McLeod Trail

Sun, 25 Feb 2007 17:27:43 GMT

McLeod Trail

The sound of frying pans banging on the stove woke me. I rolled onto my side and listened to the other sounds around me as I caught the faint whiff of freshly brewed coffee. Three men stirred and woke up to the same kitchen noises that drifted into our sleeping quarters. We were sleeping in a large room at one end of an “Atco” trailer. The kitchen, with the noise, was down the hallway in the middle of the trailer. The far end of the trailer contained two more bedrooms.

The trailer, measuring 10 foot wide by 50 foot long, was secured onto the deck of a “hi-boy” trailer that was parked on a small frozen lake just south of Hottah Lake. The lake was on the route of a winter ice road that wound it’s way over frozen lakes and portages to Echo Bay Mines located on the north-east shore of Great Bear Lake in the North West Territories of Canada.

I flung back the top half of the sleeping bag and swung my feet over the edge of the bunk bed. The other bunk bed was across the room so it was easy to see that the two men were still in their sleeping bags; that meant at least one of the two bathrooms just down the hallway was vacant. I jumped down from the top bunk, grabbed my clothes, shaving kit and headed for the bathroom. There was hot water - thanks to Hughie. He had filled the in-door “holding” tank last night with water from the lake; after having augered a hole through the thick ice directly beneath us and pumped it into the indoor tank.

I emerged refreshed, clothed and ready to eat. I walked into the kitchen where three men sat patiently at the table while our cook, Pheobe, poured coffee into their mugs. I quickly grabbed a mug as I sat down and she poured me a mug-full.

“Thanks,” I said to her, then “Morning” to the others. I got a mixture of grunts and nods in return as everybody concentrated on stirring and drinking their coffee. Within minutes everyone was at the table eating the breakfast that Pheobe served up.

It was 7:20 AM as we finished the last of the coffee. Hughie Arden, the crew chief, was going over the plans for the day. Everyone knew their jobs so it only took a couple of minutes to sort the assignments out; Nick Jones and Jimmy Arden were to continue smoothing down the portage with the “drags” towed behind the Skidder and the FWD; Johnny Soldat was to push the ice road on down the lake with the grader; Hughie was taking the bombardier to scout a route for Johnny; Buddie Mercredi was to move camp onto the next lake after the grader ploughed a road and Dave Thompson was on the Beaver packing down portages. We were the “road making” crew pushing a winter ice road between Great Slave Lake and Great Bear Lake in Canada’s arctic.

“I got a special job for you today,” Hughie said looking at me, “I want you to push a new road through to a small lake where a mining company has set up a prospector camp at the shoreline. You can start a mile up the road from here so when you’re ready I’ll meet you there”.

“No problem,” I said, “I should be there by 8:30.” I got up from the table and walked over to the vestibule where the others were struggling into their snowsuits and other arctic gear. I got into my one-piece snowsuit and stepped outside into the minus 35 degree temperature.

The D-6 Caterpillar bulldozer was sitting thirty yards from the trailer with it’s engine idling away and pumping white exhaust mist high into the cold, dark winter’s morning air. I hurried over, climbed up over the track pads and plunked myself in the operator’s seat. I quickly lifted the front blade, slapped the transmission into first gear, pulled back the Johnson bar that engaged the clutch, and “walked” the Cat over to the fuel tanker to top up my fuel tank. I checked the engine’s oil level, was satisfied so I began to walk the Cat across the lake to my rendezvous point.

This Cat had a metal roof supported by four posts that acted as a roll bar but no sides. To stay warm in the winter the radiator fan in front of the engine was reversed, so instead of pushing air at the radiator it was turned to push air past the engine towards the operator’s cockpit. Canvas tarps were used to funnel this warm air to the operator. They were fitted to the floor and control panel in front of the operator and then stretched back on both sides along the cab’s floor and hooked onto the operator’s seatback. To stay warm you had to work the engine hard to heat it up enough to warm the air passing by it. Walking the Cat a mile over the ice was not working the Cat hard so it remained bitterly cold in the cockpit as I proceeded to the rendezvous.

Hughie and Pheobe were waiting for me in the Bombardier as I stepped off the Cat. Hughie got out and we discussed what had to be done.

“We have to push a portage from here to the lake,” Hughie said. “Its probably no more than three miles.” “Just keep that hill in front of you,” he continued while pointing to a small hill in the distance, “and you will bump right into it.” I could barely make out the hill in the morning’s dawn. It was 9:00.

Hughie went on to explain that we had to transport two tractor-trailer loads of fuel, supplies and equipment into a mining exploration camp on the far shore of the lake.

“Good enough,” I said, “what time will you get back to pick me up.”

“No later than 5:00 PM,” He replied.

A truck pulling a lowboy trailer would meet me here and transport the Cat and me to our next campsite up the ice road towards Echo Bay. We moved the camp every day as we proceeded northward to Great Bear Lake. The Atco trailer we used for accommodation was sitting on a hi-boy trailer and was pulled around by one of the Mack tractors used to pull the fuel tanker and the lowboy trailer.

The spot Hughie picked as the starting point for the portage had a gentle upward slope. The immediate area in front of me at the edge of the lake was populated with willows trees that were no match for the blade of the D-6 Cat. Within twenty-five yards I was encountering pine trees that made up the bulk of the forest in the Sub-Arctic between Great Bear Lake and Great Slave Lake. The land in this part of the country was part of the Precambrian Shield where rock formed the hills and rock outcrops, while muskeg and thousands of lakes and sloughs make up the valley floors. Pine trees grew prolifically in the muskeg. You could tell that a forest fire had swept through this area years ago by the amount of deadfall lying scattered around between the newer evergreen Pines. These I had to clear as I progressed towards my destination.

The trees got thicker as I proceeded and I soon lost sight of the hill being used as a reference point. I had to continually turn and look behind me to pick up a prominent point to act as a reference point to ensure that I was going in a straight path. I came across a small rock bluff that made me make a two hundred yard detour off my original tract. I was advancing the road at a fair pace pushing excess snow, tree trunks, roots and deadfall off to the side. The machine was blowing back warm air into the open cab that told me that the diesel engine was being worked adequately.

It was during one of my frequent “look behind” that I suddenly felt a sharp blow to my left arm. In a flash I jerked my head around to see what looked like a lance impaled through my upper arm. I instantly slapped the gearshift into neutral as the tip of the “lance” imbedded itself into the padded seat behind my arm.

The driver’s seat was sturdy enough to snap the tip of the “lance” off three feet in front of my arm. I sat there, in total astonishment, looking at a four foot shaft of wood pinning my arm to the back of the operator’s seat.

A 25 foot deadfall Pine tree, obviously fallen with it’s tip towards the bull-dozer, had ridden up over the top of the dozer blade, passed between the left hydraulic ram and the engine where it was stripped of it’s branches then pierced directly into the operators cockpit.

If I had not been turned around to the right to “look behind” the shaft of the tree would have pierced my torso. As it was, the tip had ripped through the arm of my snowsuit as it passed by and then embedded itself into the back of the operator’s seat.

Through mounting pain, I extricated myself from the tree. I jumped to the ground, stripped the snowsuit from my arm and upper torso and looked at the source of my pain. I was very lucky. The tip had glanced off the flesh of my arm leaving a small gash and a wider scrape with blood oozing slowly from it. I picked up a handful of snow and placed it over the gash. Within minutes the bleeding had stopped. I did not have anything to bandage my arm with so I cut a strip from my t-shirt with my knife and wrapped it around the cut to keep it somewhat clean. I then struggled into my snowsuit after putting on my shirt and vest.

I hopped up onto the tracks of the Cat and then into the cockpit. I sat there reflecting on how close I had come to be seriously hurt. There were no doctors or hospitals around for hundreds of miles so you had to be careful and on your toes all the time. Working with heavy equipment on frozen lakes and portages is very dangerous work when you are in the wilderness and you had to look out for yourself “. I’ll remember this little episode,” I muttered to myself.

Although shaken with the experience I had to keep pushing the road through to the lake. I put the Cat in reverse and backed up to get the remainder of the tree off the bulldozer. I then proceeded to grind it to splinters under the tracks while cursing it for what it had done.

I continued my work, dozing and clearing a path that would be used to portage the trucks. I finally came to the lake just as the sun was setting so I plowed the road 100 yards onto it.

The job was done - time for a break. I slapped the gearshift into neutral and pulled the Johnson bar to engage the clutch (I had been taught by old-timers that the clutch should be engaged in neutral) however I was a little too quick. The dozer’s gearshift had not fully disengaged into neutral and my rapid engagement of the clutch caused the engine to stall – oops.

Normally this wasn’t a big problem – just restart the engine, however not this time, the battery was stone dead, no juice, kaput, tout fini. All the cleaning of the battery posts and attempts to re-start the bulldozer ended in failure.

Here I was, at the end of a new portage, three to five miles from my start point, with no men or equipment around for over twenty miles. To make matters worse the engine was rapidly cooling off in the minus 35 degree Celsius temperature and the sun was setting. I had to huddle close to the engine to take advantage of the ambient heat that was still coming from the rapidly cooling diesel engine.

I figured I had two choices, trek back along my path to where I started or remain by the Cat until the others realized something was wrong and come get me. Walking back in the dark of night, through the churned up soft snow filled with shoots of broken willow and deadfall timber, was not very appealing to me. I conjured up memories from an adventure I had previously on Great Bear Lake where I was alone with frozen equipment and had to go for a trek. I did not need an adventure like that so “walking out” quickly lost out to “staying put”. Besides, Hughie would have to travel in to where I was to boost the battery of the dozer anyway.

I decided to get some wood and get a fire going. I walked back to the shore and gathered branches from the surrounding dead trees. I was still not relishing the thought of remaining by the bulldozer all night or until someone got into me but I figured it was better than the alternative - not knowing when the others would arrive. Besides there was still lots of diesel fuel in the Cat’s tank if I had any trouble getting firewood.

On the way back to the Cat with an armful of wood I noticed distant lights on the lake. They were moving towards me. I did not know what to think – snowmobiles from the exploration camp? Had a Twin–Otter drop off a couple of Snowmobiles at the camp? What other equipment could they have? Was someone snowshoeing to me?

It took the equipment with their lights over one half hour to reach me. Finally I could make out the equipment – it was our bombardier and tractor-trailer.

How did they get onto this lake? I was making the only road unless they found another way onto it. Sure enough it was Hughie and the Bombardier with Buddie and the low-boy.

Realization came over me as I talked to them while we jumped the Cat’s battery and loaded it onto the low-boy trailer. I had swung around in a big wide circle in the bush and ended up back on the same lake as I had started out on. My entry point was a quarter of a mile along the shore from where we sat.

Supper was hard to take that night. Everyone wanted to know the details on how I actually went around in a complete circle. I was the butt of many jokes that night.

The next morning Hughie decided that he was going to finish the portage so I was to take the Beaver and push north with Nick and Jimmie packing the portages as we went. I didn’t like the idea of not finishing the job but I had my instructions. Hughie was going to complete it.

The day was un-eventful. The drags towed behind the equipment leveled and packed the snow on the portage. You wanted all the snow you could get packed down on the portage. It would freeze and be as hard as ice. A portage with lots of packed snow lasted longer in the spring than one where the sun would melt the snow and turn the portage into a bog.

I got back to camp around six-thirty in the evening. I could see all the equipment was back and I was the last one in. I shed all my outer gear and headed for the dinner table where all the others were just starting to eat. I sat down beside Hughie’s brother Jimmie. No one was talking, which was very unusual for this group so after five minutes of this I looked at Jimmie and asked what was wrong? Why was everyone so quiet?

“Ask Hughie” was the only answer I got from Jimmie.

I did but all I got was “Nothing” and it was obvious that I would not get a plausible answer since he appeared rather subdued.

Minutes passed until finally Buddie could not hold it in any longer. He blurted out that Hughie was having his problems being a cat-skinner also.

When I pressed the point it finally came out in the open – Hughie did the same thing I did on the previous day – he did a complete circle ending back on the original lake. At that point the people around the dinner table erupted in an up-roar with everyone laughing, yelling and banging their fists on the table.

“What a pair of cat-skinners…can’t you plough in a straight line? What’s the matter…. did one of the tracks come off the Cat…..” on and on it went again.

I don’t think Hughie was laughing that much but next morning I was back on the D-6 bulldozer ploughing portages.

I never had another tree trunk come close to me again and I still remember how lucky I was when it hit me.

Pictures:

D-6 Cat, Skidder and Me

Loading D-6 Cat onto low-boy

McSnowWriter's Pamphlet: 8.1 - McLeod Trail

McLeod Trail

McLeod Trail