off to make an escape. >
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> We retraced out steps and went back to base camp #1 resolved to try to reach the eastern anomaly again tomorrow…this time > blazing a trail as we packed in. No easy task to blaze while carrying everything needed in huge packs. > > As we returned up river we noticed something large and white on the river shore. It was a large moose head complete with > a perfect set of antlers. “You want it, Al?” “Sure do.” So we wedged the thing in the canoe and I planned to get it back to Toronto > one way or another. > > Distance covered: 16,000 feet (mostly wasted) > {CAPTION}
> > > My trophy from the Groundhog River job…a moose head found on the banks of the Groundhog River. > {CAPTION}
> > > Photo was taken earlier in summer because my hair is short and no beard. But picture makes point that Walter and Bob and me are now > a three man crew after Floyd was taken from us. We needed a fourth man and got Robert Hopkins on a return flight. > {CAPTION}
> > > By midsummer, I was a darn sight thinner. > > August 11, 1958 > > Walt and I were sent upstream (southwards in other words) about a mile and half with orders to extend > the trail we had cut back on July 24. Almost immediately this became extremely difficult a we hit an alder swamp about 800 feet wide > with water at various depths. Alder shrubs are very difficult to slash on dry land as they are thin and > elastic like. A swipe with a blazing axe does nothing unless the cut is aimed close to the ground. And when severed the decapitated > alder remain as a giant spike capable of penetrating our gum rubber boots. In this swamp cutting was super difficult as > the alder roots were under the water. Swinging an axe for an underwater cut is just about impossible. To make matters worse > in the centre of the swamp was open water…a large stream. So we had to build another bridge. >
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> As if these problems were not big enough, we came across a number of water snakes of various length. > > While returning to camp we startled up another bull moose. More moose in here than people., >
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> Distance travelled: 16,000 feet > > August 12, 1958 > > Stormy weather until late afternoon when sky cleared and Austin Airways sent in the Beaver with our new man, Robert Hopkins. > First bush job for him…he is about my age…hope he can handle a blazing axe. > > August 13, 1958 > > We packed food supplies and placed them in a cache using trail cut on August 10. Then we extended the trail for a mile and a half. > Robert Hopkins is nice enough but has never handled an axe before and keeps swinging at thin branches. Axe bounces back…very > dangerous. “Hit where the branch joins the tree.” Wish he would do this as his actions are dangerous. > > The swamp apples are ripe…big orange berries on a small ground plant in the swamps. Sweet taste…too sweet really. > > Water on the river is low again so many areas have rapids. We got caught in a cross eddy which turned us broadside to > the river flow and then jammed us on the rocks. The canoe did not overturn as we pushed and pulled it back from the > rocks and shot down a kind of chute. Only damage was a punctured bow. > > Distance Covered” 21,000 feet > > August 14, 1958 > > Rain again…all day long until 8 p.m. at night. Spent day reading and talking. > > August 15, 1958 > > Today we moved our cache of food two miles deeper towards future Swamp Camp #2 then blazed new trail another mile to our objective which is > a branch of Hicks Creek. The temperature hovered around 35 degrees all day. Damn cold, especially so since leaves and trees are still wet from > the rain yesterday. Absolutely miserable. Shivered from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. End result was a trail to our new fly camp. We trekked out to the Groundhog > River and back to Base Camp. Tomorrow we will pack in our instruments, tent, sleeping bags and cooking gear to Swamp Camp #2. > > Distance covered 31,500 feet > > August 16, 1958 > > Packed canoe with essentials and motored north on river to strike point of departure eastward on new trail to Swamp Camp #2. Three miles. > We passed by our earlier food Cache in order to set up tents as fast as possible then Robert and I went back for the food. Bob Hilkar and > Walter built large elevated spruce bough bed for the four of us to try to sleep upon. “Try to sleep” that is. > > Weather has become much colder. Frost in the morning. > > Distance covered: 22,000 feet (about 4 miles plus) > {CAPTION}
> > > Swamp Camp #2 is miserable > {CAPTION}

Notice how boldly the blaze stands out in the gloomy darkness of the boreal forest. A well blazed trail is easy to traverse from one blaze to another as long as blazes are on both sides of the tree and directly on line. However it is Not easy to do the survey with a Ronka hoop of dense packed copper wire hanging from shoulders. I’ll bet you did not even see Walter Helstein leaning against the tree. This is what we did…day in and day out… all summer long. Then returned to sleep on a pile of pine and cedar boughs after supper of whatever seemed edible. You probably thought geophysical prospecting was easy. Wrong.
> August 17 > > Rain and extreme cold weather kept us in our sleeping bags all day. This search for an anomaly is going badly and will take longer > than expected so we decided to ration our food supply. French toast with no eggs and canned milk and stale bread is a luxury. Slabs left over are slated with jam or peanut butter to make a kind of lunch. Hot tea made in a juice can over a small fire is rather nice until the tea runs out. Then we use Labrador tea leaves. I rate them as OK. Those are the leaves with white fuzz underneath…lots around. > > August 18, 1958 > > This terrible forest collected its pound of flesh today as we succeeded in cutting two miles deeper to the east. Our clothes were soaked > by showers twice. And we had to wade across a creek once. Sun came out later thankfully. > > Compass problems again as the Brunton and Silva compasses give slightly different directions. Our error or compass defect? > Or powerful anomaly.
> Distance covered: 24,000 feet (nearly five miles) > > August 19, 1958 > > Hard day. Seems all the work days are hard days and this one is no exception. We cut line in a generally southern direction. > Then all work stopped when Robert Hopkins cut his hand with a blazing axe. Bad cut. I wrapped it with a rough tourniquet and stopped > the bleeding. Will it heal? Or will we have to get him out by bush plane? > > Distance travelled 29,000 feet > {CAPTION}
> > > August 20, 1958 > > Twelve hour trips on our blazed trails are not easy. No one, and I mean no one, will ever understand how hard this job has become. > We thought Robert’s injury yesterday would heal but today he sliced himself again…right to the bone. He had never handled an axe before > and chose to ignore instructions and kept swinging at twigs and light branches. His axe bounced back of course and this second time > cut himself damn close to an artery. Looks like some tendons may be severed. Surely not. We washed the blood from the wound and then applied another > tourniquet made from strips of my shirt…picked the cleanest parts we could rip. > > By evening his hand had swollen up and he was in severe pain. Gave him some sulpha hoping that would help him sleep. Nothing we could > do until dawn and then we must make fast tracks back to the river and motor down to our Base camp where we could radio for an emergency > flight to get Robert out to hospital. Getting out of this camp will take all day. No hope for an emergency flight until tomorrow. > Infection is a big worry. > > Distance covered 29,500 feet…very difficult terrain peppered with tag alder and windfalls. > {CAPTION}
{CAPTION}
> > Robert Hopkins was hired to replace Floyd but just did not work out. He cut himself badly twice when his blazing axe bounced off some light branches > of tag alder. He was warned not to hit light branches but to aim his cuts at places where branches joined the main trunk. Getting him out was a > real exercise for us…Took 2.5 days and by then infection had set in. Looked like tendons were cut as well. Our tourniquet stopped the bleeding but > we could do little to arrest infection. > > > 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. All of us a little depressed.
END PART 5 AUGUST 21,1958 WORST JOB I EVER HAD
EPISODE 6 BEGINS AUGUST 22, 1958 WORST JOB I EVER HAD
alan skeoch March 17, 2022


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EPISODE 553 PART 4 AUGUST 1 TO AUGUST 8, 1958 WORST JOB I EVER HAD IN MY LIFE


EPISODE 553   PART 4   AUGUST 1 TO AUGUST  8, 1958      WORST JOB I EVER HAD IN MY LIFE

alan skeoch
March 15, 2022

DEAR DIARY


AUGUST 1, 1958

Walt and I cut 6,000 feet of line south 20 degrees west from swamp camp.  I think  we hit our destination within 100 feet of spot 
located on our aerial photo. We struck a creek at the precise place on the photo.

In the evening I  patched my clothes with medical  tape and canvas patches (plus some glue).  It’s  getting difficult to distinguish 
pants from patches.

Distance   12,200 feet (around 2 miles)

August 2, 1958

Wild Baby Rabbits in the Yard at the Office - YouTube


Although the  northern anomaly is not quite as detailed as desirable we cannot spend  another day working there.

I caught a baby rabbit this morning and  we placed him in a bag and hung it on a tree intending to keep him as a pet
but while we were away he escaped.

As we returned  to camp a hurricane-like storm hit suddenly.  The sun was completely blackened out and then came high
velocity winds strong enough to tear trees  out by their roots throwing them around  as if they were match sticks.  Some
of these new windfalls  blocked our trail.   I have never in my life seen such a storm.  Ferocious.  Nature weeding out the
sick and the dead I suppose.




Distance covered    30,000 feet  (6 miles)

August 3, 1958

The storm railed  all night…including lightning and torrential rain.  Frightening but wonderful at same time.  Good thing too for now
our water supply has been replenished and, more important, the supply plane will be able to land  back at our base camp
on the Groundhog River maybe although not expected  until August 8.

In the afternoon Walt and I hiked  out of the swamp camp to our base camp for more food.  So many trees across our trail that
we had to cut new  bypasses.




The structure of natural boreal forests is shaped by a combination of... | Download Scientific Diagram


Distance travelled   21,000 feet (4 miles)

August 4, 1958

Completed Ronka survey of anomaly 18 south of swamp camp #1.  Sure must be something beneath us since the compass seemed
very slow and  contradicted  itself on the backsights.  Probable magnetite ore body as  airborne mag suggested.  We cut 5,000 feet of 
new line.

Tired at night but relaxed as we traded stories around the campfire.  There is  a feeling of exhilaration when living this close to nature.

Our plotted data profiles showed clear presence of something since both instruments reacted…the X ray magnetometer and the 
horizontal loop Ronka EM unit.  “How did the Ronka get its name?” “Inventor guy…physicist…works for Huntec…his machine.”


The Ronka Electro Magnetic Instrument was the most important part of our survey work.  And it was heavy consisting of two large
hoops of closely wound copper wire (see above) . Both hoops were attached together by a 100 foot electric cable and signals 
were received by a console carried by one of the men.  On ordinary surveys this instrument was heavy.  Our survey work meant 
we had to carry a  hell of lot more than the Ronka…tents, sleeping bags, food, clothes, first aid  kits,  axes, a buck saw, pots and  pans…etc.


Vaino Ronka

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Vaino Ronka
Vaino Ronka headshot.png
The most powerful instrument is the one that is used. If that motto is true, then Vaino Ronka invented the most powerful electrical geophysical instrument. More of his VLF electromagnetic survey instruments have been used around the world than any other electrical prospecting tool. 

Biography

A native of Finland, Ronka studied communications engineering and later geophysics at a university in Helsinki. After graduating, he worked for the Geological Survey of Finland and, in the early 1950s, was hired by Aeromagnetic Surveys, a division of Hunting Survey Corp., then based in Toronto. 
Yet the VLF-EM was only one of Vaino’s many successful geophysical instrument designs. In the 1960s, a list was published of all the mines discovered in Canada during the previous 10 years. Out of 15 mines on the list, about 75 percent were discovered by Ronka-designed instruments.
Vaino Ronka began his work in geophysics as a research assistant on a new fixed-wing, quadrature-phase, airborne electromagnetic system at the Geological Survey of Finland. When the Hunting Group in Toronto purchased the system in 1953, Vaino moved to Toronto to help design a two-frequency version of it for commercial use. Nine months later, in September 1954, it was in operation, and won the Blue Ribbon Mining Award. 
In July 1954, Vaino applied for a patent for an in-phase and quadrature towed bird helicopter EM system. When the system went into operation in 1955, it included a built-in scintillation counter, also of his design, and was one of the first transistorized commercial instruments of any kind. It again won the Blue Ribbon Award. About this time, Vaino began to think of an improved horizontal-loop ground EM system. When it appeared in the field in 1957, it set the standard for ground-based EM systems. At the end of 1958, Vaino started independent design services for geophysical instruments. One of the projects was instrumentation for Hunting’s “hydrosonde.” He also designed Hunting’s FS-I and FS2 portable seismographs and the popular Hunting time-domain IP receiver. 
In 1962, Vaino founded Geonics Ltd in Toronto with partner Alex Herz. While they were in the field near Bancroft, Ontario, doing tests on the EM-IS ground EM instrument, they started picking up Morse code from VLF radio transmitters used to communicate with submarines. If these signals could be picked up as noise, Vaino figured that they could also be used as signal. Thus instead of tediously erecting a heavy, cumbersome, local transmitting station for every small piece of survey line, explorationists might simply tune in to distant VLF radio stations and use those fields to detect mineral deposits. This was the basis of his EM-16 VLF-EM receiver, which was first sold in 1965. Because of its very small size and low price the EM-16 became the best-selling electrical geophysical instrument of all time, and is still selling briskly today, under the same model name, 25 years later. Its tendency to detect weaker conductors has recently been put to very good advantage, as gold mineralization is often associated with poorly conducting fault zones. 
Vaino went on to design the EM-18 as an airborne VLF instrument. Another airborne survey system, the EM-30 of Hudson Bay Mining, was also based on Vaino’s patent and ideas. In 1969, Vaino had a heart attack. It was a warning to slow down a little. He sold Geonics, and in 1973 he escaped west to Vancouver. There he designed the successful “Totem VLF-EM system which was further developed by Alex Herz. Vaino did not like the “black box” airborne gravimeter that was in use in Toronto geophysical community during 1960. He built his own gravimeter with a simple galvanometer to measure electrostatic potential between the plane and the outside air. 
Vaino was recognized by SEG for his major contributions to the geophysical profession with the Fessenden Award in 1990.




August 5, 1958

Walt and I began blazing trail west 248 degrees but rain began after we had gone 600 feet forcing us back to camp.

“Your turn to hike back to base camps for food, Al.” I wonder if the other guys  get scared when they are alone
in this  dense forest?  Do they imagine wild things are watching them?  Do they hear strange noises?  Do they run?
Do they stop and slowly rotate around  360 just in case there is something?  They never say, so I best keep my mouth
shut as well.   Back at base camp I tested  the  radio transmitter  which receives fine  but just will not transmit.  If we
ever have a  serious injury, how the hell are we going to get help?  Since Walt and I are swinging blazing axes almost
every day, the odds of an accident are possible.

Arrived  at base camp about five and  cooked myself a  big supper…2 cans of stew,  1 can of peaches, 1 box cookies and  3 cans
of orange juice.   Then packed  up a lot of dry goods to carry back to Swamp Camp #1.  No  canned goods allowed  as they
are too heavy so the guys will have to make do with a  lot of rolled  oats and  pancakes and my favourite French toast.  One 
heavy item is allowed.  Peanut butter…we eat lots of that.

Slung the pack on my back and headed  west again hoping it would not get dark before I reached Swamp Camp #1.
Arrived at 9 p.m.

Distance travelled:  22,200 feet (4  miles)

August 6, 1958

Walt and I continued blazing our trail to Anomaly #16…west 248 degrees from Swamp Camp #1.  This  section of the bush is
woven with windfalls  like a broken box of pick up sticks.  At western edge we struck two creeks needing bridges. Construction
took a long enjoyable time.  Enjoyable?  Yes,  weather was perfect so  we took our time.  Waded in our bare feet.  Then we 
continued to point of the anomaly.





The Boundary Waters-Canadian Derecho


That night I collected some very strange luminous wood that we had been noticing all around  Swamp Camp #1.  Eerie effect looking
out of our tent at the pin pricks of light.  It seems to be some kind of fungus  acting upon rotting wood.  Dark nights give our camp
a ghost-like appearance.  My luminous collection was a failure though.

Distance covered:  13,000 feet (2.5 miles or thereabouts)



Walt and  I built two of these bridges.  The construction project was enjoyable … especially for our feet.



August 7, 1958

Tiring day as usual.

Finished blazing grid for Anomaly #16, then did survey with the Ronka which gave us some high readings
that checked out with the magnetometer.  We are here in secret … wonder if any of these anomalies have been

   staked as mining claims.  Dr. Paterson said our crew was sent in hope that no one would know we are here.  Hardly

   secret if Austin Airways is hired to get us in and out.  Pilots talk.


Distance covered: 20,500 feet (about 4 miles)


August 8, 1958

Big day today.  Austin Airways Beaver arrived.  Floyd and Bob packed out to Base Camp to meet the plane while
Walt and I were left behind to break up Swamp Camp #1 and follow them later.  We had to sort things into two piles…those 
worth taking and those to be abandoned and burned.  

We arrived in afternoon and were shocked to find  Floyd  gone.  He was being sent to a new project
in Michigan.  That changes things.  We will be leaderless it seems.  But Bob will take over.  I have been elevated a notch to second  in command  which means darn little.

During our absence from Base Camp a black bear paid a visit and managed to get our twenty point ham which we had strung
up high in a tree.  Then for some reason the bear decided to get into the cook tent and rummage around.  He did  not use
the front door of the tent but ripped  a big hole in the side.

This was a really eventful day for not only did we get a new supply of food  but also a big pile of mail.

Why did  I get so many letters?…huge pile of them.  Most had American stamps and I do not know that many Americans.
Some smelled  of perfume.  At first I thought they had been sent to the wrong person but opening the first one read 
“Dear Alan”.  These were some kind  of love letters…maybe 30 or 40 from all over the United States.   One girl, writing in
pencil, wanted to live  with me if I could send  her the fare to get here.  That was a laugh.  Imagine the shock she would
find.  Perhaps I would have the greater shock though.   A lot were from nurses and  some of them were damn interesting…well written…lonely hearts stuff.
Some of the girls  told horrifying stories about their living conditions   Abuse, poverty, desire to escape no matter what.
How  come?   Why send these letters  to me?  Mystery was solved.  In the mail pack were two letters from Russ Vanstone and Jim Romaniuk…they had  sent my
name and address  to a lonely hearts club in the U.S.   Bob, Walt and  I enjoyed all the letters…read them over and over
again for the rest of the summer.  Most of them made me feel sad…there were strong overtones of desperation.

Distance Covered:  10,500 feet


Miss Lonelyhearts - Wikipedia




Pilot delivering mail and  taking Floyd out of the bush to a new job in Michigan. 


END PART 4    AUGUST 1 TO AUGUST 8, 1958    WIRST JOBE I EVER HAD IN MY LIFE.

NEXT PART 5    

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EPISODE 552 part 3 JULY 23 TO JULY 31, 1958 — WORST JOB I EVER HAD IN MY LIFE


EPISODE 552    part 3    JULY 22 TO JULY 31, 1958      WORST JOB I EVER HAD IN MY LIFE

alan skeoch
March 15,2022

I realize the previous Episode 551 was too long for casual reading so will make this one shorter






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EPISODE 551 PART TWO JLUY 2 TO JULY 22 1958…WORST JOB I EVER HAD IN MY LIFE…HATED AND LOVED IT AT SAME TIME: GROUNDHOG RIVER WILDERNESS 1958 (parts 3 and 4 coming next)


EPISODE 550    PART TWO, JULY 2 to JULY 22, 1958… WORST JOB I EVER HAD IN MY LIFE…HATED AND LOVED IT AT SAME TIME: GROUNDHOG RIVER WILDERNESS  1958


“Red, you go down to Jane and Bloor with Alan…This job he has taken makes me nervous.”
“Awww Mom, I will be fine.”
“Then why are the men not picking you up at home.”
“Don’t know.”
“And they are taking you God knows where for the whole summer…Men you do not know taking
you into wilderness where no one lives…bears, moose and flies.”
“They will  train me as a Field Man in Geophysics…modern prospector.”
“I don’t care if they’re training you as a dog catcher…I want your father to meet them.”
“Mom, all I really want to get is my Bushman’ s Thong from our 38th Rover Scout crew.”
“No matter, our your father is going down to meet this Floyd character anyway.”

“HOP IN THE TRUCK, ALAN, WE HAVE A LONG WAY TO GO” (Dad presided then waved good bye(

Floyd wedged  me in between him and Bob with the floor shift gear rod in between my legs…That lasted until we got
about 100 miles out of Toronto when I suggested I crawl in the back on top
of the tents and survey gear.  Hell of lot more comfortable as we headed north on the day 
long drive to South Porcupine.

THE summer of 1958.  Unforgettble.  Proud I had guts enough to stand it.


EPISODE 550     WORST JOB I EVER HAD IN MY LIFE…HATED AND LOVED IT AT SAME TIME: GROUNDHOG RIVER WILDERNESS  1958

LOCATION: GROUNDHOG RIVER:  SUMMER OF 1958
                    WILDERNESS NORTH OF  TIMMINS AND  SOUTH OF KAPUSKASING


PURPOSE:  TO  CHECK OUT ANOMALOUS SIGNALS PICKED  UP BY A CANSO FLYING BOAT DRAGGING A MAGNETOMETER
                     TO DO SO  AS  SECRETLY AS POSSIBLE

alan skeoch
March 22, 2019

Three men I will never forget…Floyd, Bob and  Walter.  We  were  thrown together by accident in that summer of 1958.
Floyd Faulkner was our crew chief.  Bob Hilkar was our instrument man.  Walter Helstein, was our soul.  I think of his sad ending often.  
 Me?  AIan Skeoch, a 19 year old blank slate, just a few days out of high school.
 “So you are a Boy Scout, let’s see how you handle a  real  wilderness.  No badge
for this job, Alan.”   “No, you are wrong, there is a  badge…my Bushman’s Thong.”  And they laughed.




Floyd Faulkner


Bob Hilkar


Walter Helstein


Alan Skeoch

DEAR DIARY….

July 2 – 5, 1958

And so the adventure begins.  I reported  to company HQ at 1950 O’Coinnor Drive with my bag packed  for the summer.  Never knew how long…did  not know
where I was going…had no idea who I was going with…had no idea how we were to get there.  Did not really know why I was hired in that summer of 1958.
“We needed a Boy Scout to baptize into the real  world,” commented Floyd or Bob. One of them. They intended to make a man of me.  And I think they did
that.  The events of that summer are still crystal clear in my mind   I was 19 back then  I am 83 now..  

 Mom and dad were a  little concerned as  the whole plan seemed
sort of loosey goosey  Who were these men that called  themselves  ‘geophysicists’?   
Right from the get go there were problems.  Our Land Rover had not arrived nor had the canoe which was to be strapped to the Rover’s roof.   And the two way radio was
still being overhauled.  If we needed a two way radio that meant we were heading into the wild unknown.  No telephone booths.  

“Go back home, Alan, gear not ready quite yet.”  Fine, I thought, for  I was already on the payroll.

  Floyd Faulkner and Bob Hilker  Both seemed  nice but a little distant .
They were veteran  bushmen.  I  was just a  high school kid.   First day we drove to Oshawa where the company  had a fleet of Canso double engined aircraft.
Vintage World  War II submarine hunters.
One of the Canso’s had  already overflown our target dragging an  airborne magnetometer.  The mag readings  indicated several anomalies worth detailed  ground
mapping.  We were that three man mapping team.  “Keep your mouth shut about the job, others are interested.” said our big boss, Dr. Norman Paterson.  He
made me feel like a military hit man  being sent on a mission.   

Dr. Paterson gave us a  final briefing on July  3. “This is  a  rough job, you will be  dropped  by  aircraft as  close as  we can  get to the anomalies.  Virgin forest.
No people, no trails, no transport except the canoe and your feet.”  Dr. Paterson was a  bit intimidating…long and lean…a serious  scientist who had  been
a student under Dr. Tuzo Wilson…the man who put the expression Plate Tectonics  in the dictionary.  I felt we were doing something important…something
that would change the world.  I was part of the  team… on the bottom rung of the geophysical ladder.  “What is my role?”, was  a question that I was afraid to ask.  As things turned  out I should have
known when Dr. Paterson mentioned a blazing axe.  A blazing axe differs  from a  regular axe. It is smaller, lighter and is used to blaze trails  through virgin forest.
the idea is simple…lop a chunk  out of both sides  of trees ensuring that the line of blazes makes sense…i.e. going somewhere.  Why both sides of the trees
are hacked  should be obvious…one way into the wilderness  and to get back out follow the alternate blazes.  That was to be my job.  It was  never fully explained.
As things turned out all the jobs  were shared.  This  was to be a real learning experience.  Could I handle the job?  I thought so and  was comforted  by a line
from Mr. Fred Burford, our football coach at Humberside  Collegiate Institute…”When the going gets tough, the tough get going.”  That line was called  upon
many times  in the following two and a half months.

July 6, 1958

“Al, meet us  at the corner of Bloor and Jane…bring what you need for three months…but all in one bag.”   Mom and dad  got a little worried.  Who were these
strangers?  They were not even coming to our house but asking Alan to meet them on a street corner.  So dad  came along.  My dad is a tough customer so he
planned to check ‘these assholes out’ before allowing me to crawl into the Land Rover.  Dad knew the difference between normal  assholes and  dangerous assholes.
Floyd, my crew chief, was gruff but solid.  So  dad  helped  stow my rucksack in the back of the Rover and waved me off for the summer.  This was  a  rite of passage.

We headed  north to Gravenhurst where we ate a huge dinner on the expense account.  The Food was heartburn hell but was on the company tab.  Then we carried
on northward to South Porcupine.  Floyd  and Bob knew  each other so they gabbed  away.   At some point Floyd gave me a nickname that stuck like a turd on a boot.
“Fucking Al will do the blazing…ever blazed a  trail Al?”   Conversation ebbed and I got a little tired of straddling the gear shift.  “Floyd, could you stop and let me crawl
in the back on top of the gear…that would be more comfortable.” “Fucking good idea.”  I learned  that Floyd  used fucking as  an adjective for just about everything including
me…as in Fucking Al with a grin.  It was not a term of derision…sort of a term of endearment.  Sort of.   So I spent the rest of the long  long journey folded like a jackknife on our tents and rucksacks.
I even slept a bit.  I was a little scared.  Wondering just what the hell I had gotten myself into.  At North Bay we got a  canoe and  strapped  it to our roof. Lots of shaking and rattling.
I was determined to make the best of it…something to remember.


July 7

In Schumacker we visited our contractor, McIntyre Mines, where the geologist handed over a large sheaf of aerial photographs that pinpointed the anomalies  we were
to find and map.  “You guys will be the first mining persons ever to explore the wilderness northwest of the Groundhog River.”.  Was that true?  Wow…real wilderness.  We rented 
a  Beaver float plane from Austin Airways in South Porcupine for a flight on July 9 at 8 a.m.  McIntyre Mines  did not want us to use their plane lest other mining people
got wind  of our project.  Mining is super competitive.   The cloak of secrecy made the job  seem all that more important.

Floyd drove us to Timmins  where he handed  Blahey’s Food  Market a grub list that was to last three weeks. After that our food  supplies would  be replenished by Blakey’s and
Austin Airways..  The word  “grub” or to use a more familiar,  ‘maggot’.   We would se lots of them on this trip, maybe even eat a few by mistake.
July 8

Today  we hired Walter Helstein to help with the line cutting.  Walter seems  a little too fat and a  little too old for what we are about to face.  I know that seems unkind.  Sorry
to say that but he has  a fatherly…even grandfatherly manner.  He speaks of the Great Depression and the Dirty Thirties as events  he has experienced only yesterday.
  Hard to say why he was hired.  Then again I have no idea why I was hired. For the rest of the day
we lounged  around South Porcupine…in the bright summer sunshine.  Then in the evening we went to a  small circus in Timmins.   

July 9

In the morning We  loaded  the Beaver float plane with all our gear and our instruments.  We had  so much gear that we needed two trips as the Beaver could only
carry 1100 pounds.   Walter Helstein and Bob Hilkar went with the first load. “Fucking Al and I will come later.”  My seat for our flight was  a crate of oranges some 
of which got crushed since we had  a rough landing an hour or so later on the Groundhog River.  The river is tough for a float plane because it is so muddy that
obstructions cannot be seen.  We bounced hard a  couple of times throwing huge chevrons of water as we powered  down.  “Water’s high this time of
year, but water level will drop fast.  Future landings will be difficult.”, said the pilot.


We  parked our Land  Rover beside the South Porcupine hotel for the summer.   Entered the bush  in early July, returned
on September 10.   Naurally, The spare tire was gone as was any loose  item after all this was Timmins, a tough mining
town.  I guess we should  have expected that.


Strapping our big four man canoe to the Beaver pontoon seemed  a  trifle dangerous  to me but normal to Floyd and Bob…and the Austin 
Airways  pilot.  Bob,  Walter and the canoe would  go first . A lopsided takeoff.


Floyd  and  I were wedged in among our gear and food supplies.  Not much spare room.  I wondered  how the pilot would know
we had reached the 1100 pound limit.  He had  no  scale. Just guessed.





 we began Erecting two tents even before the Beaver took off on its  return flight…. first our sleeping tent and next our cook tent and then Floyd looped a  long rope over a high tree branch on which would hang our meat supply “because otherwise the fucking bears  will get it.”   We did not know that a  bear was watching us.   He gave  us the  once over and planned a visit.
The little ‘bite ums no see  ups…sand  flies…are  really ferocious.  I get the feeling that we will be fly bate this summer.   Later in the evening Floyd and Bob showed  me
how to use stereo scope  on the aerial photographs.   Suddenly a flat surface become  three dimensional.  And our trip took on a cloak and dagger character.  We were
commandoes on a mission.

July 10

We  cut trees today and lashed a dock together.  Banks are very steep and  we expect water level to drop significantly.  Currently the river is
about 300 yards wide.  Seems immense.  We also erected  our radio antennae.  If anything goes wrong this will be the only way get help…if the radio actually works.  Floyd and Bob took the canoe down river and were caught in a terrible storm…drenched.  Then we had  our first big camp supper using our most perishable food.   As  dusk settled I wrote a  letter home.  Do not know why… the letter 
won’t get out for at least three weeks.



July 11

Rained all  morning so survey start delayed until afternoon when we piled in the canoe…four men in a single canoe is a challenge.  River current is  super fast. Drove us  at speed into a rock which 
ripped the canoe open but not fatally so.  Two of us bailed  while the other two frantically paddled us back to camp.  Patched the canoe with a piece of  canvas.  Then Floyd gave me a lesson
on setting a  survey line.  That was going to be my job. 
And this, Al, is blazing axe…smaller, lighter than a regular axe…Don’t cut your fucking hand off with it…that float plane costs money, you know.”

 Flies are voracious.  Hard to say which  is the worst.  The little black flies  that crawl in our ears  or slip behind our belt bands and munch.  Or the Moose flies  land  gently and tear a piece of skin if they have time.  These moose flies  are big yet able to make silent landings on exposed skin then chew holes.

July  12

Another day of heavy rain so we did  what we could to improve our campsite.  We  have chosen a Rough spot really quite high above the river.  Stupidly decided to test our Mae West life jackets  in the river.  That was like swimming 
among ice cubes…noted that the Groundhog River flows north to James Bay.   In other words this river was not like the Humber or Don  or Etobicoke creek…sweet and warn, We then took the canoe, hooked on the outboard 
engine, and  motored down  river for a  spin.  No sign of  human habitation.   Slight concern that our two way  radio was not working.  Who gives a damn?  Good to be alive and young and healthy … watching a beautiful sunset.

Some of our camps and anomalies we tried to locate…last camp was Kapik Lake

July 13

Nice sunny day…motored  five miles down the Groundhog River to check out our first anomaly.   Walter Helstein and  i set and cut line while  Floyd and Bob followed with the EM…principally two great hoops  of
tightly worn copper wire…looked like a hoop skirt without the underwear. Heavy.  And  a console with earphones to pick up the signals  sent from one to the other.  Coils had  100 foot separation each attached
to a heavy cable.  Walt and I had
to mark these separations  with pickets.   As mentioned earlier, this job was for the young.  Walter was about 60 or more years old and by five o’clock he was exhausted.   Don’t get me wrong, I really liked Walter but
did not expect him to keep up.

When  we got back to camp and made preparations for supper we found that others had  been in camp.  Blow flies had laid  their eggs in the meat a few days earlier and the maggots were hatching.  We cooked 
the meat anyway…and  ate what we could.  Boiled  maggots tasted  okay if they were eaten unseen.    Our radio is still not operating so any crisis will not be known to the outside world.

We  cut 3,000 feet of  trail for the E.M. unit today.

Bob and Walter with loaded canoe on Groundhog River


July 14

Hot and windy day.We motored back to the River anomaly.  Walter and  I blazed another trail for the E.M. unit…North East compass reading.   Walter having a very tough time.  Blazing sounds easy but that is
not the case.  There is  always  dense brush that has to be cleared so the compass shot will be straight.   Best to blaze trees that are on the compass  line but that is not always  possible.  The line must be straight.
Big obstructions  must be climbed over, waded through, or slashed and thrown to the side.  Today  we cut and marked 8,000 feet of line.

July 15

Today we checked out another anomaly whose  location was  confirmed  by aerial photographs.  Our base  camp is  located at the junction of a smaller creek or river where it joins the mighty Groundhog River.
We travelled  by canoe westward along this tributary to get as  close to the anomaly as possible.  Not easy.  The canoe bottomed out regularly as the creek was quite shallow.   A giant bull moose startled  us
as we came around a bend.  Or did we startle him?   We were more surprised I think because he just stood there for a few moments looking at us and then wandered  leisurely out of the water and into
the forest.  His antlers were so large that they spanned the creek.

Really tough day blazing trail into the anomaly and then cutting formal lines for the EM (Electro Magnetic) unit.  Nothing worse than a cedar swamp with tag alder shrubs. So much slashing that the blisters on my hands are getting
blisters beneath blisters.   To make matters worse we we’re unable to find the anomaly.

Our crew…living together for the duration of the job.  Lunch  break in the bush with pot of tea…see if  you can find the billy can.

When we stop for lunch,  there  is a danger that few new people in the bush  know.   The danger is piles…”your ass gets pulled out…the  sphincter muscle bulges…bloody painful”  “So, Al, do
not sit on those lovely soft spongy piles of moss.  Wet.  Wet underwear can cause piles.  Sit on a dry log or anything other that wet moss.” “You can also get piles from constipation so keep the greasy 
food coming.”  What about heartburn?  “We have some  tummy pills.  Lots  of things  can go fucking wrong on these jobs, Al”  Nice to be on a 2.5 month camping trip with know-alls that tell me  after the fact.
Constipation and piles.  Must avoid.

July 16

Tough day.  We went back up the tributary then followed  our previous  trail and extended it in a  vain search  for the airborne anomaly.  Half of  my time was  spent working with the E.M. transmitter
which was nice.  Creek is getting more shallow each day.   Canoe struck  bottom often today whereas yesterday we hit bottom only a few times.  We  startled a  family of  hell diver  ducks who submerged as 
we got close then popped  up some  distance away.   we blazed and traversed 18,000 feet of line criss  crossing what should be the anomaly.  The bush is  incredibly dense with cedars  and tag alders…and
swamps.  Cutting through cedar swamps is like trying to cut rubber bands…the branches  seem to be elastic and cause the axes to bounce back…must be careful.  Much of  the time we are standing in 
shallow  water.  Boots tend to leak.

Radio is full of dire news suggesting chance of another world war since the United  States marines have landed  in Lebanon.

Gum  Rubbers tend to leak which means wet socks which means  boiled feet which  mean white pock marked feet.  Not nice
I could peel skin from my feet as they  were pomogranates. (sp?)

July 17

Wildlife is sure abundant.  Just  today  we startled moose, mink, ducks, hawk, partridge and lots of little red  ground  squirrels.  These creatures  were the only nice thing about our day.  Hard cutting but
no luck finding the anomaly.  The creek is so low now that we decided to give up the search for the anomaly.  We did our best.  And there were many more blips picked up by the airborne magnetometer
and only so much time to confirm whether the blips were real or just a mistake.- Finding these fucubg anomalies will be no easy task. Did I use the F word?  Part of the learning curve.

I am bothered  by Heartburn often these days likely due to too much fried food.  Sickness has to just be accepted  as getting  to a doctor or even a drug store is impossible.  I dread  having a  toothache.
 The black flies  seem to love crawling through my hair just to get a little blood with a bite of my flesh.  Maybe I should shave…easier to crush the little devils with a  clean face.
Of course  escape from the flies is impossible.  Seems  they  love tight places such as under my belt.  That’s where most of my welts seem to be.  Keep clothing as loose as possible.

We spent an hour or so burning maggots in our garbage pit…thousands of them infested  our rotten rolls of bologna.

We changed the position of our radio antennae in an attempt to establish  contact with Austin Airways.  Radio silence.

Even though we blazed and surveyed 20,000 feet of line we still had no luck finding the anomaly.

July 18

We followed an old  blazed trail westward from our camp re-blazing as  we went.   Mystery who blazed original trail, perhaps some mining sleuth or maybe a trapper.   When the trail petered out we blazed a new trail
in North West direction for 6,000 feet.  A heavy rainstorm struck around three catching us several miles from our Base Camp. Arrived back about 6 p.m. soaked  to the skin. Depressing.  Later I skinned  a mink that
had been trapped  and killed recently.   For some strange reason the trapper who spent his  winters here left all his traps set.  Killed animals for no reason.  Floyd  suggested He may have died here last winter. “His
trappers  shack must be somewhere nearby.”  The forest west of us seems loaded with partridge…they show little fear as we approach.

Today we travelled 32,500 west from base camp to a beaver  dam we spotted on the aerial photos.  Right on target proving we can pin point the anomalies.

Trappers  Cabin found  on river bank.  Very rough place with heads of small animals  nailed  to logs.  Some skinning method I guess.

July 19

Ferocious Storm all night and morning prevented trail blazing so we stayed in base camp.  It was my meal shift so I had a chance to make breakfast rather extravagant.   French toast with thick slices  of sowbelly bacon
and lots of maple syrup and coffee.  Each of us has meal duty days in rotation.  In the afternoon the sun came out…an  opportunity to wash clothes and sun dry them on the tent ropes.   We cut a lot more scrub brush 
from around camp so we now have  clear view up and down the river.  Water level is dropping rapidly…down a foot since we arrived and going down each  day in spite of the rain.


Walter Helstein sunbathing in the nude.  He has the ability to ignore the blood seeking flies.


Any notion that our campsite was built with military precision should be wiped away by this shot.   Clean dry socks are the most important
item of clothing but the task to keep them so is impossible.   Wet socks help to boil our feet in wet boots.  As  mentioned earlier,Boiled feet are pock marked
and peeling.   Anybody believing this job was a luxury rich man’s camp has to be daft.  Many days were just constant agony.

July 20

Today we trekked one hell of a long way to reach Anomaly site Number 3 and the days ahead will be even longer.  Walt and I cut lines
for the E.M. unit to traverse using 100 foot stations  (see map for Sites 2 and 3).  To reach the site we had to cross a big active beaver dam
about 200 feet wide and 8 feet high in places. Six feet thick.These beaver have been here for a long time.

At lunch we found the bones of a young moose killed by a bear or hunter…or perhaps a cougar if stories of their presence can be true.  Maybe
it just died for the bones  have been here for some time.  Collected the teeth for what reason I do not know.

We returned to base camp very tired and went directly to bed.

Eureka!  A successful day even if tough.  We found the anomaly…high readings on the magnetometer and the E. M. unit just north of
the beaver dam.   




Anomaly site #3:  Eureka, we confirmed the airborne anomaly.  Set up a grid pattern
as indicated above.   Site #2 was less successful.


July 21

We retraced yesterdays’  trails then used compass to cut new trail North.  Very slow progress due to the damn
cedar and alder swamps and their thick vegetation.  I was point man using the compass and made a terrible mistake
having my heavy belt buckle too close to the compass.  We had  spent a couple of hours going in the wrong
direction…deflected.   When we realized our error, Floyd and Bob made fun of my stupidity.  Laughed at me.
So I threw a temper tantrum and began slashing the brush and heading nowhere really.  Which made them
laugh all the more.   Made me  laugh too.  Not my best day but i
guess I provided  some entertainment.   The compass error may not have been my fault for there were 
strong indications of a body of magnetite below us.  Floyd decided we should strike directly east through unblazed 
bush towards  the Groundhog River … far to the east.   “Walter, you go back retracing our blazed trail to Base Camp
then get the canoe to meet us somewhere up river.”  Well, things did not go well when sun got clouded  over
and  we got lost…strange how when lost in the bush we travel in circles.  Eventually we reached the
Groundhog River around 8 p.m. as darkness was descending.  Walter had been on patrol and found us thankfully.
Arrived  at camp dead tired.   Floyd and Bob told Walter about my temper tantrum.

As things turned out the errors  may not have been my fault.  The anomaly upon which we stood was likely
a whopping big magnetite find, confirmed by the aerial photo. Magnetite is strong enough to deflect
a compase…even  confuse a compass giving one false reading in one spot and another a few feet away.
Were we standing on a future copper mine?   If we were it was going to be one hell of  a place for mine
families to  live. Swamp…swamp…swamp.  I read somewhere that certain plants like magnetite.  Couldn’t
be  true.

Today we traversed  39,500 feet finishing the beaver dam anomaly.  Distance is  a guess though due to being
lost for hours.  Tomorrow Floyd decided to reconnoitre the territory east of the Groundhog River.

July 22

Today Floyd decreed  we would all have a day of rest.  Wonderful.  To top things off a moose appeared
close to our camp at the rivers edge.  I stalked  him with the canoe in order to get within camera range.
Then towards evening another moose appeared.  Floyd  and I chased him by canoe along the river bank
until he found a gap to scramble up and get away.  Moose around here seem interested in us as they move
away slowly if we approach.   One moose even seemed  to like music for he stuck his head out of the
brush behind our camp when we had cranked up the music as loud as possible.  The moose seem almost
tame.  A shame really for they are easy game for hunters.

Walter has become valuable in a totally unpredictable way.  He is our berry tester.  Lots of wild plants
are bearing berries but we have been cautious about eating them lest they are poison.  Walter has no
such caution.  He eats any berry he can find…well not any berry but most berries.  He even has
names for them.   Walter is  colour blind so all berries  look the same to him.  We even named one
berry a ‘Waltberry’ as  we had no idea the true name.  If Walt could eat it, then it cannot be poison.




END OF PART TWO…PART THREE WILL BE EPISODE 552

(sorry if a little long…will make other episodes more bite sized.)

alan
Posted on

EPISODE 550 WORST JOB I EVER HAD IN MY LIFE…HATED AND LOVED IT AT SAME TIME: GROUNDHOG RIVER WILDERNESS 1958

EPISODE 550     WORST JOB I EVER HAD IN MY LIFE…HATED AND LOVED IT AT SAME TIME: GROUNDHOG RIVER WILDERNESS  1958


alan skeoch
March 13, 2022






WHY IN TARNATION WOULD ANYONE WANT TO READ ABOUT MY TOUGHEST JOB?

Seems a little self-obsessed.  I admit that.  And I know some of you do not read any of the
printed part of these Episodes.  Maybe glance at the pictures.  Maybe just say “:God, not
another email from him!   “HIM?”  Well, I did an edit…cut the list of names but got objections.

So here is an unusual story sent in parts.  Why should you be interested?   Let me try a simple
answer.   The job I am about to present was so rough that few of you would ever have had the chance to
venture into the Canadian boreal forest wilderness for two months cut off from most
human contact except for rare three visits by a float plane from Austin Airways bringing
food or coming on an emergency flight to take two badly injured out to hospital where one, Walter ,
spent months saving his arm from amputation.  This was a tough job.  Not pretty.

Why should you be interested?  Put yourself in my shoes.  Would you get in
a Land Rover with two men you had never met to spend months
alone with them in a trackless wilderness.   Would you let your son take
that risk?

See that gap in the boxes and gear?  That was my seat as we took off from South Porcupine. July 6, 1958.


Why should you be interested?  Would you grab at the chance to spend the summer
of 1958 doing real exploration … searching for a source of magnetism found by
an airborne magnetometer flying a grid over a seemingly endless Canadian wilderness.
Would you be captivated by the task of cutting trails with a blazing axe where no one 
had ever gone before. Do you know how dangerous a blazing axe can be?

Why should you be interested?  Could you stand to be a walking feast for thousands
of tiny blood sucking bastardly bush flies?  Deer flies with chevron wings that could land 
gently and then take a good chunk of your flesh.  Moose flies that were larger and got a 
bit more flesh and blood.  Mosquitoes that were tanker trucks for human blood.  Black flies
that loved to chew flesh in hidden places…around your belt, in your ears, on your
neck.  Ground wasps that gave no warning until you stepped on their nesting hole.
Protection?   Would you rub yourself with foul smelling guck to ward off these attacks?
Better to just stop washing. Let dirt and grime fill your pores and keep the flies confused.

Why should you be interested?   Would you like to sleep with three other men
on a single huge bed made from spruce or cedar branches?  Would you be able
to get along with strangers for months of close contact.  At one 
point I asked Floyd why bush crews did not have guns.  We were visited by
black bears often. “Simple, if we had a gun we might shoot each other.”
Now that made sense to me.  Especially when I threw two tantrums on the job.

This is Walter Helstein.  A man too old for the job really but necessity forced
him to do so.  A good man who got badly hurt when a tag alder spike
pierced his hand.  We could not help him.  A rescue plane could not land.
Walter was over 60 years old…tough man….toughened by the Great Depression.

Why should you be interested?  Have you ever heard a friend whimper in
pain as infection took hold of his body which had been spiked by a tag
alder spear..  Clear through his hand.  And there was nothing you could do to help because the weather
was so bad that a plane could not land on the little wilderness lake where
you were camped.  Have you heard those cries?

Why should you be interested?  Have you ever eaten wormy food?  Not little
worms.  Blow fly maggots regularly got into our slab of sowbelly.  Each morning
we would slice off a chunk due to blow fly eggs and/or maggots just to get to
the good meat.  Have you ever had to make do with a steadily diminishing
food supply until all that is left is raw oat meal?  Have you ever eaten slabs
of cold porridge slathered with peanut butter…lunch made from left overs
at breakfast.  Have you ever made tea from Labrador leaves?   Have you ever 
sipped scotch whisky from a  coffee cup and considered it a luxury?  Have you ever
eaten wild berries from plants you have never seen before?  Have you ever
eaten swamp apples…orange in colour the size of big rasberries.  Have you ever
been sick in a place where there is no medical aid?

Why should you be interested?   Have you ever worn gum rubbers with so many holes
that your socks became sodden lumps on your pock marked feet?   Feet? Pock marked?
Wet socks heated up and boiled your feet.  Sometimes flesh could be peeled off.  The most
important job returning to camp at night was to try and dry your socks for the next day.
Have you ever had to patch your clothes with slabs of medical tape just to cover the holes
caused by constant rubbing against tangles of tag alder or spruce boughs.?

See those gum rubbers?  They had holes that let water in…wet socks…boiled
feet became pock marked.  So much so that flesh could be peeled.  


Why should you be interested?  Have you ever turned to Lonely Hearts Club letters
for entertainment and come to the conclusion there are people in this world whose
lives are far worse than yours.   How could girls become so desperate that they would
offer to move in with you sight unseen?  How could their hell on earth be worse than
your hell on earth?  Why were these lonely hearts club letters be funny on first reading
and then be so sad.

Why should you be interested?  Perhaps just to test yourself.  Just to see if you 
could triumph over adversity.  To show you can overcome fear.   Trekking alone through 
the forest following tiny blazes on trees.  To lose the blazes is to become lost, perhaps
hopelessly so.   And while slogging alone you begin to sense you are being tracked
by some creature  You stop suddenly and listen.  No sound.  The imagery carnivore
following you has stopped as well.   You reach the Groundhog River base camp
and switch on the two way emergency radio to hear Evangelist Billy Graham saving
souls and look across he river to see a lumbering bull moose listening as well.

Why should you be interested? Have you ever paddled beside a cow moose and her calf so close you can touch 
them.  Have you ever heard a cow moose telling her calf in sonorous voice that he or
she should beware of foul smelling human prospectors?

Why should you be interested?  Have you ever noticed that the leaves of springtime turn to the golden leaves
of September?  Have you ever lived among those leaves, those spruce boughs, those deadly tag alder
slashed spikes.  Have you ever had a black bear beside you both looking AT the moon at the same time.
 Have you ever been that close to nature.



Have you ever made a four man bed out of spruce and cedar boughs and then
had the thing collapse when all four bedded down?

Why should you be interested?   Have you ever felt real triumph?  Have you ever tested
yourself to see how much adversity you can take?  Have you ever been 19years old
on the edge of adulthood and discovered you are OK?  

THIS misty photo is Floyd Faulkner.  He started as a cage man in Kirkland Lake.  A friend
was also a cage man when the cable failed.  “Had to scrape him off the floor with a shovel!”
Floyd preferred  to work aboveground after that.  He was good at nicknames for people…had one for me..

Why should you be interested?  Have you ever been flattered with the new 
nickname ‘Fucking Al’.   Have you ever realized that nicknames might be
compliments in reverse.

Why should you be interested?  Have you ever had a stewardess on an Air Canada
VisCount offer you a Peek Frean shortbread cookie and a glass of lemonade?  Have
you ever had the feeling you are special and then nibbled and nursed the luxury
as the airplane lifted over Timmins and South Porcupine en route to Toronto.

Why should you be interested?  Have you ever come home from such a summer advenuture
to find your friends Russ Vanstone, Jim Romaniuk, Big Red Stevenson, your brother Eric  and
your parents standing there to greet you.  Mom with a smile of relief. Dad, not saying much because
he is en route to the racetrack.  Proud though…son had survived. Your brother is holding a hand painted sign
saying  “Go Back, Al.”   Have you ever had your friends, Russ and Jim,  greet you at Pearson Airport 
because they want those lonely hearts club letters?

Why should you be interested?   Should I tell my friends that I have a new nickname?
FUCKING AL !  Would they understand?  How could I know that the next years of my life in
the summers I would be living rough and loving it?I  Would love the wilderness so much
that, in the future, take my wife  Marjorie along with me?


  THIS Journal was written in the summer of 1958 then rewritten in 2018
and now submitted in several  Episodes.
This was the toughest job I ever faced.  Makes me proud to say that I only threw
two temper tantrum on the whole job.  See if you can find them.
The Episodes will start shortly.   Why should you be interested?

GROUNDHOG RIVER EPISODES ARE COMING NEXT

alan skeoch
March 14, 2022
Posted on

EPISODE 549 “AN OLD MAN’S WINTER NIGHT”…SNOWSTORM ON FIFTH LINE, ERIN TWP., WELLINGTON COUNTY, MARCH 10, 2022


EPISODE 549        “AN OLD MAN’S WINTER NIGHT”… SNOWSTORM ON FIFTH  LINE, ERIN TWP., WELLINGTON COUNTY,  MARCH 10, 2022

alan skeoch
March 10, 2022

I need a break!   Just to escape from the imaginary binding chains imposed by my computer will be a great relief.
So I took a walk around the farm as Marjorie does with the dogs and  my grandfather did even when so
lame he could hardly walk, and as my uncle Frank did when he thought he was dying of cancer (which he was not).
Why say this?   Because a walk around the farm is therapeutic … good for the soul if we have a soul.

The walk occurs at all times of the year but this walk was deceptive.  A late winter storm was piling up the snow.  We thought
spring had  come a few days earlier then,  “Whomp!”… The snow returned with a vengeance.  Quite beautiful really.  Worth this 
photo essay.  Save it.  You will need these pictures next summer when the summer sun is boiling your brain.



This barn once belonged to J.S. Woodsworth, founder of the CCF now the NDP.  We were able to rescue it from demolition in Etobicoke
when the Shaver farm became a nest of condominiums.  Cost $1,000 to move it and have fram erected.  Today one of the barn
builders we hired dropped by, 40 or so years afterward…Malcolm MacMillan remembered.  I must take time to get it repaired a bit



In this little depression between two of our four farm ponds there was once a large bank barn.   When the animals no longer lived
in the barn the winter frosts split the foundation and down it came.   I was too young And too poor to do anything but watch it slowly return
to the earth from which it was born.



Other Gothic farmhouses far more grand than ours are gone.  But our remains in good shape.  We gave her a new roof last year…like
a new hat on a Victorian lady.  The house was built in the 1870’s from local soft red bricks and hand hewn timbers collected from some
building that was must have burned for the scorch marks were found on the frame when we renovated some years ago.  A lot of wild 
creatures were very disappointed because they were evicted…mice, raccoons, red squirrels, garter snakes, big fat toads living in the
dirt floored cellar.   



PLANS FOR HOUSES like this could be found or bought from the Eaton catalogue which is why so many of them existed and some 
still do exist.    We added the back room on  the left built by Tim Rock, our neighbour..  He suggested
 the big verandah which was a great idea.



Now this is a recent treasure.  We had Jim Sanderson and his son bring their excavator to deepen what was once a swamp.
Now a fine pond where a bunch of muskrats move about…and a wood duck had her young…and we even had a lonely beaver sho
up for a season.


This is our piece of the Fifth line.  There was a time when Marjorie and the boys skated down the line in winter.  That
was before salting became popular.  Winter road graders and gravel spreading trucks kept the fifth line open on winter days such
as this.  No longer closed with snowdrifts.  No longer winter ice rinks. .





Marjorie kept her horse Spartacus in the Saunders Barn.   Spartacus knew I was nervous with him so he kept an eye on
me.   If he could speak he would have said “Boo!” just to see me run. On the few occasions I rode him…about two occasions…I 
pulled so hard on the reins that I made his mouth sore.  Little wonder he did not like me.  Imagine being told what to do by
a strip of iron in your mouth.



THIS IS THE Gibralter Schoolhouse.   A fine fieldstone building now restored.   The community that once provided children 
for the school, Gibralter, is long gone.   A two storey rural school is very rare which suggests this may have been a ‘continuation school’
for students that wanted to extend their education…i.e. a rural high school.









This my favourite maple lined driveway for a farm just a mile or so south of Limehouse on the Fifth Line.  I cannot stop taking
pictures of this lane…spring, summer, winter and fall…you may have noticed that in previous Episodes.





EverY time that I am alone in our farm house in winter time, 
especially on a lonely winter night…every time I think of
Robert Frost’s poem, An Old Man’s Winter Night.  When I was
young and alone on such nights the poem moved me deeply.
Now that I am old, the poem moves me moreso especially when 
I clump clump clump in winter boots which on the wooden floor echoes
like the drumbeAt of a shaman.  It is possible to scare myself
on such a night as this.

AN OLD MAN’S WINTER NIGHT
(by Robert Frost)
All out of doors looked darkly in at him 
Through the thin frost, almost in separate stars, 
That gathers on the pane in empty rooms. 
What kept his eyes from giving back the gaze 
Was the lamp tilted near them in his hand. 
What kept him from remembering what it was 
That brought him to that creaking room was age. 
He stood with barrels round him — at a loss. 
And having scared the cellar under him 
In clomping there, he scared it once again 
In clomping off; — and scared the outer night, 
Which has its sounds, familiar, like the roar 
Of trees and crack of branches, common things, 
But nothing so like beating on a box. 
A light he was to no one but himself 
Where now he sat, concerned with he knew what, 
A quiet light, and then not even that. 
He consigned to the moon, such as she was, 
So late-arising, to the broken moon 
As better than the sun in any case 
For such a charge, his snow upon the roof, 
His icicles along the wall to keep; 
And slept. The log that shifted with a jolt 
Once in the stove, disturbed him and he shifted, 
And eased his heavy breathing, but still slept. 
One aged man — one man — can’t keep a house, 
A farm, a countryside, or if he can, 
It’s thus he does it of a winter night. 

Robert Frost

Posted on

EPISODE 546 SWEET TIME OF YEAR…TAPPING MAPLE TREES FOR MAPLE SYRUP



EPISODE 445    MAPLE SYRUP TIME 

alan skeoch
March 8, 2022





Above all else, March is a sweet time of year thanks to something beyond our
control.

Change ia in the air.  I can smell it.  Those Maple trees in the farm lane are providing
a needed distraction from human affairs.  Will they still be here when we are gone?
We can but hope.

What a beautiful day!   Despite troubles like the collapse of the greenhouse
due to this heavy snow….and the terror that is on all of our minds brought about
by one lunatic, Putin by name.  Despite troubles, yesterday was a beautiful day
as the snow melted.



And the slow then fast …Drip, Drip, drip…drummed the sap pales as our maple trees gave
up some of their sweet nectar.



Andrew: “Dad where is all your maple syrup making eq uipment?”
“Planning to tap?”
“Seems right time.”
“Correct…warm days and cool nights in March.”
“Where are the sap pails?” Spigotts?  Hand drill and bit? Boiling pans? Soft Ball thermometer?
“There are about 200 sap pails in the quonset barn but don’t take them.”
“Why not?”
“Lead soldered…lead poisoning….now illegal.”
“All your syrup kit no longer useful.?”
“Not quite all…search around…I have some aluminum sap pails…maybe a dozen or more…enough
to get a good load of sap.”
“How collected?”
“years ago I used milk cans…those big cans with rounded lids…cleaned them first of course.
I think you bought some new milk cans…use them.”



’Smell the air”
“Nothing like it…just before springtime.”





“Dad, I remember 40 years ago when we all got sap from Saunders bush over on
the fourth line…took the whole March school break.”
“That’s when we had Tara the Coonhound…she joined us.”
“And each night we did the boiling…great clouds of steam from the boiling pan
with a fire from wood gathered on the beach at Sunnyside…truckload of planks and
driftwood.   Remember the picnic bench that floated in and the City Parks Crew
stopped you?”
“The picnic bench was all smashed up.  They helped me get the bolts out…more
wood for the maple syrup fire.”

“Do you remember the colour of the syrup?”
“I think it was black.”
“Right…dark black.”
“The maple syrup in the store is light brown…how come yours was black?”
“Ashes from the fire…couldn’t stop the ashes…gave us a little extra carbon…did not kill us
as we are all alive 4o years later/“

“Do you still have those pictures of the old sap making days?”
“yes, you boys were about 8 and 10 years old back then.”
“How many years did we do it.”
“Two, Three…four?”
“Why did we stop?”
“TROUBLE…BIG TIME TROUBLE…AS YOU WILL SEE IN THE NEXT EPISODE”


















Woody was my partner just as Tara used to be.  He loves to ride beside me on the
ATV….he gets quite miffed if I forget to beckon him…”Get on here, Woody, we are
heading home.”

alan

NEXT EPISODE…GETTING MAPLE SAP 40 YEARS AGO
Posted on

EPISODE 544 A CHILL SPREADS AROUND THE WORLD: CONSIDER THE NUCLEAR REACTORSTHREE MILE ISLAND DISASTER. FUKISHIMA , CHERNOBYL

Note:  I considered this story too frightening to send initially and replied it with a nice

story about horses.  Now I have changed my mind.  Sorry to scare you as much as
I am scared.

alan


EPISODE 544:    A CHILL SPREADS AROUND THE WORLD:  CONSIDER THE NUCLEAR REACTORS


alan skeoch
March 2022



Marjorie and I…SITE OF THREE MILE ISLAND NUCLEAR DISASTER,







“WHAT CAN HAPPEN, WILL HAPPEN”

Nuclear power plants are constructed with provision for things to go wrong. SAFETY CHECKS. We need their power. We cannot 
survive without electricity.  It powers everything we do.   Electricity is wonderful..  But
getting electricity is dangerous.  Dangerous indeed.


THREE MILE ISLAND, 1979

ON MARCH 28, 1979, a human error occurred at Unit 2, Three Mile Island nuclear power

plant.   A valve was open allowing a huge amount of radioactive water to escape.  This event
remains the worst nuclear accident to happen in the United States.  No one was killed
fortunately but the resultant radiation will remain forever.

That worried me in 1979.  And it worries me to this day.  When we took a busload of music
students from Parkdale Collegiate to perform in Boston we arranged a short side trip
to Three Mile Island.  Around 1985.  Purpose?  To spread fear?  Partly, I suppose.  Our reasoning was
that these students would shortly be adults.  Soon running our country.  They should be
aware of the danger of nuclear accidents.  Cheap electricity could come at a terrible cost
if future managers of nuclear sites were unaware of Three Mile Island, Unit 2.

CHERNOBYL, 1986

Such a disaster must never happen again.  But it did.  The Chernobyl meltdown in Ukraine
happened just seven years after Three Mile Island.   On April 26, 1986 nuclear reactor Number 4
exploded.  The site will remain radioactive for thousands of years.  The immediate site was 
evacuated so hastily that the local carnival rides stand there today as do the apartment buildings
where people once lived.   335,000 people were evacuated and a wide belt of land was no longer livable.
Wild animals returned and now wander through Chernobyl.

“The explosion at Chernobyl sent radiation as far away as the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union’s delayed response to the events is considered by some to be a contributing factor to the fall of the Soviet Union. “

As a direct result of Chernobyl nuclear power plants were redesigned so that accidents were thought to be less likely.

A sign warns of radiation at the site of Kopachi village located inside the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone on September 29, 2015 near Chornobyl, Ukraine.
Wild horses wander through the ruins of Chernobyl on Oct. 18, 2018


FUKISHIMA, 2011

Then there were decades of quiet.  Nuclear power plants multiplied.  Safety systems
were put in place.  Extra holding tanks for nuclear coolant.  Burials of nuclear waste.
Comfort.   An earthquake off the coast of Japan shook the Fukishama reactor on March 11, 2011
A huge tidal wave, Tsunami, swept inland.  Radiosctivity increased to Level 7 on the International 
Nuclear Event Scale…Fukishama and Chernobyl were similar disasters.  154,000 Japanese residents
were evacuated.

ZAPOREZHSKAYA,  LARGEST PPWER PLANT IN EROPE WITH SIX REACTORS

Today, March 2022 we face the possibility of s grave nuclear accident in Ukraine where the largest
nuclear power station in Europe has become a war zone.  War zones are places of unimaginable
insecurity. The Zaporezhskaya nuclear power plant has 6 reactors.





RT




Zaporizhia Nuclear Power Plant - Super Engineering Website
U.S. Helps Optimize Ukrainian Nuclear Reactor | Department of Energy

Zaporizhye Nuclear Power Plant, Ukraine





“March 2, 2022

6:05 a.m.: Russia claims its military has taken control of the area around Ukraine’s largest nuclear power plant.

That’s according to the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog.

It said Wednesday it had received a letter from Russia saying personnel at the Zaporizhzhia plant continued their “work on providing nuclear safety and monitoring radiation in normal mode of operation.”

The letter added: “The radiation levels remain normal.”

Zaporizhzhia is the largest of Ukraine’s nuclear sites, with six out of the country’s 15 reactors.

Already, Russia has seized control of the decommissioned Chernobyl nuclear power plant, scene of the world’s worst nuclear disaster in 1986.”

alan skeoch

March 7, 2022



Let us hope and pray this is not the end result of this terrible war.
Posted on

EPISODE 543 PRAGUE , MARCH, 1993 , JOY IN ETHNIC COSTUME — PEACEFUL UPHEAVALS HAPPEN…BUT NOT TODAY.


ERROR: YEAR OF OUR VISIT TO SLOVAKIA SHOULD BE 1993, CORRECT PREVIOUS EPISODES


EPISODE 543   PRAGUE, MARCH,1993   JOY IN ETHNIC COSTUME — PEACEFUL UPHEAVALS HAPPEN


alan skeoch
March 5, 2022


NOTE: As Marjorie pointed out, the year we were in Slovakia was 1993, not 1989 as said in error in earlier Episodes.  



BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS…MARJORIE SKEOCH AND CZECH DANCER, PRAGUE, MARCH 1993

On January 1, 1993, Czechoslovakia split into two independent states, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, in what is now known as the “Velvet divorce” (in a reference to the Velvet revolution) due to its peaceful and negotiated nature. Both countries divided their common “goods” (embassies, military equipment, etc.) on a two-to-one ratio to reflect their populations. Although the dissolution didn’t lead to any unrest or bloodshed, the new frontiers did create a few odd situations, like splitting border-towns in half.

The split “was not entirely inevitable, but the political and economic costs of keeping the country together would have been extremely high”, pointed out Jiri Pehe, political analyst and former advisor to Vaclav Havel.

The division of Czechoslovakia: an undemocratic decision?

A widespread narrative argues that the divorce was a purely political move decided behind closed-doors by Czech and Slovak leaders Vaclav Klaus and Vladimir Meciar against the will of the population. There is some truth in that: all the opinion polls at that time showed that a vast majority of Czechs and Slovaks was in favour of the preservation of Czechoslovakia and against the country’s break-up.

In its January 1, 1993 edition, the New York Times wrote: “A multi-ethnic nation born at the end of World War I in the glow of pan-Slavic brotherhood, Czechoslovakia survived dismemberment by the Nazis and more than four decades of Communist rule only to fall apart after just three years of democracy”.

Although no referendum was ever held on the matter, democracy was indeed at the heart of the issue: all the problems associated with the federation of two states of unequal weight and size only appeared after the centralized, communist regime collapsed as Czechoslovakia reconnected with democracy. The decision-making paralysis and the federal government’s inability to push any significant reforms in the early 1990’s strongly contributed to the top-down decision of Klaus and Meciar.





Centre of Prague, Czech Republic, March 1993



An upheaval was happening but only Kevin Skeoch seemed to notice.  Note the Pink clad coat of optimism on Marjorie.



Bakeshop…Normal exchanges happening


Look at the boy with the glasses. He notices something joyful.



Street scene Prague, Czech Republic, March 1993.  Joy seemed everywhere.


JOYFUL DAYS IN PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC,  MARCH   1993

TRAGIC DAYS IN UKRAINE, MARCH 2022…DID THINGS HAVE TO GO SO HORRIBLY WRONG?

Today, March 5, 2022, ‘We watch in horror as unspeakable crimes by one man, Vladimir Putin, tear
Ukraine into pieces that will take generations to repair.  Did this have to happen?
Was there not another way to  effect change, perhaps by respecting neutrality?

Our eldest son, Kevin Skeoch, had high hopes for Ukraine and Russia finding the
middle road through education.  He had (has?) the clout of a CEO in International
Schools around the world.  Upbeat, positive, above the grimy sludge of low level
politics.   Will happy days return?  “We can but hope that somehow good will be the final 
goal of ill,” as the saying goes.

In 1993, when Kev was a “$4 a day” teacher in Slovakia there were terrific changes happening.
Political changes, as the Soviet Union collapsed and sane heads tried to 
manage the collapse sensibly.  It was not an easy time.  On our March break
in 1989, Marjorie snd I visited Kevin in Bratislava, Slovakia with a side trip
to Prague, Czech Republic.   A political divorce. The former, rather artificial , nation of Czechoslovakia
decided to get a divorce.  




Notice the reflections…admirers of folk art…Marjorie and Kevin Skeoch




When we crossed the new border between these new states we almost missed
the border guards.  Come to think of it, We did miss them.  We did not stop as I remember.  A political divorce
without much ill will.   Yes, we saw more ill will in the Slovak Republic.  Poorer of the two states,  it
seemed.  Graffiti on a few walls saying “English go home”.  Negatives that longed
for the idealism of Marxism.  



Gorbachev…a leader with a birthmark…a leader.

I remember us driving into a Slovak lodge in the High Tatra mountains where a bunch
of young rather drunk Slovak ’20 somethings’  were taking a collective leak (piss).  Noticing us,… perhaps Marjorie’s
bright pink coat…they turned and pissed in our direction.  They laughed and we laughed.
A difference of opinion expressed and accepted.  Done without tearing the nation
apart.





What is happening here?  I had no idea in 1993.  But whatever was happening was full of joy.



















If only a leader like Marjorie and a leader like the costume bedecked young lady were present today.  









A few days later we witnessed the reverse situation in the heart of Prague where 
ethnic clothed dancers were expressing great joy while dancing on the street. 

 If pressed
to take a leak there was a squeaky clean toilet available in a huge MacDonald’s 
fast food store.

If only Ukraine and Russia could have found the same common ground.  If only we 
could find ourselves,  our global selves, with leaders who can lead.  If only there was
middle ground possible.

alan skeoch


No comment necessary below.


alan skeoch
March 5, 2022