Butedale

MurrayM said:

I used to think as you do...now I celebrate the decay, knowing that if left alone for the whole process to complete itself, every evidence of our endeavors will be wiped away and replaced with fully mature forest.

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You and I are not apart in our thinking. I was referring to the loss of "community" and it's people. I hope the Gitga'at and Hartley Bays never get replaced by new forests. Too much of our coast and it's heritage were and still are treated as disposable.

Totems will return to the dirt as you and I will. Skidders in the bush won't.

Hawgwash said:

These guys?

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Yes. The second photo is, I believe, one of the last ones left and it's a wreck. If it's the one I'm thinking of I saw it in Kewalo Basin in 1999 or 2000 when Boeing sent me over to do a quick project with Aloha Airlines. There were just two of them in a harbor that had once held thirty or forty, all in top condition. I would not be surprised if the two derelicts I saw are gone now.

Most if not all of them were powered with a single 6-71. Despite their length they were quite narrow and were actually pretty fast. They were day boats, going into Pearl Harbor early in the morning to net the lttle fish they used for live bait and then heading out to where they thought the aku might be. They would fish most of the day and then head back to unload at the canneries in the evening.

In the late 70s I did some fish spotting for a couple of them, flying out at first light to areas where aku were often found like Molokai Channel, looking for the big spirals of seabirds that formed in feeding frenzies when tuna forced schools of baitfish to the surface. These form and dissipate pretty fast but they indicate the presence of tuna in the area. Then I'd go back to HNL, land, call in what I'd seen to the skipper of the boat and then go off to work. The owner of the plane got a small percentage of the day's earnings.

The big number on the sides of the boats' pilothouses is the boat's permit number for baitfish netting in Pearl Harbor which of course was under the jurisdiction of the US Navy. In those days a commercial fishing license in Hawaii cost $15 IIRC. Even I had one for a time.

Hawgwash said:

You and I are not apart in our thinking. I was referring to the loss of "community" and it's people. I hope the Gitga'at and Hartley Bays never get replaced by new forests. Too much of our coast and it's heritage were and still are treated as disposable.

Totems will return to the dirt as you and I will. Skidders in the bush won't.

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I agree; we aren't that far apart

In terms of the environment, I tend to think in geological timeframes. All the mountains around here under 5,000' are rounded on top...any over that height are sharp, pointy peaks...this means everything was once covered with 5,000' of ice.

I heard a Tsimshian lady speak once who said, when making big decisions, they think seven generations out.

Your skidder doesn't stand a chance

MurrayM said:

I heard a Tsimshian lady speak once who said, when making big decisions, they think seven generations out.

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Well Murray, the Tsimshian and I are two different worlds.
We have come to not thinking much beyond today.

This is the first of my six generations on the BC coast and G7 could pop out any time now.

Can't say I am all that excited about what the most recent two have done and can't be too enthusiastic about the next.

And I certainly am not proud of what my 6 generations have done to 6 generations of the Tsimshian, the Salish, the Nisga'a et al.

MurrayM said:

Your skidder doesn't stand a chance

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Absolutely. On our first visit to Von Donop in the Desolation Sound area we came acros the remains of a big skidder in the brush. There wasn't much left, just the frame and drum and gear assemblies and the half-rotted logs it was mounted on. I don't know how it had been powered so it was hard to tell when it dated from. I'm guessing the 50s or 60s but I suppose it could have been earlier. The metal components, while still intact, had reached the point of being covered with big flakes of rust that could be peeled off easily by hand. Some of the thinner sections of the frame had rusted through completely.

Based on its overall appearance I would say it's going to be a race between the skidder itself and the big (cedar?) logs it sits on as to which one disappears from sight first.

Hawgwash said:

Well Murray, the Tsimshian and I are two different worlds.
We have come to not thinking much beyond today.

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Or the next election cycle! Kind of like sking down a double black diamond run with toilet paper tubes taped onto your sunglasses

As I understand the First Nations world view (only ankle deep in the shallow end on this one) we (modern people) worry too much about the here and now. What matters most is Nature, the giver and sustainer of Life, not our material achievements which will surely return to dust in time.

My take on this is that even if Humans fry the whole surface of the Earth, there will be some organisms relying on chemosynthesis huddled around a deep ocean hot water vent, or surviving between crystals inside rocks in the interior plains of Antarctica, and Life will again find a way

Maybe Bonobo's are Natures plan 'B'...

Hawgwash said:

Can't say I am all that excited about what the most recent two have done and can't be too enthusiastic about the next.

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Won't argue with you on your first point, but beg to differ on the last.

You may have been following the Enbridge Northern Gateway story here in Kitimat. Through the five or six years that saga has been playing out I've gotten to meet some really inspiring young people.

One of the most impressive was Luke Wallace, an environmental geography student at UBC who is also a folk musician and documentary film maker. It was while talking to him that I realized yours and my generation are the last ones who could ever imagine finding some remote spot on the planet and "get away from civilization".

Luke and his generation have grown up knowing there is not one spot on the planet which hasn't in some way been touched by humans or been impacted by us in some way. This makes them very aware of how they intend to lead their lives and informs the choices they make.

Time will tell if there's enough of them to tip the balance of power, but it does give me hope.

Luke Wallace sampler;


Luke Wallace

Marin said:

...we came acros the remains of a big skidder in the brush. There wasn't much left, just the frame and drum and gear assemblies and the half-rotted logs it was mounted on. I don't know how it had been powered so it was hard to tell when it dated from. I'm guessing the 50s or 60s but I suppose it could have been earlier.

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What you saw was a donkey on skids. Most likely powered by steam; lots of fuel for them.

When all available wood was knocked down within their mainline reach, they rigged and hauled themselves by the cables to the next spar tree and started over. Rigging and moving was rough hard work.

Some of those old girls belched and hissed into the 50's, 60's and a few beyond. Steam engines were indestructible and never cantankerous. All they needed was a water supply, lots of wood and grease, pails and pails of it. Oh yes, and gland packing

Steam was replaced with gas and diesel for a while until the proliferation of heavy equipment and eventually, skidders on tracks or rubber, replaced donkeys. Skidders towed an arch which held the leading end of a bundle of felled trees off the ground and skidded them to the landing for transport.

Skidders, as did many pieces of equipment leading up to today's tree harvesters, eliminated jobs and started the demise of camps.

Donkeys, skidders, cats, fuel tanks, you name it, more often than not were written off and left behind, along with mountains of Old Style and CC bottles.

Over the years, many a plan was hatched in Vancouver, Nanaimo or Campbell River bars, for a tug and barge to go get the stuff; scrap was going to make them rich; the Caterpillar Gold Rush. They sank, literally or financially, every time.

Low key, active logging still takes place on Cortes but that whole area is one where there is often conflict between the loggers and locals.

Actually, skidder is a function not a definition of a type of machine. So the lower photo in your post could have been a skidder if it had be used that way. These same type of steam donkeys were also called loaders if they were used for that purpose and yarders if they were used to haul logs to a landing or cold deck.

Look up "logging skidder" and you'll see all manner of machine types illustrated from smaller donkey-type machines llke the one in your post to the gigantic tower skidders (below).

Skidders have been around for ages. My favorites are the massive tower skidders made by companies like Willamette and Lidgerwood in the 1920s. The tower could be raised to vertical to serve as a spar tree and some of the drums controlled the skylines and haulbacks to skid the logs to the landing while the lower boom and frame served as a loader to position the logs on the railcars or later, trucks. I'd have loved to see one in action.

Nice writing Hawg,

Just a few more details cause I'm picky about history....

Starting in the 1930's diesel yarders replaced the steam donkey, and there were still lots of those machines busy into the 1970's. By the 80's they had been replaced by steelspars and grapel-yarders, which are in prolific use today. There are still lots of places that aren't a plantation for the feller-buncher to cruise through......

Early Skagit yarder



Steel Spars in use today

These are fairly recent .. about 3 years ago.

Marin said:

Actually, skidder is a function not a definition of a type of machine.

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Well we are both right and into semantics now.
In actuality, donkeys were yarders or loaders with yes, various functions and methods.

Skidding was a (cable) function of sky line logging which was employed on steep rugged terrain with high cables and trolleys to get the trees/logs well up off the ground.

Cortes, where you found that thing in the bush; was one of the lowest shows on the coast and because the cuts would be small and terrain low, it is almost certain to have been a high lead operation, meaning no skidding lines. As an aside, some of my school mates probably set summertime chokers on that beast.

"Skidder" followed over to that particular piece of equipment I showed, because it did the same function as a skidding yarder (donkey).

Loaders, yarders, sky lines, high leads, highlines, lowlines, haulbacks. A frames, heel booms, MacLean booms, donkeys, skidders, grapples, cherry pickers. Like Cee Bee and Sea Bee; high hoe and excavator pup and pony, out drive and leg; all depends where and when we heard it and or used it.

I won't get into duelling links and look ups because anyone can get back up to anything with that. But...since most of our donkeys were built by you guys and barged up, I'll cede a bonus point for that.

Good discussion, Marin and while I was composing this I noticed Eric has jumped in and, knowing what a stickler he is, I have to go see if he's made a liar our of both of us.

Tad Roberts said:

Nice writing Hawg,
Just a few more details cause I'm picky about history....

Starting in the 1930's diesel yarders replaced the steam donkey, and there were still lots of those machines busy into the 1970's. By the 80's they had been replaced by steelspars and grapel-yarders, which are in prolific use today. There are still lots of places that aren't a plantation for the feller-buncher to cruise through......

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Thanks Tad.
Right on with your comments and good for your pickiness.
I missed the whole helicopter logging and feller-buncher chapters.

It certainly takes more than my slushy brain pan to pull it all together. So much history we have and such a shame it is just falling in the drink.

Eric spent a lot of time on POW Island where some of the more interesting shipping methods for today's Alaska logging industry were developed. When moving cordage to Asia packing the lumber and cuts has become quite an art, much of it developed in Thorne Bay.

A favorite pastime of mine for a day or two a year has become spending time in Chemainus where so much of the logging industry for construction purposes was perfected. And still practiced in the surrounding area.


Some trivia - A few years ago I did a bit of work with the Meadow Lake Tribal Council. They have several economically viable and modern commercial lumber operations in Saskatchewan as part of their First Nations corporation. This company is quite impressive and has taken a very forward thinking approach to resource development.

I'm lucky on BC's north coast because things have only been logged once and have reseeded naturally (See photo #1 below). This makes for a more natural looking landscape, and not a uniform sized monoculture like a tree planted area or one that's been logged for the third time.

What looks like virgin forest up here to the untrained eye has probably been logged in the past. The easiest way to tell is to look along ridge lines, or far up the slopes, where there are fully mature cedar snags and well spaced trees draped with long ribbons of old mans beard lichen (see photo #2) Walking in the forest reveals massive stumps with notches cut in them for springboards, which were planks fallers used to stand on to get them above the flaring base of the tree...important when falling with hand saws or axes.

Helped my brother on a logging show for a short time several decades ago. Very steep, with a saddle in the middle. My brother was running the tower and I was the chokerman. A choker fell off so the guy I was working with blew stop & slack off the lines on the Talky-Tooter. I scrambled down into the saddle where my brother couldn't see me, reset the choker, and as I was running back to the safe spot the guy I was working with blew the go ahead. A chunk was picked up and thrown at me, hit me square in the lower back, threw me uphill, and I woke up later in a heap under a bunch of logs in a world of pain.

Some time later...the paramedics decided a helicopter was the best bet for getting me off the hillside. You don't know pain until you're strapped to a backboard with a back injury and feeling every vibration of a helicopter. Something like icepicks applied by sledgehammer. I welcomed it, and while biting down on a piece of blanket actually asked for more because the pain meant I wasn't paralyzed.

Apologize for Marin-esque long windedness but all this logging talk sparked some pretty vivid memories.

MurrayM said:

Won't argue with you on your first point, but beg to differ on the last.

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By my earlier comments, I meant the Tsimshian and the Lukes get it. Many of us don't.

Also I am skeptical if there are enough Lukes and Tsimshian to turn things around. Oct 19 was a good start for them, I hope it works.

I also hope Marin doesn't mind you and I having our own little pot latch here.

MurrayM said:

Talky-Tooter.

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That's hilarious, I had forgotten that one.

What sets my latter parts afire is the nice tall, green curtain they leave in front of a lot of the cuts. Driving or boating by you don't see the moonscape.

Hawgwash said:

That's hilarious, I had forgotten that one.

What sets my latter parts afire is the nice tall, green curtain they leave in front of a lot of the cuts. Driving or boating by you don't see the moonscape.

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Sad, isn't it? They do that to keep the area from being "visually impaired"

What I do approve of though is the way clear cuts are smaller, are not squares or rectangles anymore, and how when they do green up again it does look somewhat 'natural'.

I worked as a compassman (in the bad old days) for a company that had an annual in office competition to see who could get the largest clear cut approved. Glad those days are gone.

Here's a photo of an old logged area in Coghlan Anchorage, near Hartley Bay. You can tell it's been logged because the trees higher on the slope are older, and the trees lower down are packed closer together and 'greener' than the older trees.

After reading the above, I will stop and check the both out. The old picture of the cannery w/ the lake above looks like a good hike, although I have to see it now. Thanks for sharing guys.

Murray,

The blood running from my mouth is from my biting the tongue.

Al-Ketchikan

In 1978 I spent four or five days riding in a log truck on the Olympic Penninsula with a driver from Forks who, I found out years later from a co-worker at Boeing who was also from Forks, was considered the best log truck driver on the peninsula. I rode back and forth with him from the side being logged deep in the mountains to the sort yard near Pt. Angeles. He taught me an amazing amount about logging in general and log truck driving in particular, even "teaching" me how to drive his truck to the point where I got to drive in the Forks 4th of July logging show in the log truck "roadeo." (No surprise, I came in dead last.)

One of the things he pointed out was wherever the logging companies clear-cut up to a public road like Highway 101 they always left a dense strip of trees between the road and the logged area. This was done under orders from the state to minimize complaints from tourists about the "wanton stripping of the land" by the lumber industry.

On the subject of donkey engines, loaders, skidders, yarders, etc., I've got about 25 feet of bookshelf in my office at home that is end-to-end books on the history of logging and logging railroads. One of my favorite books is a large format volume of photos by Darius Kinsey, one of if not the best photographer of the logging scene in the Pacific Northwest from 1890 to about 1940. He lugged his 8 x 10 view cameras and special tripods designed to elevate the cameras above the undergrowth deep into the woods to record every aspect of PNW logging.

Two of my favorite photos in this book are of crews moving donkey engines under their own power through the woods to new locations. One is steam powered, the other gasoline powered. It was a challenging way of life to say the least.

Al said:

Murray,

The blood running from my mouth is from my biting the tongue.

Al-Ketchikan

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It would be a shame to have this thread end up in the deep end, eh?

Hawgwash said:

Like Cee Bee and Sea Bee....all depends where and when we heard it and or used it.

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No, it depends on what's right. This Republic Aviation ad for their Seabee amphibious airplane should end the confusion over that particular issue.

Retriever said:

Lou Simoneau (not sure I have that spelling correct) was the caretaker for many years.

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Hi Sam...Profile: Lou Simoneau - Waggoner Cruising Guide

MurrayM said:

It would be a shame to have this thread end up in the deep end, eh?

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Here then...
https://quoddysrun.wordpress.com/2013/04/14/the-sound-of-running-water-butedale-cannery/
And two for you...

Well played Hawgwash, well played!!

Al-Ketchikan

Just like Retriever above, I spoke with the current owner of Butedale a couple months ago, 8/16. We were tied up at Shearwater on the way down from AK and the subject of Butedale came up in conversation, him saying that he owned it. I don't recall his name but he was in a 32' Blackfin, sort of a Bertram Moppie design. Anyway, it sounds like big plans are in the works to revive the place. I've often thought about tying up at Butedale but I've seen pictures of the docks.....not good, dangerous-looking actually. Cruise ships, ferries and other heavy traffic go by there with no protection for the docks, so it must be rolly as hell in there. Pity since there are few places to overnight in that part of Princess Royal Channel. We usually anchor close-by in Khutze inlet, which isn't the greatest either.