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)

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.