Please be sure to read the first part of this story, entitled “Heaven and Hell – Part 1” before you read this one.
So, you might wonder, why have I called this story “Heaven and Hell”? Up until now, things had gone pretty well – I was working with a good crew and didn’t have any conflicts with any of them. We were living in nice little cabins, and took our meals in nearby cafes. There was even a pub in the village, where the cold beer flowed freely. As of June 8th, though, things started to change.
The plan had always been that, once the snow melted back somewhat in the high country, we would set up a camp in the bush and from there, do some serious geological work. Ron McMillan was his name – he had been hired by Falconbridge for the summer to oversee operations at that second camp. He met all of us on the 8th when he arrived, and a few of us drove to the site of the new camp. It was located at the end of a dirt road 10 miles south of the village of Telkwa in a clearing. Like every other one of these bush camps, we had to build it ourselves. It didn’t matter the company for which you worked, all of these were built pretty much the same way. Here’s how it looked when it was done.
Our camp south of Telkwa.
The camp could accommodate up to 14 men in comfort, and the fact that we could drive right to it made things a lot easier. This would be home for the next 3 months. At first, my new boss Ron and I got along well. He was finishing a Master’s degree in geology at some university back east, and I had to admit that he knew his stuff. There wasn’t much work we could do from this new camp by driving along roads. Everything we wanted to examine was up in the high country in the Telkwa Range to the south of us. As a result, we got the lion’s share of the chopper hours, while the other crew living at the cabins back in Houston did most of their work by driving to places.
Weather permitting, the chopper would take off from camp with 2 or 3 of us and fly into the mountains and drop us off somewhere. There were days where we prospected, just looking for anything of geological interest – these were the most enjoyable, as we enjoyed a sense of freedom as we explored the rugged valleys and ridges. Many other days were spent preparing geological maps of mining claims on which our company held an option.
Most days, someone from camp would head into Smithers and pick up supplies and run various errands for the camp, but there was always time to stop for a few beers at one of the pubs. The nearest place was the village of Telkwa, though (Smithers was a 15-minute drive farther down the road). All Telkwa really offered was cold beer at the pub.
The Telkwa Hotel
I was curious about one more thing, however, that involved the Telkwa Hotel. My previous summer, 1967, had been spent doing mining exploration in the Stikine area in far northern BC. Our cook had been a man named Pat Downey, and he told us that when he wasn’t working he lived in the Telkwa Hotel. It was time to look him up. One evening I went in and asked the bartender if he knew Pat – he said I was in luck, and pointed to a dark corner of the pub. I walked over and there he was, sitting by himself and nursing a beer. He remembered me well and we had a good talk. Pat had told us, unabashedly, that he was an alcoholic and in the off-season the hotel was his home. We had a good talk and got caught up. I never saw Pat again. A couple of years later, I heard through the grapevine that his alcoholism had done him in and he had gone to meet his Maker.
One thing we all craved was getting mail. Numerous entries into my diary attest to the fact that I eagerly looked forward to this, whether from parents, sisters, friends, the university or anyone else for that matter. Most days, someone from camp would be in town for one reason or another and would pick up the mail at our P.O. box. If we were out in the back country somewhere at another camp, it was a high priority that the chopper brought us our mail at the earliest opportunity.
Looking south from our Base Camp to the Telkwa Range
There was something called a fly camp, which meant a smaller, more temporary camp away from the base camp. If you had a chopper, that usually meant that it would ferry a couple of men and everything they needed for several days of work out into a remote spot where you would carry out geological work. The first fly camp of the season paired me with my boss Ron McMillan, and on July 10th we flew to a spot up in the mountains at 4,550 feet elevation – compare this to our base camp at 2,900 feet. We spent 9 days there, and on a few of them inclement weather kept us confined to the tent. As time passed, I got to know Ron better and I didn’t like what I saw. He belittled me, sometimes ignored me, took every chance he could to make me feel bad about the job I was doing. This was hard to deal with, and I found little in the time we spent together to make me happy. My solace was heading out for the day by myself and prospecting, but can you blame me when I could wander through places like these?
All mine
Up above tree-line
Only 4 months earlier, my sister had been killed by a drunk driver, and that still weighed heavily on me. I’m sure that contributed to my mental state as well. When the 18th arrived and the chopper picked us up, I was glad to get out of that situation, namely the two of us stuck in the same tent.
A mere 2 days later, I was shipped out to another fly camp, this time at 5,225 feet, and it wasn’t with him – he was probably glad to get rid of me. This one was in a nice alpine setting, and I worked there until July 25th. Here are some of the splendid things I enjoyed from that camp.
High peaks
Something we called Crater Lake
Rugged stuff
Plenty of glaciers
One of my favorite peaks in the Telkwa Range was Peak 7232. I had occasion to visit it several times, and one day I left a cairn on its summit.
The north side of Peak 7232
The cairn I left on the summit
We had a lot of cloudy, cold weather – this view to the southeast from the same peak was all-too-common.
Atop Peak 7232
I think by now that you’re seeing the “heaven” part of this story – I was really in my element, spending all those days in alpine country
Base camp no longer interested me, mainly because Ron and a few of the other guys were hard to live with – being around them had become my personal “hell”. Just 2 short days after returning from that second fly camp, I shipped out again to a place called Denys Creek, at 4,900 feet – I was there from July 27th to August 1st. My daily forays found me spending plenty of time above tree-line. Alpine environments were my favorite arena, and I’d wander for miles prospecting my way along, often going above 7,000 feet.
Fly camp at Denys Creek
From the high ridges, I had terrific views all the way to Tweedsmuir Peak, Atna Peak and Howson Peak. In this picture, we are looking west to Howson Peak ((9,052′), just over 20 miles distant, and an ultra-prominence peak.
West to Howson Peak
These next views show more of the alpine country, miles of it above tree-line.
Ridge after ridge
Miles and miles
One day, I had a magical experience, something I fondly remember to this day. I was by myself, prospecting above tree-line, and I had climbed up into a snowy pass. As I sat on a bit of outcrop eating some lunch, something caught my eye. Perhaps a hundred vertical feet below me, a dark shape was making its way over the snow, climbing up the gentle slope to the high point of the pass. It took a bit for me to realize that I was seeing something I had never seen before, a wolverine. This elusive creature was completely out in the open. I sat, spellbound, watching it, almost afraid to breathe. It ambled along, negotiating the snow with ease, rarely sinking in. These creatures have large feet and crampon-like claws, ideally suited for snow. It didn’t see me, or if it did it didn’t care – they are quite fearless, as you may know. It crested the pass, then continued on and down the other side into the next valley. I had been afforded a rare opportunity, a chance to observe this amazing creature for perhaps 15 minutes. I’ve never seen another.
When I returned from that fly-camp at Denys Creek, I spent a mere 2 days at base camp. I wrote up the work I’d done in the field, and kept working on geological maps. I was now getting into a regular rhythm of a few short days at base, then I’d head back out into the field. The next camp was at a place called Hunter Basin, at 5,530 feet elevation. A large group, 5 of us, headed there. We needed to move a lot of gear to that spot, way too much for our chopper, so we hired this Sikorsky S-55, complete with pilot, from Okanagan Helicopters at Smithers. We loaded it up, (it could carry 2,800 pounds of cargo) and I remember the pilot having to circle several times to slowly gain altitude so he could clear the 7,700-foot summits of the Telkwa Range.
One big chopper.
We stayed in a cabin at this camp – good thing, too, as we had a lot of cold, rainy weather. There were some old mine workings nearby – this photo shows adits and the remains of an old tramline.
At Hunter Basin
During the 7 days we spent at Hunter Basin, something unusual happened. I had flunked my Geology 320 class in optical mineralogy (hated it!!), but just barely, and my university would allow us to take a make-up exam, in an all-or-nothing last try to get credit for the class. I had been studying for months, half-heartedly if truth be told, and the big day came. On August 6th, while at Hunter Basin, I sat for the exam which was proctored by one of the bosses. For 3 full hours, I sweated bullets working my way through the questions – at the end, I thought that maybe I had passed. A month later, back at the university, one of the professors told me that he was the one who had graded that exam, giving me a 50% score (the barest of passing grades). I was signed up to take his class, Geology 407, entitled “The Petrogenesis of Metamorphic Rocks”, and he came right out and told me I wasn’t cut out to be taking such a difficult class. In fact, he strongly suggested I not bother with it at all, because it was no longer a requirement to get my degree. Well, of course I ignored him and took the class anyway – two full semesters of rocky hell, passing it with the tiniest of margins.
On August 10th, the day after returning from Hunter Basin, I decided that there was no pleasing my idiot boss, Ron. My next 12 days were spent at our base camp, working on refining our maps, helping with camp chores, but otherwise making myself scarce. I spent as much time as I could in town, doing laundry, drinking beer with a few of the other guys and relaxing. I had put in an awful lot of time working non-stop in those fly camps, so they owed me a little down-time. I even made a side-trip up to Hazelton with a couple of the guys to kill some time.
Oh yes, I meant to tell you about the weather. Perhaps because we were less than 150 miles from the Pacific coast, we seemed to have more than our share of rainy weather, which translated into snow higher up where I spent a lot of my time. My diary indicates that I got snowed on on 5 different days in May, 10 days in June, 6 days in July and 8 days in August.
We worked the area over pretty well, even bringing in some guys to do some geophysical work and also a small crew to do some geochemical silt sampling. By the time August 22nd rolled around, I was raring to get back out in the middle of nowhere once again and get away from the bosses. This time, it was a fly-camp in a drainage known as Loring Creek, and we would spend a week there, from the 22nd to the 28th. Here’s a view up to the head of the creek from atop a nearby ridge.
Looking up the valley of Loring Creek.
We were camped down by this lake.
The lake.
From the upper end of the lake, we could see this view to the northeast. It looks like it’s in the Arctic, even though it’s mid-summer.
Looking down the lake
This was an enjoyable spot, away from all the cares and bosses. All too soon, it was time to go back to base camp. On the 28th, our chopper arrived and whisked us away. Luckily, only 2 days later I headed out for my final fly-camp of the season, this time high up in another valley where sat Pontiac Lakes.
My friend Joe from our university was working on an exploration crew for another company for the summer. He was based at Atna Lake, only 40 miles away to the south, but it was all roadless wilderness and it might have just as well been a thousand. We had been writing to each other during the summer, and thought it’d be fun to communicate with each other, however briefly, by using the 2-way radios that all camps used. We agreed on a date and time, which happened to be August 30th, the very day I shipped out to that final fly-camp. Even these fly-camps have a 2-way radio. In case of emergency, you’d need to be able to call for help, and besides, we’d talk to our base camp on a schedule every day, usually in the evening. Well, there I sat in the tent, the radio turned on and tuned in to the frequency I had given Joe, the one our company was using for the summer. Precisely at the appointed time, I heard him calling, but due to my location in that valley, high mountains sat between me and him. He reached our base camp loud and clear, because the base camp units were much more powerful than the fly-camp radios we used. When he called, I could hear him reach our base camp, but I couldn’t call him back, my signal was too weak. One of the bosses back at my base camp gruffly told him “He’s not here!”, and said I wouldn’t be back for several days. That was the end of that. I was really devastated, as I was so looking forward to that call.
Anyway, there wasn’t anything about the scenery at this last camp to make you feel sad, that’s for sure. Here’s the view from our tent.
From our camp at 5,800 feet on the shore of one of the Pontiac Lakes
Here’s the view from above the valley, from a place we were prospecting on a ridge nearby.
Looking to the head of the valley where the lakes were located.
By the time this final fly-camp ended, on September 4th, I had put in a total of 43 days out in fly camps for the summer, with one partner or another. It was a lot of time away from the comforts of base camp, but at the same time it helped preserve my sanity by being away from the idiot boss Ron. Two days after I returned to base camp, I had wrapped up my work and was on my way home. Falconbridge had to pay my way back to Vancouver, so they offered me a choice – train or plane. I chose a leisurely 2-day train trip, taking me all the way east to Jasper, Alberta and then south to Vancouver on the Canadian National Railway.
Looking south from Jasper to Mt. Edith Cavell
In retrospect, it had been my best season of geological exploration (nothing that came after would match it for outright beauty), and I think I did my best geological work that summer. However, it was my unhappiest season based on the crew with whom I was working, so truly a summer of both heaven and hell.