Out in minus forty

The sounds of strenuous exertion were getting louder as I shuffled along the darkened road. They were escaping from within a lit-up stage. The sporadic nature of the sounds affirmed the ebb and flow of the epic "event" that was staged within the conical light emitted from a single overhead streetlight. An “ice crystal” haze, that hung over the scene like a fog in still air, muffled the sounds. This illuminated haze defined the boundaries of our venue where we battled for supremacy of the neighbourhood.

It was “street” hockey night in Yellowknife, being played out in front of Jackie Weatherlee’s house on 48th Street, three quarters of a block south of 50th Ave. It could have been anywhere, as we were a group of wild “rambling” adventurers needing only an excuse. The participants came from all parts of the town except old town, where the likes of Steve England lived. He would have had to trudge up the hill with his stick. We also couldn’t claim supremacy over the players from Giant or Con where Billy Smith and Carl Husar lived respectively. Daryl MacLeod came from 46th Street and 50th Ave where he lived with his sister Hilda in the Signal Corp houses. Glenn Weatherby came from 52nd  Street and 49th Ave. where he lived with his older brothers Gary and Gord. Lynn Smith came from over that direction also. Jim Albers would run over from his house on the other side of Con Road, stopping first to slide down the small hill across from Bill Sylvester’s house on Con Road. His brother Doug and sister Joan usually slid there with other neighbourhood enthusiasts. The hill was also known as a good “king of the castle” hill. Len Demelt came running from the Giant Road area, sometimes dragging Mike along. I came shuffling from four houses down the street. “Ringers” and older “participants” often infiltrated our game, so we had to be quick to identify them, and enlist them on our side. We even got Dot Cinnamon to play sometimes. She would bring her sisters and girlfriends who would distract us from our play.

The snowy goal posts were hacked out of the snow-banks that were piled high on either side of the road, and the lumps were placed in the center of the street just within the streetlight’s limits. We had trained the local car drivers to miss the snow-blocks with threats of snowballs being flung at them.

The games would start right after school. Daylight had long since disappeared, thus the need for the streetlight was critical. It would continue until the last two players were called or “whistled” in for supper. We were all dressed in parkas, heavy mitts and felt-lined boots or Mukluks to fend off the -30 to -40 degree temperatures. Most wore toques, but ear-muffs were not uncommon, and of course, we used the hoods attached to our coats whenever the need for extra protection was necessary. No pads were required since our parkas accomplished a somewhat similar function. Besides, our game was more about puck possession and stick handling, than long passes and slap shots. When we got tired, the snow-banks provided an excellent “form-fitting” seat and/or bed where we would flop ourselves for a rest. We refereed ourselves as we all knew the local rules.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

Of course all this was the prelude for the weekly Saturday morning hockey games that were contested at the Gerry Murphy Arena. The skating and curling complex sat near the shore of Frame Lake, two blocks from the big wooden “Stanton” Yellowknife Hospital. The skating rink, ringed with it’s rickety wooden bleachers, was housed within an un-insulated, wood- frame shell of a building. The front end of the rink was glassed-in to allow the spectators to sit on the bleachers in heated comfort. The curling rink, with it’s four sheets of ice, had a similar arrangement but their viewing area sported “theatre like” seats, and had a “bar” to serve warmth and comfort to their patrons.

No heat in the playing areas meant the temperature inside was only a few degrees warmer than the temperature outside. That placed both players and spectators in freezer-like conditions, often -30 to –40, but without the wind. Hockey Officials have had hockey games cancelled when the inside temperature reached –40. The concern, of the Officials, was the players over exerting themselves and drawing in great amounts of cold air, thus damaging their lungs.

Practice time was necessary and we all went through the required drills, but it was the “game” time that was the most anticipated. Our coach, Mr. Lovell, had us playing well and we won more than we lost. I fashioned my game after Bobby Hull, the Golden Jet. I was even an “ace” on the team. My buddy, Steve England was playing on the same team as me. He was the one who got me started in organized hockey by giving me an old set of shin pads. I scraped around for the rest of the equipment; Dad came up with the shoulder pads. The Minor Hockey League supplied the uniforms. Sometimes, we even had little scrums or brawls after the games if we thought the game was too mild. Nothing serious and it was mostly wrestling.

Lots of fun, however, skating in those temperatures could and did have consequences. We had to pay particular attention not to lace-up our skates “too tight” and what our feet were “feeling” or “not feeling”. I have witnessed many episodes of my teammates, in excruciating pain, moan and sob as they held their frozen feet in their hands while trying to thaw them. The pain of thawing feet was akin to having red-hot pokers and sharp needles constantly pierce all of your toes, for periods lasting fifteen to thirty minutes. I know because it has happened to me more than once. I have stood in front of the washroom’s sinks with one leg hoisted high and my foot fully submerged in hot water, waiting for the pain to slowly subside, then switching position so my other foot could get the same relief. I may have moaned once or twice during those times.

It was fair to say that I thought of taking up another sport while enduring those painful times. Curling seemed to pop into my head, or should I say “feet”. You got to wear nice warm boots and the sport was co-ed. Jim Eis had acquired “ice time” for the school; he and other teachers were teaching us how to play during our extended Wednesday P.E. periods and on weekends.

The attraction of the sport was reinforced by the sounds of the shouted “hurry-hurry-hurry”, mixed with the rhythmic “wap-wap-wap” of the corn brooms striking the ice, as they reverberated throughout the “frost encased” building shell that housed the four sheets of ice. The sight of the players pushing out of the hacks and “holding” their slides, even after releasing the “rock”, required practice and dedication that would lead to consistency and winning. A team’s success was often judged by the number of admiring spectators that sat watching and analyzing their play. Or maybe it was the sight of so many blatant “behinds”. It was also fun to be on the sheet of ice dodging the chunks of hoar frost as they fell from the roof when the building’s inside temperature started to warm up in the Spring.

Then there was the irony of skiing in Yellowknife. We wore parkas with fur-lined hoods to keep the wind away from our faces while we walked around, heck, we even walked “backwards” into the wind to keep it from our faces. So “why” slap a pair of skis on our feet and speed down a hill to create a 25+ mile per hour wind to blow straight into our faces, at –30 to –40 degree temperatures. We didn’t use the term “wind-chill” factor in those days, but we were smart enough to know that it got colder “quicker” with a wind blowing in your face than just standing around or walking. It was normal, at the bottom of the run, to crouch over trying to thaw out our chin, nose and cheeks with our bare hands as they burned painfully from the instant dose of “frost-bite”, however, that only worked if our hands were not already frozen. Fun? Yes, enjoyable, but it still baffles me “why”. Maybe it was because the others did it too. Or, maybe, just maybe, it was like hockey and we liked playing outside.

Tom Cole, Alfred Abel, Steve E and I used to ski down Old Town hill starting out near Alfred’s house and passing behind Smokey Heal’s garage. Peter Frang and I skied on Yellowknife’s first ski-hill that ran out onto Jackfish Lake from its top near the west side of the gravel pit. Peter and I were cocky enough to ski down the vertical slope of the gravel pit. Short and steep. Damn near killed myself there.

Then came the cross-country skiing. It was a lot easier on my face, which really didn’t bother me as I had a face that only a mother could love. Peter and I often ventured out together. Kam Lake, Frame Lake, Back Bay to Giant, Giant to Yellowknife River bridge. All our trips were “day” trips with food and a small pot to boil water on a fire. Ptarmigans and rabbits had to beware because we were “packing”. The wind was never a huge factor as long as we kept the wind at our backs, but of course, we hoped that any wind would “die down” by the time we had to turn around and head for home. Or, find a road and hitch-hike back…….well, it’s got the word “hike” in it so it must be a sport.

 Then suddenly, as we strode on with our cross-country skis, a Ski-doo roars passed the dog sled team that was passing us ….. hummm, maybe there is “something” to these winter sports at minus forty…….better go check those machines out, they look like fun.

SILHOUETTES IN THE SNOW

Prologue

“ Ice Road Making”

 “Isn’t there anything else for supper”, I mumbled while looking back and forth from my plate to the cook and his stove. It was the fifth straight day of being presented with a steaming hot “TV Dinner” upon sitting down at the supper table.

“You can have the Salisbury Steak instead of what you have. By the way, what is it? Turkey?” the tall lanky “cook” replied preempting my protests. The four other men sitting around the makeshift table snickered at his response. They knew from last year’s experience what the menu looked like. Obviously I didn’t. I had been pampered while working in Mining camps and assumed the food here would be freshly cooked.

In retrospect, I should have known better since I had been into the storeroom, at the Robinson Trucking office in Yellowknife, to pick out my selection of “lunches” and “snacks” from the shelves stacked with non-perishable food and drink. We would take the cookies, crackers, cheeses, Spam, milk and juices with us in our vehicles. The stash of “dry” goods was now in the grader’s cab where it was kept warm. The milk and juice was lashed in a small container on the outside of the grader and was brought into the warmth of the cab when needed.

“How about the Salisbury after this Turkey”, I retorted.

“OK”, said John Denison with a smile knowing that I had come to the realization that this was the best it was going to get.

“The best it was going to get” included a eight foot by twenty foot “hut”. It was mounted on a sled equipped with four skis to glide it across ice and snow while being pulled behind a motorized vehicle. This was “Home Sweet Home” for the next month as we wound our way northward from Fort Byers. We were “opening” a winter “ice road” over frozen lakes and portages to our ultimate destinations of Echo Bay Mines on the east shore of Great Bear Lake, and Terra Mines on the Camsell River, just south of North America’s third largest inland lake. The hut contained three sets of bunk beds strapped to the walls and numerous storage bins. Two elongated bins became our seats when a makeshift table was set up between them. Our source of heat was a brown oil furnace bolted to the floor between our sleeping and living room. Additional storage bins were built on the outside of the hut. These bins held an over abundance of John’s infamous frozen TV Dinners. They didn’t thaw out as the average outside air temperature in January was minus thirty degrees. Our milk and juices were also stored outside. These had to be brought inside and thawed out at least four hours before supper.

Our “cook”, John Denison, was also the main “Push” on the Ice Road to Echo Bay. Dick Robinson, owner of Robinson Trucking, was using him as the expert to get the road built. The road extended from Fort Byers, situated at Ray/Edzo on the MacKenzie Highway west of Yellowknife, to the silver mines on Great Bear Lake. John had pioneered the road with Byers Transport in the years prior to Robinson taking over.

“Coffee”, John asked, poised to pour the hot liquid into my mug.

“Please”, I said knowing that to get the water for the coffee John had to drill a hole through twenty to thirty inches of ice with a hand auger. The easy part of it was he didn’t have to transport the water far as we were sitting on a lake one hundred yards off-shore and all he had to do was step outside and drill.

After supper we would sit and discuss the day’s events. We were still sorting out minor problems with our equipment and trying different things to best utilize what we had to work with. Nick Jones was explaining to John that the Skidder was useless pulling a “drag” in the deep snow. It just sat there “chattering” in the snow as its big tires dug themselves down to ground and jerked the machine forward.

It was the same Skidder that I was following two days earlier on the Rayrock Road portage. I was operating the orange coloured Champion Grader with a big V-plough mounted on front. As I was not ploughing snow off the road I had the plough in the “up” position, thus restricting my close-in view of the road. The ice on a small creek that we were crossing could not support the pounding of our equipment and as a consequence the Skidder, with its big tires, dropped one wheel through the ice creating a deep pothole. “Bang” down went my front left wheel into the pothole. The grader lurched upwards out of the pothole propelled by it’s forward momentum, then all the weight of the front end of the grader and the V-plough came crashing down. All I could do was look on as I saw the left wheel flop over at a weird angle. The downward force of the plough, the grader’s forward speed, and the bitterly cold temperature that causes metal to go brittle, all contributed to the solid frame of the grader’s axle mount being snapped completely through. There I sat completely immobile with no garage for a hundred miles.

After discussing the situation with John, Gord Weatherby and I headed back down the road in John’s red Ford four by four. We turned east at the junction to Strutt Lake where Northern Canada Power Corp had a construction camp. We were hoping to borrow a welding machine. As it turned out, we could borrow the machine but there was no “Welder” available. Gordie had to phone Dick Robinson in Yellowknife to arrange for a Welder to be flown out to a nearby lake the next day.

Everything gelled the next day. We used the Ford to transport the necessary equipment back to the disabled grader. We had the grader propped up with jacks by the time Gordie returned from the lake with our Welder. Dick must have dragged him out of the “Strange Range” a.k.a. the Gold Range Hotel bar because he was still half drunk and without any winter parka or mitts. I don’t know how he did it but he was lying on the snowy road for two hours in minus forty degree temperature welding and chipping away at the broken axle mount. He had ripped a cardboard box apart and was using it to lie on. The rest of us were sitting in the warm cab of the Ford truck watching him. To this day, I can only say, “it must have been the alcohol in his blood that kept him from freezing solid”. I have yet to test the theory that a layer of cardboard could insulate me from a frozen road covered with ice and snow.

The day’s events discussed and resolved, the crew settled into their nightly routine. There was no TV or radio, therefore, we sat around the hut playing cards, reading or just plain talking. Later on in our journey, realizing there was nothing to do, we just kept on working after supper (or had a late supper).

We joked about the first lake we crossed – shallow Marian Lake, where we ploughed our road passed Dave Lorenzen and his crew who were trying to extricate a front-end loader from the ice using his A-frame truck. The loader sank up to the base of its cab as the operator attempted to plough an ice road into the local NCPC camp at Snare River. We suspected that the operator was traveling too fast and the loader, being unstable at higher speeds, began to bounce putting undo pressure on the bad ice of Marian Lake. We also joked about other parts of Marian Lake, where my pounding heart would be in my throat when the grader would suddenly break through “overflow” ice and drop 12 to 18 inches down onto more solid ice underneath. Nick, who was scouting ahead of me in the Bombardier, would help get the build-up of ice and snow off the big V-plough in front of the grader after these little “breakthrough” episodes. We figure that the lake froze over quicker than the creeks and rivers, thus water flowed on top of this ice before itself freezing subsequently forming two layers.

We had lots to talk about when the topic switched to the old Rayrock Mine road. Everyone seemed to have stories about this stretch of portage. It went from the abandoned Uranium mine, past the Strutt Lake turn-off for the Snare River dam, and on down to the north end of Marian Lake. The road was built using crushed waste rock from the mine. It was narrow and had a roadbed raised ten feet above the surrounding muskeg. When we came along, we made a “hardtop” of ice and snow on top of it, therefore, “Equipment” of all sorts would slide off its surface if the operators were not careful, or traveled too fast around its corners. One driver, traveling too fast with a full trailer load, missed a turn and made his own road into the “Tullies”. He was so far in, you had to pack a lunch to go visit him. The funny thing was - he drove taxicab in Yellowknife. He never got me as a passenger after that.

We speculated about the current at the Snare River where the concrete abutments of an old bridge sat in testimony to an earlier time of the road. I would tense up every time I had to cross the river at this spot since our ice road ran parallel to the foundations and I figured that whenever the banks of any river narrowed, the current ran quicker, thus “undermining” the ice.

We conjoured up tales about the “old” Rayrock Mine. We could still see the old bunkhouses, the mill and other buildings perched on the hillside in the distance from where we camped for a night. Numerous company houses were transported from Rayrock after it shut down and used to house people in Yellowknife and elsewhere. “What did they do for entertainment?” I wondered, “Did they glow in the dark?”.

“I’m heading outside to the four by four”, I said at the end of our discussions. I slipped my parka over my shoulders and headed for the privacy of our constantly running equipment. I spent “many a night” lying on the front bench seat of the Ford 4 by 4 truck with my head out the window. My typical evening entertainment was looking skyward at the stars and shimmering northern lights while listening to music fade in and out on the truck’s radio. It was tuned into Edmonton’s CHED radio station, although I could clearly hear an Oklahoma City station on many nights.

Winter ice road, in January, in the sub-Arctic of the North West Territories was cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey………so having said that,  “Home Sweet Home” did not have any modern toilet facilities. One had to be sure when you needed to “go”. More specifically, the facilities were open aired, minus forty degrees, twinkling stars for a light, an “optional” snow-bank for a seat and “no” place to hang the roll of toilet paper. No contemplating life, reading a magazine or sitting around out there. Disposal was normally “out of sight, out of mind”, which meant a powdering of snow pushed over the “business” by a couple of sideway kicks of your boot. Needless to say, baths and showers were non-existent. This was all part of the job and one got used to it.

John Denison was having difficulty with his stomach by the time we got to Faber Lake. He was consuming Pepto Bismol by the gallon while chewing constantly on Rolaids and Tums. He could not stand it any longer and finally headed back to Yellowknife in the red Ford four by four to get medical help and recuperate. Gord took over as the main “Push”. I’m glad he went back for medical attention but it “pissed me off” that he took my nightly entertainment

We motored on. The long Rayrock Mine road portage was behind us, we wound our way over Tumi, Rabbit, Hislop Lakes with their flat portages.

Squirrel Lake portage was different; it was gaining a reputation of putting many so called “hot shot” drivers in their place. The mile long portage, traversing a hill, was narrow and somewhat steep. Numerous tractor-trailers would “spin out” on the snow and ice of the hill after the operators, realizing they didn’t have enough RPM/speed to reach the top, shifted down into a lower gear. They would lose traction and spin out. They would then “jack-knife” or back the trailer into the ditch when trying to back down the hill, consequently blocking the road for all other trucks in the convoy. Nothing moved until the narrow road was cleared.

On one trip I had to unhook my loaded trailer and take my tractor up the hill to hook onto a jack-knifed tractor-trailer and pull it around onto the road again. Another time, we had to off-load a D-8 Cat, that we were transporting on a lowboy trailer to Echo Bay Mine, and “walk” it up the hill to pull another truck from the ditch and on up to the top.

To fully understand ice road portages, they depended on “lots” of snow being compacted onto their surface. The snow, when frozen, acted like concrete, but more importantly, it insulated the muskeg from the sun when the weather got warmer. Therefore, more snow and/or ice on the portage, the longer they lasted in the Spring for more trips.

 “Why didn’t you use chains?” you ask. Robinson Trucking didn’t have any on their trucks. They would “chew up” the road and shorten its useful life. Again the sun would melt off the cap quicker when dark ground was showing through.

Mazenod, Sarah and Faber Lakes were nice sized lakes to plough. I could quickly make three passes on them before moving up the road. I would have all the blades down. The V-plough doing the widening, the belly blade skimming the snow close to the ice and the wing blade shearing the top of the newly created bank and throwing the snow away from the edge. I would try to give the road a profile that looked like a saucer. The idea was to not to give the drifting snow any nook or cranny to “fill in”. The Skidder, Beaver and FUD would be working away on the portages packing down the snow with the steel “drags” they pulled behind them.

We camped out on Rae Lakes just a mile from the Dene village. “We have to pack down the air-strip here. NWT Health want the strip available for Medi-Vac flights”, Gord said.

So off we went, rumbling our way through the village’s “main” street, past the wide eyed little children who came running when they heard us. We used four vehicles, each pulling a “drag”, to complete the job in one morning. Nick Jones in the Skidder, Dave Thompson in the box shaped “Beaver”, Ben Hunter in the FUD and myself in the Grader. We were closely supervised by a small group of on-lookers sitting on a snow bank at the edge of the strip.

Having decided to stay camped there for another night, I took some time to go scouting with an old Dene hunter. We scooted up and down the road in the Bombardier looking for caribou. I was hoping to spot some since the hunter was going to give me a “hind quarter”. I had the perfect freezer. We saw a few tracks crossing the road that afternoon but no “live ones”.

However I did see the front end of a snow shovel and learned a lesson about bombardiers. They act the same way as Ski-Doo in deep snow; they ”can” and “do” get stuck. It took me slightly less than an hour to dig myself out after trying to get through a small gully separating a couple of sloughs. The snow was deep. I was glad it was sunny and only minus thirty.

We worked our way northward, over Taka, Sequin, Hardisty, Malfait Lakes where we began to intersect hard packed snow trails created by “thousands” of Caribou migrating to their feeding grounds north-east of Great Slave Lake. They were everywhere. The Dene from Rae Lakes and the farther away Fort Franklin (Deline), on the west shore of Great Bear Lake, depended on this herd for their yearly meat supply. It would not be long before we would be seeing heaps and heaps of skinned and quartered caribou carcasses, stacked beside the ice road, waiting to be picked up by passing trucks and transported to Rae Lakes.

Across Beaver Lodge Lake where you could still see the remains of a Bristol Freighter aircraft operated by Pacific Western Airlines. The left-hand undercarriage broke through the ice on landing and the aircraft fell onto the left wing bending its spars and damaging the fuselage. The plane was later hauled onto shore to retrieve the engines and strip out the instruments; then abandoned as it had been written off the books by the company.

Onto Stairs Bay and then Hottah Lake. Hottah is a forty mile long lake that widens out to twenty miles in places. It was tedious when I had to make long “back and forth” passes with the grader. We parked “Home” on the north end of the lake after I made my first pass. I turned around after lunch and ploughed back down to the south end in the diminishing daylight. I knew that it was going to be a “long” day with lots of ploughing in the dark. There was three to four hours of daylight between sunrise and sunset at this “arctic circle” latitude in January, however the twilight periods extended the light a little longer.

Hottah, being a larger lake, could develop cracks and small pressure ridges along its length. I had to be on the “look-out” for these anomalies as I made my widening passes down and back the lake. On the run up the lake, the bombardier was ahead of me scouting out the route and avoiding “bad” ice; I followed along ploughing the initial road while pulling an 800 gallon fuel tanker. Cracks might not be seen at this time but on subsequent runs, when I was operating alone, the cracks “could” show up when the ice was exposed from my ploughing. I ran with the grader door open and the heater on “high” during the times the wind blew the snow away from the door. I guess I believed that I could jump out and “save” myself if the grader went through the ice. “Better to slowly freeze on top of the ice than freeze instantly underneath” I thought.

The return trip took me over six hours to complete, mostly in the dark and cold. The lights on the grader shone on the road ahead while illuminating the fine mist of snow crystals blowing over the top of the big V-plough. I could see flying snow disappear into the darkness behind me as it was shaved from the bank with the wing blade. Passing Bell Island I could see the lights of “home” twinkling in the dark a mere thirty miles away. It seemed like hours before I rolled to a stop beside the other equipment scattered around the sleeping quarters called home.

I had to refuel the grader before retiring. While doing so, I noticed that the copper antenna of the HF Radio was strung out. I looked at the sky and saw that the Northern Lights were absent so I mumbled, “Should be a good night for radio contact with Robinson’s base in Yellowknife”. We had been without radio contact for three days because of the “lights”; they caused major interference with the radio signals.

“McAvoy is flying in tomorrow with Mercredi and Soldat”, said Gord, “You and I have been here for three weeks so we can get “out for a break” but, I need you to come back here three days from now. Hopefully the crew will get to Echo Bay by then and I will fly you in there”.

Gord had obviously got through on the radio. Jim McAvoy and his Cessna 185 had been chartered to bring us the personnel, equipment “parts” and supplies we had requested earlier. It was going to be nice to get back to Yellowknife and get a hot bath and a shave having been without for a long time.

I think Gord was happy to get out and be flying again. “Overseeing” the road from the air, as the tractor-trailers began their trips hauling supplies into the mines, was refreshing after twenty plus days crammed in a shack.

The plane landed on Fishtrap Lake where we were working on the portage. We had put our personal stuff in the bombardier first thing in the morning, so all we had to do was to collect everyone involved and go to the plane. Everything transferred and instructions given, McAvoy took off with Gord in the front seat beside him and me in the back. The bombardier was leaving the scene as we took off. Gord noticed something on the ground and leaned over and said something to Jim. The next five minutes were akin to the wildest roller coaster ride I have ever been on. Jim literally dive-bombed the bombardier four times trying to get the occupants attention. We would pull up at the end of the dive into a steep climb then nose over while we were almost weightless into another dive which ended with our stomachs in our feet. Attention gained, Jim opened his side window and made motions to the ground then watched as the bombardier turned around and went back to pick up the package.

I had an enjoyable rest in Yellowknife as the rest of the crew continued to plough and pack the ice road. They got past Fishtrap Lake onto Yen Lake before they managed to burn “home” to the ground. Not being there, I leave it to others to explain what happened. Nothing was left of the structure except for the charred deck of the sled with its four big skis. I lost a sleeping bag and pair of cover-alls while the others lost the same plus their personal kit. I have yet to talk to anyone who was sorry to see that shack burn. It belonged to another era when cat-trains were pulled across Great Slave Lake to Yellowknife from Hay River.

Being without a place to sleep and having only the food in the “snack boxes” carried in their cabs, the crew split into two groups. One headed for Echo Bay while the other branched off and made the push over to Terra Mines.

Nick Jones, Dave Thompson and two others with the Skidder, Beaver, D-6 and low-boy ploughed their way from Yen Lake over a series of small sloughs and lakes eastward to Terra Mines. They took the time to pack down the snow on the numerous new portages with their “drags” as they moved along.

Johnny, operating the grader, followed Louie in the bombardier as they headed down the newly made Yen Lake portage onto Conjour Bay. They made the long run snaking around the islands on Conjour Bay and then through the narrows at the north end of Richardson Island. After poking out onto Great Bear Lake, they made their final long run northward paralleling the shores of McTavish Arm into Labine Bay where Port Radium and Echo Bay Mines were located.

They reached the end of an ice road that covered a distance of more than 320 miles through Canada’s sub-arctic land of stubby trees, muskeg and Precambrian rock. It had taken us close to a month to complete the road in temperatures that consistently reached minus forty degrees. We had equipment breakdowns that delayed us; we had to improvise to make machines workable; we had to pull and tug equipment here and there; we left equipment behind; we overcame all problems presented to us and got the job done.

I flew back to the ice road at Echo Bay Mines with Gord the next day…………..  

PICTURES (Clockwise from top left)

1) Home sweet home after fire

2) Home sweet home on sled - Dave Thompson (L), John Denison (R) and Louie MacKenzie 

3) Brian McLeod

4) Bombardier, Grader and Brian McLeod

5) Dick Robinson, D-8 Cat at Squirrel Hill

Your Flight Has Been Delayed

( Epilogue of under TERRA firma )

Terra Mines was behind me, both figuratively and literally. I was on board a single engine DeHaviland “Otter” flying south from the mining camp. The flight from the silver producing mine, located on the Camsell River just south of Great Bear Lake, to our destination of Yellowknife, N.W.T. was scheduled for approximately three hours. Our flight path would take us over the sub-Arctic taiga with it’s thousands of lakes and sloughs.

The past month had been “awkward” around Terra. The company was having financial difficulties that led to shortages of equipment, material and supplies; essential production equipment was not being replaced or repaired. As not to belabour the company’s problems, it is suffice to say that my decision to “leave” my job was reinforced when the Sheriff from Yellowknife arrived via floatplane and slapped a bailiff’s “Seizure” notice on the big scoop-tram that was being used to haul ore from “underground” to the “crusher” housed on a small rise above the mill.

We had taken off amidst a snow and rain squall on a grey, dull day in mid October; the thermometer was hovering right at the freezing point. The plane lumbered into the air after an unusually long take-off. I watched the pilot from my seat in the passenger compartment. He was busy adjusting the flaps and trim while occasionally re-setting the throttle.

I settled into my seat as we reached cruising altitude. I was hoping to get a little “shut-eye” before we landed. Touch down at the Wardair float-base in Old Town was in less than three hours now. Besides, a little snooze was appropriate as I anticipated an evening of carousing and debauchery since Terra was a “dry-camp” and had no women employed there. I had endured it there for more than four and a half months. The pilot was still fiddling with the controls as I shut my eyes.

I don’t know how long I had been dozing when I became aware of a change in the engine’s RPM. I opened my eyes and looked out the window. The ground, only a thousand feet below us, had recently received a light dusting of snow. It coated the rocks and trees thus giving the “higher” ground a frigid look. I turned my attention past the forward bulkhead opening into the cockpit and saw the pilot looking intently at his controls then out his windows searching for something. I glanced around giving a questioning look to the other four passengers and they just shrugged their shoulders in return. I looked at my watch and saw that it was 11:30 am. We were an hour into our flight, which by my calculations would have put us 120 to 150 miles south of Great Bear Lake.

Although the pilot was circumventing most of the bad weather, the plane was still flying through squalls of freezing rain; this was causing the plane to act “heavy” on the controls. I saw concern on his face as he increased the engine’s RPM to climb the aircraft while fiddling with the radio and speaking into the microphone. He seemed to be repeating himself; maybe trying to reach “base” radio in Yellowknife. We flew on.

The pilot put down the map he had been scrutinizing and with a deliberate movement banked the “Otter” and came around on a reciprocal course.

“I have to put the plane down”, the pilot shouted as he leaned through the doorway and spoke to the passengers, “there is a lake four miles back that looks OK for landing”.

We “all” had our faces up against the side windows by this time searching for the “OK” lake. We realized which one when the pilot circled a long narrow lake with what looked like a small beach at the south end. The lake was large enough and seemed “deep” as it was not yet frozen over; unlike numerous smaller ones that had a sheen of “inch thick” ice covering. We were reassured by the sight of small waves on it’s surface which acted like a wind gauge for the pilot.

After flying past the beach at the end of the lake the pilot banked the plane onto the “base leg”. He initiated his landing procedure by reducing the plane’s speed and applying flap. He then judged the angle to the end of the lake and banked the plane onto it’s “final approach” to the lake. He reduced his power and applied full flaps thus allowing the plane to glide down over the short stubby trees and muskeg, past the beach and finally over the water where he flared the aircraft into a perfect landing.

Swinging the plane around the pilot taxied in towards the shore. He was unsure of the water’s depth and what may lurk just below the surface so he cut the engine when we were still fifty yards from shore. He unbuckled himself from his seat and hurried past us to the rear of the plane where he dug out a paddle from a stowage compartment, opened the rear cargo door and stepped out onto the pontoon. I followed close behind to see if I could help in any way.

The wind was slowly pushing us towards the beach aiding the pilot as he used the paddle to steer us clear of any underwater obstacles. It was a relief to see that the beach was primarily small pebbles with sandy spots. The floats ground onto the beach fifteen feet short of the shoreline. It was “shoes off” time for anyone who wanted to go ashore.

The pilot climbed back into the plane and asked for our attention, even though he already had it for the last twenty minutes.

He explained that he had to get the plane on the “ground” quickly because we had been picking up “ice” and the plane was not handling properly; in essence it was forcing us down. He hoped that it was warmer down at ground level and that the ice would melt. He continued by saying he had a gallon of menthol hydrate on board that he would wipe over the wings and tail sections, but first he had to scrape and chip the ice off the floats. They were covered with a layer of ice that was weighing us down.

One of the passenger asked if we were going to spend the night here.

He answered that was a possibility and we needed to talk about. There was a “storm front” between us and Yellowknife and he wanted to make sure we are light enough to fly through the weather if we decided to go…..or, we could sit here and wait it out.

Another passenger pointed out that we were not equipped to overnight it here. The pilot said that he did have a small emergency kit with two sleeping bags, tarpaulin and a few C-rations.

It began to snow lightly at this time. We saw that it was just a squall that would pass quickly but it focused us on our little “predicament” of sitting on the shore of a small remote lake hundreds of miles from any settlement. The consensus of the passengers was to get the ice off the plane and get flying. The pilot, who’s name we learned was Frank, cautioned us that the storm front was still between us and home. However he was eager to get going also, since, even though he tried to contact his base while we were in the air, he had been unsuccessful in notifying his company of our unscheduled landing. If we didn’t show up in Yellowknife on or near our appointed time people would be getting concerned.

So, Frank’s plan was to sit “on the beach” for a few hours waiting for the storm to pass then make a dash for it. None of us wanted to be the focus of a “search and rescue” and Frank wanted to get close enough and high enough to make radio contact with his company to let them know what the situation was.

It was getting too cold in the plane so we decided to get a fire going on shore. I was wearing running shoes so I took them off, rolled up my pants and stepped through the cold, shallow water to the shore. The snow squall had past. The snow that made it to the ground melted immediately however it was sticking higher up in the hills.

We got the fire going the old fashioned “northern” way; paper from an old paperback novel, a pint of AV gas drained from the plane and a Zippo lighter. There was lots of dead wood lying around the area so we dragged enough to the fire where we looked around for the axe to cut it up. We spotted the axe in the hands of the pilot who was standing on one of the pontoons using the “blunt” side of the axe head to chip away at the layer of ice coating the pontoons. We all gawked at him and prayed he didn’t slip and fall, or worse still, punch a hole in the floats.

           The fire was large enough for six people to sit around comfortably. It was warm and near “smokeless” as we didn’t have to keep the black-flies and mosquitoes away. It was too cold for them this time of year. We sat there staying warm and keeping one eye on the sky; there was a light breeze blowing in misty drizzle for brief spells.

           The conversation, for obvious reasons, inevitably got around to the stories of missing aircraft and crashes. We speculated on Chuck McAvoy’s fate after disappearing on June 9, 1964 during a flight from Bristol Lake, near the Arctic Ocean, in his Fairchild 82. Did he and his passengers, Doug Thorpe and A. Kune, get blown up by the dynamite they were reputably carrying onboard? They were prospecting terrain south of Bathurst Inlet. Did he disappear to collect the insurance? Even though he hadn’t been found for these past several years the general consensus around the fire was that “they will find him someday”.

            We speculated on Martin Hartwell’s odyssey. He was found alive with two broken legs after surviving 31 days in temperatures reaching –37 degrees Celsius. A pregnant Inuk woman and the attending government nurse, named Judy Hill, were killed instantly when the plane Hartwell was piloting crashed near Lake Hotah enroute from Cambridge Bay to Yellowknife on Nov. 8,1972. An Inuk boy suffering from appendicitis, David Kootook, survived the crash and helped Hartwell survive but finally succumbed to his illness the day before rescue. We sat around the fire and quietly discussed the “what if” scenarios associated with the rumours of cannibalism. What if…..it was you?

            We could tell it was getting a little warmer as we were getting short rain squalls now, however the sky to the south did not look promising; it was still “socked” in. Two guys rigged the framework for a simple lean-to from our ample supply of dead trees. They draped the tarp over it and voila’, a wind-break and partial shelter to dry our damp clothes. 

            We stoked the fire and changed our conversation to the air search for Henry Busse and two others, Gunther Geortz and Vic Hudon, from Giant Mines. Busse, who had a photography business in Yellowknife, chartered Ken Stockhall’s Cessna 185 for a charter into the Nahanni Valley but didn’t return. That search lasted for two months but was unsuccessful. The plane was finally discovered in June 1963 in a valley near Cli Lake, over eight months later. Did they fly into a box canyon in bad weather and hit the steep walls while trying to turn? I can still see the time-lapse photograph of the midnight sun(s) over Great Bear Lake that Henry took. It showed 12 sun(s) dipping close to the horizon thus showing its trajectory in a 12 hour period.

            The talk turned to Bob Gauchie. A frost-bitten Gauchie was found on April 1,1967 standing beside his aircraft. He lost his way in a storm, ran out of gas and was forced to land his Norseman, way off course, on the ice of a lake east of Great Bear Lake. His flight-plan had him going from Cambridge Bay to Yellowknife. He survived for 58 days, in arctic winter temperatures of “up to” minus 48 degrees, by eating his “cargo” of Arctic Char. The official search had been called off by the Military however many local pilots kept an “eye” out for him on their travels. Luckily, Ron Sheardowne and Glen Stevens had been flying a regular route to a base camp 45 miles south-west of Coppermine for 5 weeks. They may have been a little off-course themselves one day when they spotted Gauchie and his plane.  Gauchie lost 70 pounds from his ordeal.

            Others were not found. The wreckage of the plane or bodies of Frank Avery and Bob Markle were never found. They were on a local flight around Yellowknife and did not return. It is speculated that the plane went through the ice and is sitting wrecked on the bottom of some nameless lake. Mike DeMelt was never found. It is believed that he also crashed through the ice.

            Some of us around the fire related how we were involved in these searches. The Air Force would fly their “Buffaloes” and “Hercs” into Yellowknife and “call” for volunteers to act as “spotters”. We would scrutinize the ground as the planes flew the pre-planned search grid. Local “bush” airways volunteered their time and effort for one of their own. I always dreamed of finding them.

            Many other pilots have gone “missing” in the North over the years. They are part of the legend of the “bush" pilot created by their exploits while helping to develop northern Canada. Most of us around the fire were too young to talk about those exploits but we had all read and dreamed about them.

            It was mid afternoon and our stomachs were telling us that we needed to be fed. We scoured the supplies to found the C-rations. Frank had also requested we go through our baggage and take out anything that we could “do without”. I took out my miner’s boots, oilers, hard-hat and an assortment of work clothes. All told, we came up with a small stack of items that were going to become a permanent fixture on the landscape. We estimated the stack weighed in at two hundred pounds. Better than leaving a warm body behind. Besides, Frank said the company would compensate us for our loss.

            The weather seemed to be improving to the south even though we continued to see rain squalls in the distance. Frank was of the opinion that the “ceiling” was at 1500 feet and “lifting” and the sky was starting to look better, however,  “it’s only 2:30 so let’s wait for another one or two hours before we try again”. If we waited as late as 5:00 pm we could still get to Yellowknife by 7:00.

            We sat around the fire again. This time we talked about everything under the northern sun. Small talk. I reminisced about the time, as a youngster, going with Chuck McAvoy as he flew an amphibian Grumman “Goose” from his base in Old Town over to the YK airport where he was to drain water from the plane’s belly. The short flight was memorable since I sat in the co-pilot’s seat as the lake water streamed over the windshield obliterating our view until the plane gained enough speed to get on “step”. The other memorable part was that we were pointed toward shore and in my mind the “distance to the shore” wasn’t that far away. The others related their experiences but you could feel the apprehension in the group as we wanted to “get going” but knowing it was better to wait awhile longer.

             It was 4:30 and it hadn’t rained for over an hour. We finally disassembled the lean-to and buried our trash. We loaded our bags and ourselves onto the plane. I and another passenger volunteered to push the plane off the beach and keep us facing the wind. The water was freezing; kind of like swimming in Yellowknife Bay in front of Giant Mines before all the ice melted from the bay.

            The floats were just clear of the bottom as the pilot cranked over the big Pratt & Whitney engine with a whir of the battery. The radial engine caught with a loud deep throated roar and a puff of black smoke from its exhaust pipes. We gave a final push and hopped on the pontoon. My partner headed straight in through the door while I used the paddle to keep us off the bottom. I looked at the cockpit to see Frank lean out the door and give me the “nod” to get aboard. I had just shut the rear cargo door when I heard the engine noise increase knowing that we were taxiing away from the beach. I regained my original seat in time for Frank to hurry past me to double check the cargo door. He was back in the cockpit in less than twenty seconds.

            We were airborne in less than a minute after a short warm-up. Frank banked the Otter into a climbing turn to the south and leveled off just under the base of the menacing clouds. The rain squalls could still be seen in the distance, but more importantly, the base of the solid mass of grey clouds was getting pretty close to the top of some of the higher hills in our flight path. We crossed our fingers hoping the clouds did not close ”in”, and the pilot could find a route under the clouds. I could see him talking on the plane’s radio.

            He finally poked his head and yelled over the sound of the engine that he had been in contact with his Base. The weather was not that good but there was still room to fly. The cloud ceiling at Yellowknife airport was 1100 feet above ground level, not the best for VFR flying. He went on to say the ceiling was ”lifting” in the Gordon Lake area; meaning that it was clearing up to the northeast and if we had to, we could swing eastward before heading south to Yellowknife. At least we had choices as long as we had enough fuel.

            The cargo area of the plane once again became nice and warm. We were able to discard our wet and damp outer clothes and relax in our seats. I was too hyped up to take a snooze so I watched the ground below us to see if I could spot any landmarks that I could get my bearings.

             I knew that we had to pass near the old Rayrock Mine with it’s derelict buildings and mine roads. One road and power-line wound their way over to the “powerhouse” on the Snare River. This powerhouse also supplied Yellowknife with most of it’s power so the “right of way” shouldn’t be too hard to spot from the air. If our track was farther east I might be able to see the old North Inca Gold Mine on Indin Lake.

I could see a solid mass of clouds directly ahead of us however it seemed better to the east as Frank had said. He was slowly changing his bearing to a spot where the base of the clouds was the highest from the ground. We flew on.

            I finally spotted something man-made. It took me a few moments to realize where we were. It was the Bluefish Dam and Powerhouse on the north end of Prosperous Lake. This was where Con Mines got their power. We had flown north of Yellowknife to circumvent the bad weather. I felt the plane bank southward from the Dam and knew we would be flying over the lake itself, then Yellowknife River, then Yellowknife Bay past the distinctive head-frame of Giant Yellowknife Gold Mines and finally into Back Bay where the Floatplane base of Wardair was located.

            We landed at 6:30 pm, 5 hours behind schedule but in time for the beers.

              Nothing is for sure in the North. Although insignificant, this little incident made me aware that things could have been quite different. What if the ice seized the plane’s controls, what if we punctured a pontoon when we landed, what if we had to overnight, what if………

North Warning

(Once in a lifetime 1987 –1994)

I have a haunting photograph of the radar site called PIN-M. The picture shows a huge radar radome and various communications antenna arrays clustered around a white and gray clad building. They are being highlighted against a dark winter’s night sky by strategically located floodlights. The building houses the radar rooms, equipment rooms, offices, sleeping and living quarters for the military and civilia