we slowly yarded him over the logs

Chilliwack Airport 1949

Growing up in Chilliwack.......................1949


Mum and dad had friends that lived and worked on site at the 20 mile logging camp on Harrison Lake....There name was Seyward...and their son was bugged by the fact there was no one to play with ...no other kids...sooo..Dad made arrangements and I flew to Seyward's place on a CB...that is a float and land plane with one prop that faces backwards....The operator was Ray Wells...from the famous old pioneer family in Chilliwack....that was very cool...I was 12 ...my first plane ride...and we landed on the water...a four passenger plane but there was only the two of us (both ways)....Tommy and his folks welcomed me and took me to their home, a large cabiny type place right close to the dock........I was really gung ho on this new adventure...all the water traffic tied up just down in front of their house........ a big supply-passenger boat came in every few days...the coolest thing was that wharf......I could fish off that..and I taught Tommy how to catch squaw fish...I had experience at that from Cultus lake ....The Lake was too cold even in the summer to swim in...but we dunked near shore to cool off...There was another boy that made friends with us...Big guy....he was 16 years old and he worked in the cook house...there were a couple of logs against the dock one morning and big guy decided he was going to walk on them and roll one like a pro....not a good idea...he found some cork boots and proceeded to demonstrate his skill to Tom and I...he stepped on one and then on to the outside log ...then splash -in the drink...guess what.... he couldn't swim..I could not believe what I was hearing as he garbled and gluged the words HELP...I laid across the two logs (lucky they were close together) I grabbed big guys flailing hand , pulling his arm to the outside log...he calmed down then with Tommy behind me we slowly yarded him over the logs and finally he got his body into it crawled up on the wharf ....nobody knew about the incident and we all kept our mouths shut because we didn't want to get big guy fired...big guy did a pretty dumb thing. We were worried about Tom saying something ..but he was okay...so it never happened...I reckon this is the first time that story came out...I had forgotten until this journal idea came up..
After a couple of weeks I was very homesick...The CB came in on one of its rounds and Mr. Wells said..."hey do you wanna go home"....I just turned and ran up to the house and got my stuff ..said goodbye thanks a lot and off we went...then a very memorable thing happened...Mr. Wells said...do you want to fly this airplane...What..ME...sure ..okay.....the control is in front of you ..grab a hold...wow, I'm going to fly a plane?...going in a straight line was pretty easy...nevertheless there is a reaction every time the control is moved slightly and it was a really cool thing for this twelve year old to do... he let me have the controls until we got site of the airport area.......when we got home I could leap buildings in a single bound *



for the very young....Leap buildings in a single bound...Faster than a speeding bullet...Look up in the air...its..............