Early Logging in the San Juan Valley - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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Early Logging in the San Juan Valley

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... (Madill Equipment) Pictures on s 3,18,20,21 were obtained from Jim Cameron Lars Lovbakke (Cook at Harris Creek and Port Renfrew) Slides 29-33, ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: Early Logging in the San Juan Valley


1
Early Logging in the San Juan Valley
  • The Railroad
  • The Camps
  • The Logging
  • The Union
  • By Wild

Click to advance slide
2
The Railroad
  • Bear Creek Line
  • Harris Creek Line

3
Bear Creek Camp, camp on far side of
famous trestle, and parking on Shawnigan
Lake side of trestle. Later became the end of
the Steel.
In the mid-1930s, the San Juan Valley attracted
another large scale logging operation. Obtaining
timber licenses in the upper reaches of the
valley, the Malahat Logging Co. built a railway
line from their beach camp, extending 22 km/13.6
miles to beyond the bear Creek Valley. The line
followed much the same route as the Red Creek
Main Line. Beach Camp, one of two camps built by
them, was located where the present Port Renfrew
townsite is today. At the time, the camp had a
large shop, a rail line rightaway, an office, a
cookhouse, a few homes and bunkhouses for the
boommen and railway crews. The second camp,
located on the west side of Bear Creek housed the
fallers, donkey punchers, high riggers,
hootenders and chokermen, the men who worked to
get the timber out of the woods, This camp was
built in 1938-39 when construction was started on
the Bear Creek Bridge. Standing 242 feet high
and spanning 517 feet across, the bridge was, in
those days, the highest wooden trestle in the
world. Info from Hiking through History taken
from internet
4
Famous Bear Creek Trestle. Later in years when
the bridge was showing its age, the train crew
would send someone across the bridge on foot.
Then they would send train with loaded skeleton
cars across the bridge unmanned. When it got to
other side, they would jump back on.
5
Heisler No. 8 crossing the trestle
6
The three 26 foot high by 90 foot long creosoted
spans were prefabricated in North Vancouver.
Building the Bear Creek trestle.
7
Climax crossing Bear Creek Trestle. The last run
the train made out of Bear Creek was in 1957.
The train had ended its runs out of Harris Creek
2 years earlier in 1955.
8
Waddy Weeks, Locomotive Eng.
Waddy at controls
9
Speeders used for crew transportation to and
from work, freight delivery, school bus,
and public transportation between Beach Camp,
Bear Creek, and Harris Creek.
10
Building 3-Rivers bridge (built with a curve)
11
Train crossing Three Rivers Bridge, later on when
it was decked for truck logging, they built a
Y in the bridge (around where the caboose is),
swinging off to the pictures left, so it could
join up with truck spur heading up the left side
of 3-River Valley.
12
Cathels and Sorensons Shay No. 4 on the Granite
Creek Trestle. B.C.F.P. scrapped her in 1959
13
The Camps
  • Bear Creek Camp
  • Harris Creek Camp
  • Beach Camp

14
Bear Creek
15
Sunday ball game, Malahat Logging Co. (1928)
16
Bear Creek Camp, Malahat Logging, 1936 -1938
17
Bear Creek, Early 1950s
18
Bear Creek Cookhouse
19
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20
Bear Creek Community Hall, in the 1950s
21
Bear Creek school, identical to the one built at
Harris Creek, also taken in the early 1950s
22
Harris Creek
23
Early picture of Harris Creek, note skeleton cars
parked on spur. When this picture was taken,
shop was farther down the track to the right,
just before the valley narrowed into the canyon.
24
(No Transcript)
25
Harris Creek Camp, picture taken around 1948
The train logging operations on the north side of
the valley were taken over by Matt Hemmingsen,
He was pushing the railroad further, up into the
Harris Creek drainage and later began building
the upper Harris Creek Camp. The Camp was
completed in 1946 when a large company, the
newly-formed BC Forest Products, bought out most
of the areas timber rights, both railway systems
in the valley and camps. They completed the
upper Harris Creek camp and utilized Beach and
Bear Creek camps.
26
Main tracks through camp
27
(No Transcript)
28
Note fence in foreground barely visible above snow
29
Harris Creek in the early 1950s, just after they
ripped up the railway. The main road still
isnt established and in front of the houses (by
river) you can still see stacks of railway ties
that had been pulled up. Where the road crosses
the river, the bridge is now gone, but a swinging
foot bridge is there, which was build recently as
a safety route for the LongLine crew who were
working at the top of the mountain.
30
Cookhouse Staff (Harris Creek), Lars Lovbakke in
center at rear.
31
Community Hall
32
Harris Creek kids (Bobby Laurient, Gordon
Laurient, Virginia Smith. They were the children
of Louie Laurient( mechanic), Bert Smith
(Slackline Operator and Union rep.)) Watching a
game of horseshoes beside the 20 man bunkhouse.
All the other bunkhouses were 8 man (4 men on
one side and 4 men on the other separated by a
drying room where the woodstove was located. As
usual the fallers (King of the Woods) were
housed in the best bunkhouse (20 man).
33
Swimming Hole, Lars Lovbakke center with legs in
water
34
Beach Camp
35
1954
Port Renfrew Superior School
Back Row Jim Hagen (2nd from left, still working
as Grader Operator for Munns Lumber), Dave
Thompson (directly in front of teacher, became
foreman for Timberwest), Kenny Jones (2nd from
right, became Dry Land Sort foreman for
Timberwest), Front Row Jill Moxness (3rd from
right, daughter of Blondie Moxness who became
Superintendent for B.C.F.P. At Caycuse on
Cowichan Lake)
36
Beach Camp, British Columbia Forest Products, as
it looked around 1962
37
The Logging
38
Hay Rack loading with tongs under Wooden Tree
39
Harris Creek re-load, where logs were taken off
of trucks and put onto railway cars. Harris
Creek houses can be seen In background.
40
Re-Load shack at Harris Creek. Waddy Weeks
(Locomotive Eng), working on Power Saw, Ralph
Ross (4th from left reading book, and Art Hydes
(5th from left).
41
Later, reload was moved to just above Lower
Harris Creek bridge.
42
New Burger winch mounted on wooden sleigh.
Yarder Eng. was Art Wilson, pictured here with
his son, Bruce.
43
Front view of Burger, Art Wilson at controls.
Newest High-Lead machine in camp. Notice tin
roof and canvas sides. Also the best in seats,
wooden block mounted on steal post. Not much
for protection!
44
Yarder parked in Harris Creek waiting to be put
on skeleton car to be moved to logging site.
45
Here is Don Wilson, 21 years old, pictured
sitting on his 54 Cadillac Coupe de Ville, parked
beside the truck he drives. The year was 1958.
46
(No Transcript)
47
The Union
  • International Woodworkers of America

Local 1-80 Duncan, BC
48
(No Transcript)
49
(No Transcript)
50
(No Transcript)
51
Credits
  • Logging as it Was by Wilmer Gold (Three Rivers
    Bridge, slide 11)
  • Now Youre Logging by Bus Griffiths (cartoon
    frames Slide 11)
  • Jack Chesters Walk Through History (3 pictures
    of Speeders, slide 9)
  • 4,000 Years (A History of the Rainforest) slide 5
  • BC Lumberworker, International Woodworkers of
    America, slides 48-50
  • Hiking Through History (Teresa Burton)
  • Trails of the San Juan Valley (info used on slide
  • 3 and slide 25)
  • Jim Cameron (Madill Equipment)
  • Pictures on slides 3,18,20,21 were obtained from
    Jim Cameron
  • Lars Lovbakke (Cook at Harris Creek and Port
    Renfrew)
  • Slides 29-33, 39-41
  • Numerous pictures from Wilds collection.
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