EMPLOYMENT
This is, as near as I can remember, an accurate list & description of places that I have been employed, with the hopes of receiving fiscal remuneration.
ABBREVIATIONS USED ON THIS PAGE
Abbreviations for Canadian provinces: Alta, Alberta; B. C., British Columbia; Man., Manitoba; Ont., Ontario
CFS - Canadian Forces Station
Co - Company
DOD - Department of Defense
E - 183 Employers.
Gas Pot – A motor that uses gasoline for fuel
Hwy – Highway
IGA – Independent Grocers Association
Leaser – A person who has a truck leased on to a company.
Mph – Miles Per Hour
NWT – North West Territories
TCH - Trans Canada Highway
WCA – West Coast Amusements
For explanations of truckers terms see my Trucker's Glossary
PAGE II EMPLOYERS 61 - 120
1977
I actually never worked for this company. I was hired but couldn’t find a place to live.
« Go back To My LIFE LINE
Img E-62 
(Photo
`78) E-62 Unloading at the Harmac mill on
Vancouver Island.
This was a job I should have kept. Two weeks of afternoon shift, 2 of days.
Driving a truck hauling about seven loads a day from a small mill near Ladysmith to the pulp mill in Harmac, just outside of Nanaimo. Once or twice a shift I would put a trailer behind the truck.
Union wages but not union.
E-63 - Remple Trail
- 1141 97 Ave. Jul. - Dec. Gerald Hay (Manager)
Img E-63 
(Photo `78) On the side of the Mackenzie highway after unloading North of Indian Cabins.
Img E-63 
(Photo `78)
Back yard at Remple. Trailers were often loaded too full, with asphalt,
and driven at high speeds on rough road. they would crack in the middle.
Bulk tankers. Mostly I was hauling crude oil from the well sites to the refinery and asphalt from the refineries to road paving sites. Mostly I was driving a Freightliner COE.
Like Trimac they believed that power steering would let drivers take corners too fast. To avoid accidents all COEs had manual steering.
E-64 - Tormac
- Wood Chips & Animal Feed
Img E-64 
(Photo `78) Monteney Creek
hill. It didn’t rain very long, but enough.
See the little sleeper on the Mack. The wife, her son, and I, spent a few nights in there on a trip to Burns Lake.
Img E-64 
Bulk animal feeds. The
truck and pup, I sometimes drove.
Wood Chips from sawmills in Ft. St. John, B. C. to the pulp mill in Grande Prairie, Alta., and dog, and other animal, food, in bags, from Grande Prairie, Alta. to Burns Lake, B. C.
Also some hopper bottom work hauling oats and flax from the farms to the grain elevators.
Mostly a Mack Conventional but sometimes a Freightliner COE tuck and pup.
The windshield on the Freightliner was so cracked that when I was going downhill towards Grande Prairie the top of it came out of the frame and I was showered with little bits of glass for the rest of the trip.
Img E-64
(Photo
`78) They assured me the ground was hard enough so, I left the trailer.
Img E-64 
Using railway jacks the boss and I got it back on the tractor.
E-65 - Husky - Ft. St. John, B. C.
Img E-65 
(Photo `78)
An old Hayes COE hauling wood chips from the sawmill in Taylor, B. C. to the pulp mill in Grande Prairie, Alta.
The truck was owned by a farmer near Bonanza, Alta. and was leased to Husky in Ft. St. John, B. C.
I lived in Dawson Creek, B. C.
Img E-66 
(Photo
`78)
16 Ft. bunks Pacific chassis,
corn binder highway cab, automatic transmission,
water cooled brakes.
In B. C., between Zeballos and Tahsis, is a logging camp, one mountain in from the Pacific Ocean.
I drove a brand new, Off Highway, Pacific with an International highway cab. It had fourteen foot bunks, on the tractor and the trailer, a V 12 GMC, automatic transmission, and water cooled brakes.
The only way into the camp was by boat or float plane, from Gold River, or Campbell River, B. C.
I got fired my first week becasue I came over the top of the hill too fast and applied too much brake. I was scuffing the tires and scuffing the newly built road.
« Go back To My LIFE LINE
1978
E-67 - Yellow Cabs - 1026 103 Ave. Jan. - Jun.
Img E-67
Dorothy was an elderly lady who wouldn't let anyone else but her drive her new station wagon. I rode with her a couple of times and, to tell you the truth, she shouldn't have been driving.
When she would call me in, part time, she would let me drive her car because she knew I would look after it.
All her vehicles were Mercury Grande Marquis.
One cold winter night, one of the other drivers was all excited because he got a trip to Fore Skin (Ft. St.) John.
During the time he was gone I was kept busy crossing the street. I would park in front of the hotel, someone would get in my cab, I would turn on the meter, back out of the space, turn and park on the other side of the street, in front of another hotel. The meter never clicked above the flag rate. The passenger would get out, another passenger would get in and I would make a return trip.
For three hours steady I went back and forth between the two hotels.
When the other driver returned from St. John, I had made $50 more in fares than he and $20 more in tips.
Note: Flag rate is the starting price when a cab driver turns down the flag that shows he is empty.
Additional charges are by time and mileage. If the cab is sitting still the meter works on a clock. If the cab is moving the meter works by the mile.
Telling a driver to slow down or speed up will not change the amount you have to pay.
Img E-68 
Leo’s
Hotshoting
I drove a pickup truck for Leo's Hotshoting in Pouce Coupe, just five mile East of Dawson Creek.
A hot shot company uses anything from small cars to large trucks, boats, and planes, and specializes in moving parts or equipment from one place to another in the shortest possible time.
You can find hot shot companies in most any town but they are never more prevalent than in the oil patch, areas where there is active exploration for oil and gas.
When a well is being drilled the drilling company will pull the drill out of the hole every so often to change the drill bit. When they do they will wait a few hours before they put the new drill back in. During this period companies like Fracmaster, and Schlumberger, will come in and do work in the hole.
If these companies are in the hole and have problems they may have to replace a part. If so they want it yesterday. The drill crew is standing by waiting to get back in the hole and it is costing thousands of dollars per hour.
The part will be ordered and a hot shot company will be called to pick it up and deliver it. You can tell a hot shot pickup by the rocket launchers in the back of the pickup.
On each side, extending over the tail gate, and the cab of the truck, will be two or three pieces of angle iron, lying notch up, like v's side by side. These are used to hold long metal cylinders, called tools, that hold electronic equipment that will be lowered into the hole to take readings of the earth to see if there is oil or gas present.
I was getting paid five dollars an hour from the time I left home until the time I got back and was often gone for several days. Many is the night I slept, across the seat, on the side of the road for half an hour because I was too tired to see the road.
Wells, oil or gas, though sometimes on the edge of a town, are usually back in the boondocks. Roads are simply trees and snow pushed out of the way and will become bare ground in the Spring.
I was coming back from a rig, on such a road, one night when the motor in the pickup started acting funny. It felt like I was out of fuel but I knew I wasn't.
From the top of the mountain I had a fantastic view of the moon reflecting off the snow in the valley below. Parked in the middle of nowhere I called the boss on the car phone.
Like most wise motorists he had installed a secondary fuel filter in the fuel line. The primary filter is usually in the carburetor where the fuel line enters.
Following my boss' directions, I removed the secondary filter, pushed a screw driver through it, from end to end, and put it back on. His diagnosis of a plugged filter was correct. Fuel, though dirty, now flowed through the, no longer blocked, filter.
The primary filter would protect the carburetor and hopefully not clog up before I got to town. Once in town it was a simple matter of replacing both filters.
Img E-69 
(Photo `78) International
Shu Pak.
I drove a Shu Pak. This is a type of garbage truck that has dual controls. You can sit in the cab on the drivers side with all the usual gauges and controls but you can also stand on the passenger side where there is a second steering wheel, accelerator, brake, etc.
Richard and I drove up and down the alleys collecting refuse. One time I lifted an old fan from a furnace and was attacked by a swarm of bees who had made the fan their home.
One day Richard threw a bag, missed the truck, and it broke open. While he was cleaning up the mess he found a roll of 6 $20 bills. Someone had thrown them in the garbage.
One time I picked up a garbage bag and a piece of glass sliced through; bag, glove, and hand. Five stitches.
E-70 - Pete Friesen Trucking
Hart Hwy. Jul. -
`79 Feb. Pete Freisen (Owner)
Img E-70 
Kenworth
228 after it was painted Lynden colours.
When I worked for Pete, he had, I believe, 10 tractors.
I asked Pete one time, something about a truck. He told me not to ask him. he wasn’t a driver, or a mechanic.
One of our main customers was Northern Geophysical.
Northern had a bunch of tracked vehicles that they used for seismic work.
These were tracked vehicles, like large snow mobiles. They had two levers, like a bulldozer, for steering.
I remember one night, Pete and I, out in the snow, taking turns, driving one of these machines, around, and around, in circles, trying to get it on to a low bed.
One of the steering levers wouldn’t work.
Eventually, after both of us were dizzy, we got it in a straight line with the end of the trailer, then drove it on, without touching the steering.
After a few long days, out in the middle of nowhere, Northern would phone Pete and tell him their equipment needed to be moved.
They would go into town, for a shower, and a beer, and expect to find their equipment at their next job site, when they got there in the wee hours of the next morning.
Pete would phone me in the middle of the night, and tell me which seismic machine had to be moved.
If you wrote down what he told you, and followed his directions, without a map, to an area of wilderness, where Pete had never been, you would find what you were supposed to pick up, and, by continuing to follow his directions, you would find where to deliver it.
Pete may not have been a truck driver but he was a hell of a dispatcher.
In `76 Pete had bought four `74 Kenworths that had been in Inuvik. They were like new. They had never been over 20 miles per hour and the longest road up there was fifteen miles.
I did a lot of moving of bulldozers and seismic equipment until we got taken over by Lynden.
As Canadian Lynden we got into hauling oil rigs.
Once I hauled mail to Alaska and brought back part of an oil rig, from Kenai, Alaska.
Coming home over the pass, from Anchorage to Tok, I saw two ladies, stuck in a snow bank. I ran a chain, from the back of my trailer, to the back of their 4X4 and pulled it back on the road.
Both ladies gave me their phone number but I’ve never been back to Alaska.
Eventually 228, the tractor I drove, was the only one of the four left. The other 3 were written off in sever accidents.
In `76 Pete had bought four `74 Kenworths that had been in Inuvik. They were like new. They had never been over 20 miles per hour and the longest road up there was fifteen miles.
I did a lot of moving of bulldozers and seismic equipment until we got taken over by Lynden.
As Canadian Lynden we got into hauling oil rigs.
Once I hauled mail to Alaska and brought back part of an oil rig, from Kenai, Alaska.
Coming home over the pass, from Anchorage to Tok, I saw two ladies, stuck in a snow bank. I ran a chain, from the back of my trailer, to the back of their 4X4 and pulled it back on the road.
Both ladies gave me their phone number but I’ve never been back to Alaska.
Eventually 228, the tractor I drove, was the only one of the four left. The other 3 were written off in sever accidents.
1979
E-62 - H. A.
Davis
& Sons
Tractor trailer hauling chips from Ladysmith, B. C. to Pt. Alberni, B. C. Spare board, and I didn’t get many trips.
E-71 - Pacific (Canadian Pacific) Forest Products
Off Highway logging trucks.
Just a short haul, 1 mile, from the dry sort to the dump, where they put them in the water. About 50 loads a night, until I rolled one.
We were hot loading. We would take an empty truck and park it and while the loader was loading it we would jump into the loaded truck and take it to the beach. Two drivers, three trucks.
There was only one curve in the hill and as I went into it the truck started to lean. The driver before me hadn't fastened the bunk strap on the trailer and the stake swung out, the load shifted, the trailer tipped over taking the tractor with it.
Not a lot of damage and I didn't get hurt, but I got fired.
They should have been fined. Workers Compensation Board requires that the bunk on the tractor of a logging truck be able to fall off in such a situation, so the tractor doesn’t roll.
E-72 - Salesman for Wynn’s Lubricants
My territory was Vancouver Island. I never made a sale.
I had a potential customer, who wanted some free samples but I couldn’t afford it and my boss wouldn’t do it.
My customer was the shop foreman in a camp of a large logging company, if he had liked the samples it would have been a major account.
E-73 - Cowichan Security `79 - `80 $4/hr.
 BEAR IN UNIFORM |
|---|
Ride around in a car, at night, with a dog, and check buildings under our protection.
In the day I would call on, potentially, new customers.
Once I had to patrol a hotel in Nanaimo, B. C. during their annual Bathtub Race.
I was standing outside the doorway to a below level lounge.
A waitress came up to me and gave me a kiss on the cheek.
I looked at her and she said, ‘Just for being here”.
I continued to look at her. She continued, “A drunk was giving me a rough time, didn’t want to pay unless I gave him my phone number. I pointed up the stairs, at you, and said to him, `Fine, I’ll just call the officer’. He paid up and left”.
I smiled at her and said, “Glad I could be of service”.
It makes you feel good knowing you actually accomplish something, even when doing nothing.
A similar situation would happen to me again, years later.
I was one of only two male Avon ladies in Canada. My territory was from Cobble Hill to Mill Bay on Vancouver Island.
I enjoyed it in that I was familiar with the products and believed it to be a good line. I didn't mind the jokes from the men who would ask me where my skirt was.
I probably would have done all right with it but I got started too close to Christmas and didn't have time to get in on the Xmas rush or to build up my territory before the January slow period.
E-75 - Tops Pontiac Buick, GMC – Island Hwy.
I just worked there for one month but I was top salesman (5) by the end of the month and I never sold a used car.
Sure felt guilty about the ones I did sell though. Like a white 4x4 with light gray upholstery to a man who as going to use it for servicing bulldozers in the bush. It was, however the only colour I could get him at that time.
I quit because the commission was too low. Like, I sold a brand new Firebird, with no trade in, and only got $90.
Beside which I have trouble selling products I don’t believe in.
Buying a new car has to be the worst financial investment anyone can ever make.
1980
E-76 - Mackenzie B. C. Logging Truck
I worked one day, for a fly by night outfit, if I remember correctly, the reach broke and they said it would take a few days to replace it so I didn't stick around.
A company from Mackenzie, B. C. that was logging in Ft. Nelson, B. C.
I drove a highway logging truck with oversize bunks. The front bunks being wider than the back bunks.
All logs were loaded butt towards the tractor and the long logs would be dragging on the ground behind the trailer.
We went out on the highway with the empty trucks and North on the new Liard Highway, that was being built.
Loaded, we came into town on private logging roads with one way traffic. We had two rivers to cross which were built up with extra thick ice.
One day I pulled a taxi out of a snow bank. The lady who was driving would become ASP4
I would meet ASP4, again several years later, under strange circumstances.
E-78 - Ace Taxi
I barely remember that I worked there so it wasn't for very long.
E-79 - R A M (Richard A. Masur) Appliance Repair
I started an apprenticeship repairing; fridges, stoves, washers, dryers, and dishwashers.
My boss had a contract with a large appliance store. We installed all their new sales and repaired all their trade ins.
When I started, their warehouse had a basement full of trade ins.
The boss turned me loose and told me to organize everything.
I started by building walls to separate our area. I used 2X3s for frame and large sheets of cardboard for paneling. To warm the area I turned on a stove and opened the oven door.
I then proceeded to test all the appliances and make repairs to all that were worth fixing. Anything I didn’t understand I would put aside until Richard would return from house calls. He would then teach me how to fix it.
Anything that wasn’t worth fixing I disassembled and shelved the parts to make repairs to others.
A really nice, older fridge came in. It had an ice blue interior. I asked the appliance store if I could take it home to see if I could fix it.
It was a Westinghouse and as Richard had once worked for Westinghouse he had a pretty good idea of what was wrong with it.
After I got it home I took it apart and found the problem, and repaired, it, just as the boss had told me.
To this day I have never seen a fridge that was its match in looks and convenience.
I was driving a brand new Mack conventional with a Peterbilt sleeper and a Pittman picker for a lease operator.
While training, my instructor told me to lift while I was dragging in two large pipe racks.
The extension bent and wouldn’t retract so we had to use a cutting torch to take the end off so that I could take it into Edmonton and get the boom rebuilt.
It was still sticking out so far that the weigh scale made me put a red light on the end of it.
I went to work for my brother in law. We stayed in a little travel trailer on various farms.
Contractors would go to the farm and pour a concrete foundation and then we would go and erect metal grain bins.
One day the wind caught a sheet of metal that I was carrying. If I hadn’t been wearing good work boots it would have sliced my Achilles tendon.
My ankle swole up and I had to quit work.
E-82 - Swanberg Brs.
Ft. St. John, B. C. the cook shack that I took to Trout Lake, B. C. via Hay River, NWT.
An old Kenworth conventional with a winch. I was moving oil rigs and camps. Puling the cable off the winch, and running it the length of the trailer, you hook it to a sling around whatever you want to put on the trailer.
Slowly you winch in your load and back up the truck. The cable lifts the load over a roller on the back of the trailer.
Once I started to lift a cook shack.
The cook came flying out the door. Was she mad.
It was an old truck and the boss had told me not to drive it too hard.
on the last trip we left Enterprise, the junction at Hay River, NWT. early in the morning.
The winter road from the highway to Trout Lake was so rough the fastest I ever went was 15 MPH.
I was the first truck there and the cat dragged me across their new ice bridge and then into the mud.
To make a long story short I went without food for 36 hours, without sleep for 72, and without cigarettes for 4 days.
After unloading the other trucks stopped to sleep.
They didn’t mark their time as sleeping and claimed extra pay.
The boss accused me of speeding and fired me.
For a more complete version of this story, see my Truckin' Page, WINTER TRUCKING `78
Img E-83 
A large cut off saw trims the back end of tree length load of logs
at the Proctor & Gamble mill in Grande Prairie.
In the background a large Lectro Stacker wraps his grapple around the ends of the logs
to take them away after they are cut off.
I drove a Kenworth with oversize bunks, and a heavy trailer, to haul full length logs on a private road. The road is so straight, wide, and flat, with gentle curves, that the trucks pull two and three trailers and meet other trucks going the other way.
They run at high speed, but only when the ground is frozen. A sudden thaw put me out of work.
1981
Img E-84 
(Photo `78) Each
driver had his own
truck and
indoor parking stall.
At first I drove a Mack conventional with a five speed stick, then it was traded in on a new Mack COE.
We hauled tankers with cement, the tear drop trailers were the owners own design, and any other bulk product but mostly dangerous goods such as sulphuric acid and caustic soda.
Ed Caron was the original hauler of bulk products and invented the pneumatic system of tear drop trailers.
E-85 - Westgate Wood Products `80
Img
E-85 Note the large fuel tank behind the cab. Trucks running to Alberta used to fill up on cheap fuel. Now it is against the law to have a tank above the frame.
(Photo `81
at the cedar mill in Kamloops)
Tarps cover a load of planed and kiln dried
cedar, to keep it clean and dry.
Ford COE hauling lumber from a mill near Vavenby, B. C. to Kamloops, B. C. where it would be dried and planed. Then I would take it to Lavington where they would trim it into wall paneling for shipment overseas.
Plans were for me to take it to the docks in Vancouver but when I came to work one day the plant was closed.
They still owe me my last paycheck but they don't exist anymore.
E-86 - Black Diamond Peat Moss
Img
E-86 
Mack Dump
truck full of peat moss.
While I was staying at my mothers in Enderby, Andy G., a friend of mine, asked me to fill in for him, for a week, so he could attend a wedding in Vancouver.
I drove an old Mack with a gas pot engine, and hauled peat moss. Though a small farm operation, Black Diamond Peat Moss in Grindrod, five miles North of Enderby, is well known for its quality product.
I delivered to nurseries, and homes, as far away as Kelowna, B. C. and Sorrento, B. C.
My first trip was to Salmon Arm, a distance of sixteen miles. The last four miles were on the Trans Canada Highway which for two miles is a slowly curving, very steep, hill with a low speed limit.
As I came over the top of the hill I started slowing down and gearing down until I was finally in low gear and even then I had a hard time keeping the truck from running away on me. When I got to the other edge of town I found a Mack dealer from where I phoned the boss.
One brake had a broken diaphragm, one had a broken spring, and a third had a leak in the air line. Of the four brakes on the two back axles only one was working and it wasn't set up tight.
It is precisely to avoid situations such as this that the government demand truckers do pretrip brake inspections, which I had neglected to do.
E-87 - Quesnel Appliance and Refrigeration Service Ltd. 252A Reid St.
Img E-87 
(Photo Sept. `06) Not sure which side was `A' Probably the right. Obviously, doesn't matter anymore.
I was running around town, with my own vehicle, for only ten dollars per hour, fixing washers, dryers, etc. but it wasn't full time, so I went looking for other work.
Once I had to change the drive belt on a washing machine that we couldn’t get out of the closet.
The owner held my ankles while I hung down the back of the machine for nearly an hour.
E-88 - Ace Taxi 136 Malcom Dr.Img E-88 Not much to say. One cab co. is much the same as another.
E-89 - Turbo Transport - Robin Rd. 79 Mar. - 79 Dec. Dennis Westad - (Owner) Img E-89 Img E-89 Most of the time I drove an old
Kenworth LW but sometimes
the boss would put me on his Peterbilt conventional.
I much preferred the LW.
It was all low bed work.
Mostly skidders for the logging companies but we moved paving
equipment
to the highway North of Revelstoke and I saw the new dam, which was
still under
construction at that time.
I picked up some paving equipment near Mt. Robson
and the scale operator at Tete Jeune Cache showed me the log outhouses left from the Japanese internment camp that was there during the war.
I used to tell the boss his Peterbilt was a piece of junk. He thought it was the greatest truck in the world.
Isn’t it amazing how advertising can control a person’s common sense?
One day I spotted a crack in the cross member on the Pete. The dealer couldn’t supply a new one.
Only two years old and parts weren’t available. We had to get a new one, handcrafted.
D E-90 - Lomak Transport 555 Pacific Street, Prince George
Img E-90 While working for Turbo Transport I had applied for work running low bed in Prince George
for Lomak Transport but when I moved there the company said they couldn't hire
me because I was not in the union,
I had told them that before I left my job in Quesnel but they said it was okay, they would get around that.
After I moved to Prince, Lomak said the union was being tough and not letting any new drivers in.
E-91 - Bill McRae Trucking
- 7428 Carr Rd. Dec. - `82 Jan. William MacRae (Owner) Img E-91 I got a job with a small company hauling lumber
from mills around
the area to mills in the city.
I was working with Stewart T. and one
morning he had
a tiger torch laying on the tire of his truck trying to thaw out his
brakes. The boss's dog got out.
When we got back from chasing the dog, the torch
had slipped
and melted the air bag on the tractor.
Stewart couldn't go to work and neither could I as I was parked
behind
him. Add to that there was a sheet of
ice over top of my batteries and my truck wouldn't start as the ice had
shorted
the batteries and drained them.
I was picking at the ice when Stewart brought the
torch over
and started to thaw the ice. I started
to tell him to stop when the batteries exploded. Batteries
produce hydrogen gas which is highly flammable.
Luckily neither of us got hurt.
Needless to say, the boss was not happy.
Just before Xmas I moved out of the mobile and
stored my
stuff at the shop. I got an advance, my
paycheque, from the boss so I could visit mom for Xmas.
After Xmas the boss left town owing everyone else
their last
paycheque.
E-92 Shanty Gal Ventures
443 N. Nechako Rd.
Img
E-92 This company also went by the
name of `Chip City'.
I pulled a `B' train with wood chips from a mill a
few miles
out of town along a private logging road to the North Woods pulp mill. In twelve hours I would average seven
loads.
The company was eventually sold to a company out
of
Vancouver who closed the doors because they only bought it for the
contracts.
Img E-92 I could get a jump on the other
truckers by going out in the
bush and sleeping in the truck. Then I would be the first one to load.
In town, from Calgary, for the winter, like so
many fly by
night companies that come in for a quick buck.
He left town without paying anyone.
The motel where he was staying seized the truck I
had been
driving.
I snuck into the back yard and took the truck from
the
motel.
When I heard the police were looking for me I hid
the
truck.
Later the truck disappeared. I thought the boss
had found
it. He says he didn't.
It has never been found and I have never been paid.
1983 E-94 - The Feed Bag James T. (Owner)
3989 18 Ave. The Feed Bag expanded into the bay on the left, before I worked there, and shared the bay with Hyon bedding, which remanufactured wood waste into bedding for hamsters, and other pets.
My job was to unload trucks and put up orders for customers. One day a man came in, I was in the front, and ordered a bag of dog food. I went into the back, grabbed a bag and went out through the freight door. As there was only one vehicle in the parking lot I assumed it belonged to the customer. I approached the passenger side of the Bronco, or Gimmy, before they were called SUVs.
There was a large German Shepard in the car and I began talking to it as I approached, telling him what a beautiful dog he was, etc.
The passenger door was locked so I walked around the back and tried the hatch, which was also locked, continuing my conversation with the mutt inside the vehicle.
I then opened the drivers door and immediately the dog pushed his head out. I quickly put my hand on his head an pushed him back, telling him that I couldn’t get his supper in the door if he didn’t get his head out of the way. The struggle continued for a while and eventually I pushed him aside and dropped the bag on the back seat.
I was just closing the door when the customer came running out of the store yelling at me not to open the door, the vicious watch dog would eat me alive.
I just shrugged my shoulder and walked back into the warehouse, as I wiped the saliva of the friendly dog’s tongue off my hand.
Eventually Hyon bought out the Feed Bag and expanded into all three spaces.
1984 E-95 - O'Connell
- Ont. - (See - E-99 Sunray)
E-96 - J. P. Delph – Burnaby,
B. C. - (See - E-998 Sunray)
E-97 - Candis Enterprises -
Ont. - (See - E-99 Sunray)
E-98 - Canadian Photoscene -
Salmon Arm, B. C - (See - E-99 Sunray).
E-99 - Sunray
– 7 681 Ongman Rd. Prince George, B.
C.
Img E-99 I explain these companies together as I worked them together but I list them separately as I hired on to each at different times.
I spent the spring, and the next three years, driving from Jasper to Prince Rupert, and Mackenzie to Cache Creek, in my pickup, selling matches, calendars, and everything else, with the customers name on it
for O'Donnell.
I also carried a line, of what, I don't remember, from J. P. Delph, and I carried a line of souvenir spoons for a company out of Ontario.
As well, I did photography to make postcards and customized calendars for Canadian Photoscene. I also carried a line of T-Shirts, matches, napkins, and other advertising for
Sunray Printing.
I never made enough money to pay my fuel but I enjoyed meeting the customers and sitting with them, helping them to create a design for their advertising.
E-100 - Roll-A-Dome Al & Denise Work Owners
Img
E-100 After I moved back to Prince, from Edmonton, I became a devotee of roller skating. I spent most of my evening hours skating and after closing would sit in Bino's with other skaters while they swilled coffee.
I spent a lot of time, during the week, as a volunteer, which got me free skating privileges.
On weekends the last skate of the night would often be cancelled as the hall would be used for dances. I would do security during the dance and afterward I would help remove the tables and clean up.
The next morning we would come in early to mop the floor so it would have time to dry before the noon skate.
For this we received $20
1985 E-101 - Emerald Taxi 1253 5th Ave. R. J. Wilson Pres.
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E-101 Nothing exciting here.
Just another taxi company.
One leaser wanted me to drive his car. It was a small car and he had put a Plexiglas shield around the drivers seat with a small hole for the passengers to put their money through.
He had heard about a cab driver getting hit in the head.
I drove it one night then went back to the company car.
There wasn’t room for me to swing my arms and, safely, turn the steering wheel.
E-102 - Ace Towing 2180 Robertson Curt Froielich Mngr.
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E-101 I didn't get a lot of shifts as I was just working spare board and things were slow. Things got even slower for me when the boss got pulled into a police road block and he saw me in uniform. The girls in the dispatch office didn't like police officers.
Although I fully believe that cars that park illegally should be towed I was happy not to have to face the wrath of the drivers when they found me hooking up to their cars.
Drivers seem to have a thousand rationalizations as to why they should be allowed to ignore `no parking’ signs.
They will never admit that they are in the wrong.
1986
Img E-103 Again, what they call, off highway logging. The lake was frozen and the equipment was taken across the lake on a barge through a path that is kept open in the ice.
As the tug pushes the barge across he keeps the side of the barge against the ice to break the new ice.
When he brings back a boom of logs he does the same thing to the other side of the channel. Also across the bottom of the lake is a tube of air with holes in it.
As the air bubbles up it disturbs the water to keep ice from forming.
E-103 - Mount Thompson
Contracting - Logging truck
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E-104 A company from Valemont was staying in Prince for the winter and I drove truck for him.
The trucks were junk and badly in need of repair. They weren't safe and were constantly breaking down.
He sold two to a company in Alberta but the company brought them back because the brakes were so bad.
E-105 - C F & F Logging Mike Filion Owner
Img E-104 A company from Salmon River, North of Prince, was logging in the `Nations', West of Prince. The truck had been rolled and I got it out of the body shop, drove it for two days and
put it back in the shop.
When it had been in the shop they hadn't cleaned the motor or put the exhaust back together properly.
The motor was covered with oil from the last time it had rolled. When the motor got hot it cooked the oil and the fumes, combined with the leaking exhaust, put me to sleep.
I swerved a couple of times in an `S’ turn and then laid the load on its side.
Working in logging is known as working in the bush.
When a log truck spills its load it is known as `building a log cabin'. A fairly common occurrence in the `bush’. Which is why the Compensation Board require that the front bunk of a logging tuck will break free, leaving the tractor on the road.
Most log cabins are built because the trailer goes off the road in a sharp corner. If the tractor bunk doesn’t break free it will take the tractor with it when the load pulls it over the bank.
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E-106 The floor boards were so rusted out that the seat swayed back and forth.
It was virtually impossible to shift the transmission or control the steering wheel.
I quit after the first trip.
For one week I knocked on doors and was happy when no one answered.
I just couldn't wrap my mind around the project. With all the sales I've done, I knew it was a quality product, but, my heart just wasn’t in it.
I gave them back their demo machine.
I had applied for a job with a small company hauling low bed. Some weeks later he phoned and asked if I would take a load of cattle to the auction at Abbotsford.
I didn't want to as I know nothing about cattle. He said the son of the owner would ride with me and that two other loads would be going and the drivers were experienced. I agreed.
When I got to the beach, (Lower Mainland of B. C.) I had one dead cow. It had gone down and the others had trampled it to death.
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E-109 My job, as a civilian employee, with the DND (Department of National Defense) at CFS (Canadian Forces Station) Baldy Hughes, a radar station, part of the Mid Canada Defense Line, was to drive; bus, ambulance,
fire truck, staff car, and anything else that no one on the base was qualified to operate.
Most of the time I sat around the dispatch office in the military camp. At shift changes I would take a small bus, drive around the base picking up military personnel, take
them up to the radar site at the top of the mountain, then bring the people, getting off shift, back to their homes.
Sometimes, instead of people, I would take a briefcase up. It is really awkward to drive with a briefcase handcuffed to your wrist.
A man was going to put a new motor in his C/O truck and sell it to me. I was going to lease it on with Trimac.
However, after I quit the DND he never put the new motor in.
E-110 - Loomis Courier Services
I worked for a leaser as a spare driver, Friday Night, driving a fairly new Western Star conventional. I hauled trailers for Loomis from Prince George to Dawson Creek, with one stop in
Chetwynd, B. C.
E-111 - Loomis Courier Services
429 McAloney Rd.
Img E-111 Though I had been hired by a leaser, Loomis used me as a company driver on the spare board and I drove a GMC General to Smithers with stops along the way.
As well I made one trip to Cache Creek and back.
I got fired for driving too fast, but in actuality the union driver in Williams Lake complained because he wasn't working and I, a non-member of the union, was.
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E-112 I drove a Kenworth conventional with a highboy trailer and a load of two bundles of short logs. The back bundle would stick out over the end of the trailer but we were
mostly on private road.
One day the bundles were so high that I ripped down some phone lines going into houses.
We were working an area of forest that had been killed by fire.
The trees were all black, and very hard to cut.
We were talking about how dirty a job it was and one of the skidder operators told me, “When you come to work in the morning you just find the biggest, blackest, log you can, cuddle up to it, rub yourself all around, and you don’t have to worry about getting dirty, or black, for the rest of the day.”
E-113 -
Vienna Schnitzel House 611 Brunswick St.
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E-113 A dinner club.
I was assistant to the bartender in the main
dinning area
and when it was real busy I would man a second bar in a second area.
New Years Eve we ran out of champagne so the boss
had me
take the champagne bottles into the wine cooler and fill them, using a
funnel,
with sparkling wine.
1987
E-114 - Trimac Transport 9355 Penn
I was driving tanker, Mack
conventional, for Rick Klimek,
lease operator.
We hauled asphalt from the refinery in Langley to
the
airport in terrace and the streets in Prince Rupert.
Once I had to get a rush load of
gasoline from Taylor for the service station in Bear Lake.
I was so tired I took my friend Alex with me and let him drive for awhile.
When he woke me in Dawson creek he had already stopped at the dock and filled the trailers.
Alex would make a good driver but he just won’t get his class 1. Doesn’t want the responsibility.
Despite the fact that Trimac wanted two drivers on every lease truck Rick decided he didn't make any more miles with two drivers and having to split the wages with me wasn't worth it.
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E-115 I tried out for a leaser and we hauled propane from Prince to the construction on the Coquihalla, near Merritt, B. C. but decided he didn't make any more miles with two drivers and having to split the wages with me wasn't worth it, which I already knew from working for Rick.
I drove a brand new Kenworth
for two weeks while a man took
summer holidays.
I hauled logs from West of Prince into town.
« Go back
To My LIFE
LINE When my logging co. went broke
I was able to return the
logging truck and the skidder.
The chain saws were returnable to my supplier as
they
weren't paid for yet, but I still owed him a bill.
As well, I still owed for fuel and parts to other
suppliers.
I went to work at Bino's as a host on the
graveyard shift.
Img E-118 Img E-118A One weekend, like it does twice a year, the carnival came to town. Jokingly I asked Bob Hauser about signing on as a driver. Saturday
night, after having been unable to supply the vendors on my route with fresh product I gave my notice at Bino's and Sunday night I helped the carnival tear down and then drove one of their trucks to Burns Lake.
The rumour spread throughout the carnies that I
was an ex
cop. Some of them thought I still was a cop. They would see me at the phone booth and think I was telling the police where to find them.
In every town you go to, the police cruise through. Sometimes I would talk to them. Those who believed I was a narc, would think
I was passing on information, but I was just hob knobbing.
I would laugh when I would see some of my fellow carnies ducking behind tents or trucks to avoid being seen by the officers.
One time, one of the carnies told me, that he knew
I had
been kicked off the force for selling drugs. I let it ride. They
accepted me on
those grounds and I actually had an enjoyable summer traveling
throughout
Western Canada.
I spent the rest of the summer as a driver and a
ride
operator. Mostly I worked kiddy land
but helped out in all facets of the operation such as driving around
town
trying to get the best prices on tires.
The Carney life is tough, and rough, and yet their
can be
camaraderie there. I made several
friends with whom I still keep in touch.
Whenever I see the carnival I stop in to see the
owners and
to say hi to whomever I know. Some
of
the carnies have been there for a lot of years. It is seasonal work but
it is:
fresh air; meeting people; and traveling.
There can be good money in it, if you are an
owner, but the
rides are expensive and it is hard to find and keep employees. I came up with a couple of ideas, for rides,
in Kiddy Land, that the owner was quite intrigued by.
I was planning to go along with him every year but I never made
enough money to build them. Sometimes I
wish I had.
One time in Stony Plain, Alta. I was operating a
ride called
Kid Power which was only for little children. I told a girl that she
was too
big to go on. She told her father who
punched me in the face.
At the end of the summer I didn't return to Prince
George
but stayed in Vancouver where the carnival ended its season.
While I was with the Carnival I took many
pictures, some of
which I sold to the carnival.
Sitting with the owners of the carnival, we
selected the photos
and designed a layout. I ordered the
brochures through Canadian Photoscene in Salmon Arm and sold them to
WCA.
E-119 - Viacom Holdings 27015 Fraser Hwy. Aldergrove, B. C.
Img E-119 When the Carney season ended I
took the truck back to the
barns in Langley, B. C. and went to visit my friends Lance and Sheila.
Lance had a friend down from Kamloops and the two
were going
to go watch a football game. They
wanted me to come with them.
I said I was going to stay home and see if I could
get a
job. They asked me how I planned to do
that. I said I would let my fingers do
the walking through the yellow pages.
They were skeptical.
I told them that I would get a job, driving South,
before
the day was out. They laughed as they
left.
That night I left on a training trip, driving
team, to Los
Angeles, California.
Viacom agreed to hire me after I came back from
Calif. but I
told them I didn't want to run team.
Img E-120 I got on with Mercury, driving
a brand new Freightliner
conventional, hauling beer and other products to Calif. with return
loads of
produce.
On my last trip I made eleven pickups of; lettuce, radishes, oranges and lemons from Fresno to Santa Barbara. One stop I made, East of Santa Barbara was to pick
up one cardboard box of watercress.
I didn’t get paid for any hourly wages.
Mercury supplies new tractors but their wages are mileage from Vancouver to L.A., they don’t include any mileage for the side trips.
One day a truck from Prince George brought down rolls of paper from Terrace, B. C. his mileage rate was exactly double what mine
was to take the paper to San Jose, Calif.
I quit when I got back from that trip.
1988
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(Photo Sept. `06 - Lower left, former taxi stand)
The LW that I normally drove, and preferred.
The Pete that the boss liked and sometimes asked me
to drive. I did prefer his trailer to mine.
U
Unloading
chips at Northwood’s Pulp and Timber.
Unloading
chips at Northwood’s Pulp and Timber.
I
drove a Freightliner COE. This picture was taken
at the weigh scales South of Prince George.
It sat there for 3 days while we
changed all the brakes, at minus 30 F.
Now, mounted on a pole, high above Spruce Capital Feeds, this horse used to sit out front of The Feed Bag.
(Photo `04 Prince George, B. C. Canada) 
3989 18 Ave.
The space on the right.
(Photo `04 Prince George, B. C. Canada)
(Photo `03) Tucked away in
the corner.
(Photo `03)
(Photo `03) A lot more modern than the little station wagon I drove for them.
(Photo Sept. `06) We were in the shop when it started to move. We ran out the back door and stood in the yard watching the building sway. The center of the earthquake was 300 miles North West of Yellowknife. It caused some structural damage to our building. The girls in the office, upstairs, were scared.
Note the driver’s side stack is a bit bent. I built a log cabin in a snow bank.
An electric loader unloads the entire load in one scoop.
I built a log cabin. There was no breakaway bunk on this tractor,
it was using a fifth wheel and high boy trailer to carry short logs.
My dog is wondering why she can't get back in the nice warm truck.
I made one trip in this truck.
Motor Pool. - Some of the equipment I was to operate
(Photo `04) In `03, Loomis was bought out by DHL.
From the colours, I would say, this truck used to be leased to, or owned by, Trimac.
(Photo Dec. `05) The entrance used to be on 6 th Ave. The Brunswick St. entrance was decorated by a large water wheel and was the entrance to the `Whiskey Mill' cabaret.
Motor
Pool.
(Photo
`04) When it was Bino’s it was brown and didn't
have the moose head.
Several businesses have gone broke in this building since it was built
for Bino’s.
It used an American design
and the heating cost a fortune in the Northern winters.
West Coast Amusements.
I zoomed in while using time exposure from the top of the Super Slide .
(Photo `06/2) Viacom had their offices in the space on the right.
(Photo `03) Mercury
Transport, East bound on
the
TCH.
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