The
Forest Around Us |
Comment By Bill Moore |
Christmas
and the float camps |
....There was something about those old
float camps—especially near Christmas —that for those who
lived in them—will never be forgotten. Call it nostalgia—or
the memory of a rather different way of life—but it was a part
of the scene on the west coast of B.C. that deserves to be recorded
for those who remember. |
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ALBERT MOORE’S Camp in Winter Harbour, Vancouver Island, in
1939. From right to left, the owner’s house, office, cookhouse,
wash-house, number five to eight bunkhouses, and on the end is the blacksmith’s
shop and the camp tender boat. Bill, son of Albert, now lives in a more
luxurious surroundings at Winter Harbour having just completed his ultra-modern
house! |
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....Life was simple on the floats. No
luxuries in the bunkhouse—just a row of narrow bunks, a barrelwood
heater and the delectable odor of drying socks or Stanfields underwear.
Men wore their caulk boots into the Bunkhouse so the wood floors were
always slivery for the barefoot midnight wanderer. The toilets were
outside —two holers or three holers —and the draft was cold
in the winter. |
water as he missed his
footing when walking the log to shore on his way to work on a dark December
morning. It was a rough way to start the day. ....In the warm summer evening the logger could sit outside on the walks or float logs and talk or maybe fish for a perch or codfish. But the rains and the winds of the west coast generally kept them confined to their bunkhouses with cribbage board—a deck of cards—or just laying on their bunks. ....It was the habit of most men to go to the camps and put in a pretty long stay, maybe three to six months. The mono-tony was a bit relieved by the hard work and tiredness of the loggers after a day in the woods. As long as the cookhouse turned out good grub, and things weren’t too haywire in the woods, the loggers would stay. Grumble of course—but they’d stay. ....But there is a time of year that is remembered by those, like myself, that lived on the floathouses—it was the Christmas season. Most camps closed for at least a few weeks at Christmas. Depending on the weather, quite often |
46 | British Columbia Lumberman,
December, 1973 |
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about the 15th or 20th of December would be before leaving for town
—possibly Vancouver—would find an assortment of Lemon Hart
Rum, home-brew beer, and possibly even a little brew from back of the
cookhouse stove, all combined to bring high spirits to the town-headed
crew. A few months’ long frustrations might come to the minds
of some and a resultant fight or two develop. But generally the men
simply wanted to drown their sorrows of the long, weary and lonesome
months—and just “get the hell out of camp.” |
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British Columbia Lumberman, December, 1973 | 47 |