Travels to Alaska

May 1965

When I was back in Edmonton I ran into my old boss in Alberta Government Telephones, and he snaffled me back into working there again. This time it was sitting at a workbench wiring up equipment and soldering all day.

This was what I saw all day……

Well, after such adventures I’d just had, this was a real waste of valuable travel time, so I left it to those who like such easy, and steady work, and headed up the Alaska Highway, looking for more adventure…..

Alaska - August 1965

At this point you may wonder how I could afford to travel so far and wide. It was because I could travel so frugally – a couple of dollars a day in those times, so a month of work sometimes kept me on the road for another six months. I was extremely frugal and didn’t spend anything if I could avoid it. Of course, I never paid for transport, just got out on the road and held out my thumb and waited, sometimes for a long time; did lots of walking. Never went to a café for a meal, or even a coffee, just lived on bread and cheese or sardines, and porridge cooked over a fire. Never paid for a bed, just camped out in the bush, or under a bridge with the hobos, or in a Salvation Army hostel with the old winos – it was sometimes rough and disgusting in the cities, but usually really excellent in the bush. This lifestyle gave such a great feeling of freedom because I could just look at a map and decide to go wherever I wanted without thinking about the cost. It actually cost less to be moving out on the road than sitting around town going to movies, etc, so that’s where I spent my time.

I started out for Alaska in an old VW beetle, but it was running way too hot to survive such a long trip, so parked it in Fort Saint John, British Columbia, and started hitching again. The ‘right price’ travel option.

Hitch-hiking was pretty slow all over up there because most of the long-distance traffic was tourists all loaded up and not wanting company anyhow. Sometimes waited all day and then camped at the same spot again for the second night…. Not a good place to hitch-hike, much better to have your own wheels, but must be good wheels…..

An old paddle steamer at Whitehorse.

Dawson City, in the Yukon was the most fascinating to me. I’d read all of Robert Service’s poetry stories of the gold rush days, so spent a lot of time around the old prospectors’ diggings and cabins, and visualised the life that he wrote about so well. I camped in an abandoned cabin across the river, where the most recent occupants had been a couple of prostitutes in business – some things haven’t changed since those days.

 

An abandoned mining dredge.

Reminds me of the Robert Service poem, ‘The Cremation of Sam McGee.’

….Till I came to the marge of Lake Lebarge,
and a derelict there lay;
It was jammed in the ice, but I saw in a trice
it was called the “Alice May.”
And I looked at it, and I thought a bit,
and I looked at my frozen chum;
Then “Here,” said I, with a sudden cry, “
is my cre-ma-tor-eum.”

 

I carried a collapsible fishing rod, and a couple of times was able to catch and cook dinner right under the bridge that I slept under. Alaska is about the only place you can do that, eh…..

I didn’t have any trouble with bears, and didn’t hear all that much talk about them. There was lots of firewood there, so mostly slept between two fires, just in case. Nowadays bears seem to have gotten bolder and to be a real problem….

Alaska was definitely a frontier place in those days. It was legal to carry guns there, so long as they weren’t concealed. In one small settlement I saw the equivalent of the wild west cowboy, a teen-ager with a big six-shooter hanging low on his hip and a big Bowie knife in his belt, but instead of a horse he was roaring around on a motorcycle, looking for trouble…..

The laundromat in Tok Alaska was in this old fuel tank….

North Pole, Alaska, just south of Fairbanks.

Tourist trap…

To get home again I got a ticket on a Greyhound bus. It was funny crossing from Alaska into Canadian territory. In Canada, handguns are banned, so they watch the border crossings especially from a place like Alaska. The Customs man came on the bus and interviewed us there, and was having trouble with an elderly American tourist. He was so old and hard of hearing that he couldn’t understand what the officer was saying, but the officer kept shouting the question at him, “Do you have any handguns with you?” It was a really dumb question since the poor old fellow was so weak that he couldn’t hardly talk, let alone pack a gun.

I had thought the bus was going to go all night, but at midnight it pulled up outside a tourist lodge for the night. I couldn’t afford to check in there, so took my pack and started down the road looking for somewhere to camp. This was only September, but there was a cold snap, and this was near Snag, in the Yukon, which was listed at that time as the coldest place on the continent. I don’t know how cold it was that night, but the mud along the road was frozen like concrete. I walked until I saw where a bulldozer had widened the road and pushed down some big trees. I lit a good fire against one of the logs, then made a soft bed of spruce boughs and then set up my space blanket to reflect the heat onto the bed – it was amazing - just like sleeping in a slow oven! I had a really cozy night, just having to push more wood on the fire several times. Hopefully the fire would keep the grizzly bears away….. Next morning, I packed up and walked back to the lodge to get on the bus again, and everyone was sitting with blankets over their shoulders around a kerosene heater, blue with cold and sleepless. It seems that the furnace had cut out and they had been like this all night, while I toasted!

My cozy camp for that cold night near Snag, Yukon.

On the way up the Alaska Highway I’d had a lift with a young Alaskan who was going back to Haines for the net fishing season, and he said there’d be lots of work with lots of money if I wanted work with them, so I headed for Haines to find him. They had a big dory and some set nets and a license to work the salmon run. Apparently they were supposed to only set in areas specified, but if they sneaked right up into the river mouths at night they could make fantastic money very quickly, and needed extra help to clear the nets quickly. When I got there, I found out that the team consisted of his alcoholic mother who was living with an even more alcoholic old Swedish fisherman, in a little shack littered with smelly fish nets and rubbish. They must have made lots of money sometimes, because the old fellow only had to go to the cannery and ask, to get advances of hundreds of dollars which he just stuffed in his coat pocket and went out drinking again. But I don’t know if they were going to make any money that season. They should have been fishing by then, but each time the tide was in so that we could launch the boat, they were passed out, and when they wanted to go, the tide was way out, and the boat was high and dry. So, we’d put the nets in the boat and get ready for the next tide, but then they’d go and get drunk and miss it again. They weren’t the only ones on the grog – it was a wild town with lots of drunken fighting maniacs, and some shootings, so it worried me when the young fellow insisted on carrying a Luger pistol when we went out on the town. I hung around for a week and then decided that I didn’t care to be at sea at night with that drunken crew anyhow, so got on the ferry and headed down the Inside Passage.

Great outdoors country.

That Inside Passage is a fantastic place, absolutely spectacular scenery!

A fishing village along the Alaska Panhandle.

Got off in Prince Rupert and hit the road again. And what a wild ride that was!! Got a long ride with a couple of wild drunken loggers in a big pickup truck. Roaring along those gravel roads, up and down mountains and forever around corners. Would have liked to get out, but not much other traffic at all, so not much chance of another ride….. Then they finally ran out of gas, and while we were waiting for another vehicle to come by, I noticed that one front tire was bald and had an enormous bulge on the side, just about ready to blow out….. If that tire had let go on one of those mountain corners…… That’s one of the big dangers of hitch-hiking, far too many crazy drivers in bad vehicles, and I’d ridden with all too many of them in my world travels….

Finally, back to Ft. St. John, and there was the VW beetle where I’d left it, all covered in dust. An advantage of an old vehicle like that; no one would bother to steal it… Started up straight away and then motored slowly and gently back to the farm in Alberta.

September 1965

After Alaska I went back to the farm and helped with the harvest. But as soon as that was done I was off to find a motorcycle to ride to Mexico before winter would set in........

 

Motorcycle to Panama

USA - October 1965

I don’t remember how the idea of riding a motorcycle to the Panama Canal arose, but probably from looking a map. I’ve always had a fascination with studying maps, more than just using them to find my way somewhere, and they’ve led me on many a long trip. This time I wanted to go as far south as possible by road. I knew that there was no road all the way to South America, but I would go to the end of what was there.

This time I wasn’t going to have anything to do with British motorcycles. The Japanese motorcycles were just coming onto the market (1965), and not proven yet, so I chose the best available – BMW from Germany. Of course, they cost a lot less in the USA than in Canada, so I rode the ‘Grey Dog’ (Greyhound bus) to Portland, Oregon where I picked up my new 250cc BMW (Cost $850 in those days…) I chose the 250 because it was the lightest, as I figured there might be lots of bad roads, and there sure was……

Packing for such a long trip on a motorcycle is a real hassle. I couldn’t travel as light as I would like to – have to carry everything to live for 6 months in all conditions, so it means carrying both cold weather and hot weather clothing as well as rain wear, tools, spares, camping gear, etc., etc. – too much stuff. But I found some really good rubberized pannier bags in an army disposal store and they were excellent.

Checking out the BMW near Yosemite. Early winter coming….

Finally hit the road and straight away ran into heavy rain in the northern California mountains. Some long slogs up long slopes against strong headwinds – hard work for a new small engine. Too much work it seems, because when I went to start it next morning there was no compression. Managed to start it by rolling downhill, but it was sick, so stopped at the first big town and found a motorcycle shop. The rings had seized, so it needed a rebore and new piston – not a good start. But it didn’t take them long to do it, so I was soon on the road again.

The smog in Los Angeles was so bad that it hurt my eyes while riding. So, kept going, right on down to Mexico.

Mexico

Heaps of American tourists crossed that border every day, but most stayed near the border, and were only there for the cheap shopping, cheap booze and the cheap women.  Soon the road was empty, and it was grand to be motoring along in the warm air, headed south all the time. Already out into the desert country, and it felt great to be free again, with the open road ahead.

What a great feeling of excitement, anticipation and freedom, to be motoring along an empty desert highway, headed for unknown adventures!!!

And the adventures did start pretty soon…. I stopped in one small town for lunch, and noticed that no one else was sitting in the same street-side café, but people kept coming by and staring in. Finally, I found out that earlier that morning a man had been shot dead at one the other tables, and they had only just finished mopping up the blood. But not to worry, it wasn’t random violence, it was a paid killing, for revenge on a crooked business deal that the guy had done. For one thousand pesos ($80) a hired pistolero had settled the score – I should imagine that any other businessmen in town thinking about doing a dirty deal might now reconsider – very cost-effective justice compared to our legal system. Maybe we should try it here…. At least shoot some of the lawyers for a start….. (Cheap shot I know, sorry…)

A bit farther south I stopped at a river to wash my clothes, and met three expatriate Americans living on an old ranch nearby. There’s quite a few of such Americans living south of the border, some on the run from the law, but more usually on the run from the tax department or a wife…. One thing you never do is ask these guys where they came from, or anything about their backgrounds.

One of these guys was in a tomato growing venture with a local Mexican, another was very taciturn and secretive about his comings and goings (probably dishonest), and the other was a grizzled old gold and turquoise miner who offered me a turquoise mine for sale in Arizona..... This last fellow always carried a big six-shooter in the front of his belt, and another small derringer in his boot, and claimed that he had used them to kill when gold mining up in the Mexican hills in the past. He was a miserable mongrel of a bastard, and bragged about all the young Mexican school girls he’d bought or raped. One day he was proud to show us the skin off his elbows, from raping a school girl on concrete while her mother cried and pleaded…..

One night when he’d been drinking a lot of local aquardiente (literally firewater) same as moonshine, he turned on me and pointed that big old six-shooter at my face and said if I didn’t shave my beard by morning he’d blow my head off! And when you’re looking right down the bore of a gun like that, held by a drunken madman, it does make the hair on the back of your neck stand right up…. I was ten feet away and sitting on the floor, so no way I could move on him right then, but later in the night after they all passed-out I made my move. First I rolled my motorbike quietly away down the lane, and packed it all set up for a quick getaway. Then I slipped in to where he was sleeping, still in his chair, and carefully slid that big heavy gun out from his belt. He stirred once but didn’t wake up, so I didn’t have to bash him with the club I had in the other hand. I was very tempted to bust in his dirty skull anyhow, but that would have made a ruckus and then maybe I wouldn’t get away. The bike started straight away and was really quiet, so I don’t think anyone heard me go. Guns like that were very highly prized in Mexico, but I didn’t want to get caught dealing with it, so as I crossed the bridge over the river I threw it into the deep water and kept going all night and all the next day to get as far away as possible. The loss of that big heavy gun would be a real blow to him; it was polished smooth from carrying for so many years, and probably the only thing he really loved. But it served him right for threatening me with it…..

While trying to get enough distance from that dangerous old bastard, I had to ride all day in cold rain through the mountains, and got so thoroughly wet and chilled to the bone that I damn near died of pneumonia – spent days in a cheap hotel in Guadalajara coughing my lungs out and just trying to survive.

Christmas festivities in Guadalajara.

I recovered just enough to be able to walk around Guadalajara on Christmas Eve. Everyone was out on the streets that night, with lots of conspicuous consumption, and big, flashy, expensive but useless, gifts being flaunted by all those kids whose parents could afford it. While hoards of the very poor children were out as well, begging for pennies, with nothing to show at all. I bought a whole lot of candy and handed it out. Of course, that didn’t really help their situation, but at least the kids got a thrill for a couple of minutes….  But the rich weren’t spreading their pennies around at all, just focused on showing off to each other. That image made it a sad and depressing Christmas for me….. The disparity, and callous disregard, was enough to see why the poor were sometimes tempted by revolution……

My beard was a problem in Mexico those days with more than just that old bastard farther back. This was the time of Castro’s power in Cuba, so Mexicans used to point at me and say, “Castro” and “Communista?”, not a good image to carry around. So, when a couple of days later I nearly ran over a good razor lying in the middle of the road, I took it as an omen, so picked it up and shaved the beard off. Now I missed the whistle of the wind through my whiskers while sailing along on that smooth, quiet bike….

Mexico was very poor in those days, but ingenious mechanics kept these old machines running, and probably with no new parts.

Hard working people…..

‘Mexican Jeeps’

Planting.

 

Hard and slow work….

 

Threshing corn.

A brick kiln.

 

 

A local rodeo in Mexico.

 

The main highways in Mexico were mostly really good, with little traffic.  Except for sometimes coming around a corner and finding a ‘Mexican handbrake’ (big rock) in the middle of the road and a pool of oil where someone had changed a gearbox on a truck right there.  But cities like Mexico City were something else – I’m still amazed that I survived unscathed. Hoards of traffic - big trucks, small trucks, cars, taxis, horse and carts – all of them impatient and invincible, and no such concept as lanes or any sense of order. If I left a safe space behind the vehicle in front, then someone would squeeze in there. There was always someone right close on my back and overtaking on all sides, and it was not unusual to suddenly come on a slow-moving horse cart in the midst of this. If I’d got knocked off my bike I’d have been run over many times and be as ‘flat as a cat’ before the traffic got stopped; maybe it wouldn’t even bother to stop…. It was terrifying until I found the secret – go faster than everyone else! Then all I had to do was dodge anything in front of me, and since I was going the fastest, no one was overtaking so I didn’t have to try to watch behind when I swerved. It worked really well, and with a motorbike I could dodge through the spaces between other vehicles. It sure was hair-raising, with always the possibility of nowhere to dodge to and a horrendous crash, but I figured it was still better than being run down from behind…… As I write this, 50 years later, I’ve just been flying an ultralight aircraft in low level, tight manoeuvres, chasing sheep, which many would consider dangerous, but it’s nothing compared to those days in Mexico City – no way would I take such chances these days!

 

The Metropolitan Cathedral, Mexico City.

But the bike wasn’t running real well. It was making lots of carbon, and I’d had to pull the head and clean the valves a couple of times already. I took the head to a small machine shop to have the valves and seats trued up, but he didn’t fit the exhaust valve in the machine properly, so the grinder took a big chunk out of it….. He was very embarrassed and apologetic because that was a big disaster for me…. In Mexico in those days new spares weren’t usually available so they had to improvise.  His own motorcycle had a modified piston from something else and valves from something else altogether. So, he dug out a big box of odd valves and started hunting through them to see if he could find one that he could modify to fit…. But then I found out that good old BMW had a dealer there, with spare parts, so I went to them. They found that the cylinder had been bored out of round by that shop in California, and that’s why it never sealed properly…. They didn’t have an over-size piston so couldn’t do a re-bore, so just did a new hone and new rings and valves.  Then I rode it hard to seat those new rings, and it worked this time…

 

I found another sort of road when I tried to cut across the mountains to Veracruz. The main highway went a long way round, but the map showed a dotted line that might be a shortcut - it seemed worth a try. As I got higher and higher into the mountains the road got narrower and rougher, until it was just a two-wheel track, with big washouts to manoeuvre around. Finally it ended in a little village, with only a horse track beyond. By the time I got to the village, it was just about dark. I was going to camp out, but the locals insisted that I shouldn’t, and vacated a room in someone’s house for me – “banditos” they said. So, I took their word, and had fine hospitality. Then I had to ride all the way back down that track to get on the main road again.

The house at the end of the road, where I got such excellent hospitality.

I remember another fine new road along the beach of the Gulf of Mexico. The texture looked unusual, so I stopped for a closer look. It was topped with crushed seashell mixed with the bitumen. These sharp little shells made for excellent traction I guess, but it would have been like landing on a vegetable grater if I’d had a fall on the bike….

I particularly liked the city of Merida in the Yucatan. This is the homeland of the old Maya civilization. There are spectacular ruins all around, and the present descendants still have some of their unique customs. They are very quiet and serious people who don’t ever make a fuss about anything.

Wash day in pleasant surroundings.

In Merida, Yukatan I met another of those expat Americans on the shady side of the law, and ended up staying with him and another couple of shady Gringos in a big house owned by Mario, a local Mexican gangster. The ‘godfather’ was very hospitable, and enjoyed having a ‘gang’ of Gringos and local hangers-ons around. Every couple of days we would all have to troop down to the local steam bath with him, and take over the place for a couple of hours, just like the movies of Al Capone days. I think the old fellow was mostly image and bullshit, but a couple of those Gringos were shady characters involved mostly in robbing Mayan tombs and smuggling artefacts. This was before the big drug problems.

One of the Americans was driving an old yellow American school bus to British Honduras where he hoped to sell it for a profit, and suggested that I put my motorcycle in the back to save riding a pretty bad road. I think the road would have been more comfortable on the bike than in that bus. Before I left, Mario gave me a letter in great secrecy, to be hand-delivered to a friend of his in British Honduras. When we arrived at the border crossing, the Mexican customs immediately took us into custody and straight to a compound where they had an oxy-torch all ready to cut open the floor of the bus. They’d had a tip-off that we were running some sort of contraband! While we were in custody with no guards around, I remembered that I still had this letter in my pocket. I opened it and it was most strange – some of it was a form of coded double-talk, but some of the rest was openly incriminating of another smuggler in that trade. It looked very much like a set-up to get this other character. I didn’t want to be involved at all so burned it right away before they searched me and found it...... Luckily the bolt holes that used to hold the seats in the bus were open right through, so it was obvious there was no double floor, and they didn’t cut up the bus, so after they had searched everything they let us go. I was really glad to be back on my own bike and get away from that lot!

British Honduras, (Belize)

Entering British Honduras.

Belize, or British Honduras as it has called then, was a really interesting place. Being a British colony, the language is English, mostly black descendants from the pirate and slave trading days. A very friendly bunch, with a strange mixture of strict church-goers and wild party fiends.

The water-front was a real magnet for all sorts of wild characters – traders, speculators, prospectors, and of course smugglers.

One of the unique characters there was an American, living on a really rotten dump of an old yacht. It was so bad that it could never go to sea again, but he regularly advertised in American papers for “Female crew to cruise the Caribbean on a romantic old yacht. Share expenses, send photo.” Apparently he got lots of replies, and sorted through them, selecting the best one and sending the rest a note that there’d been a delay and he’d let them know as soon as the cruise was ready to go. The first one would come down and move in with him. Of course, she had to pay all expenses, and he would also try to fleece her for all he could before she realised that they were never going anywhere, and headed back home again. At least he gave them a good time while they were there, as he was a real party animal and got them into parties they’ll remember forever. As soon as he could see that one was about to leave he’d send off a note to the next one on the list and it would all start again – there’s all sorts of ways to make a living……

 

Typical house on stumps in Belize.

What a contrast to the Mennonites who’ve settled here as well. They’re very conservative and proper, still wearing their traditional old-world fashions, and keeping to their own tight community. They’re hard-working farmers, and supply all of the fresh produce in the markets.

 

Amusing signs….

‘Casualty Department’ and ‘Mortuary Lane’

I also met a young German fellow, who’d been living in Canada for many years, saving up and gathering tools to build a yacht down there, because of the supply of Honduras Mahogany, an excellent boat-building timber. I was giving him a hand to scout around and find out the business opportunities, and kept getting told to go and see the Prime Minister! Now this wasn’t going to be any big industry, just him and maybe a helper or two, but that didn’t matter they said. Then it was pointed out that the total population of the whole country was only 120,000, so the Prime Minister is just another local, and so he was. Turns out that the best quality mahogany is really hard to get there because it’s saved for the export market, and everything else like screws and fittings have to be imported, so it wasn’t such a great place to build a boat after all. But I heard years later that the German stayed on and shacked-up with a local girl and became another of those expat whites who ‘go native’ and settle there – I think it would suit him really well.

In those days (1966) there were magnificent Mayan ruins that were unpatrolled, so it was exciting to camp in there on my own, and try to imagine what it was like when it was a thriving centre of civilization. But there was lots of evident damage caused by robbers looking for artefacts…..

 

 

I tried to go by road to Guatemala, but the border was closed due to some rebel activity, so had to find another way out.

Crossing a river in Belize.

So, I rode as far south as I could get, and then put the bike on the deck of a little fishing boat and sailed over to Puerto Barrios in Guatemala.

 

Guatemala

Guatemala has some spectacular scenery, with lots of volcanoes, some of them smoking. I climbed one of those smoking cones with a couple of travellers that I met in town. It wasn’t a difficult climb, just a hard slog, but worth it. Spectacular scenery, and a thrilling feeling, being right at the site of such powerful geological activity.

Pacaya volcano, Guatamala.

One of the really fascinating places in Guatemala is Chichicastenango. It’s way back in the hills, and every month they have a big native market there. These are the descendants of the Maya, and have the same quiet, self-assured demeanour. 

The Indians come from far round, mostly by foot over the ranges and through the valleys, carrying enormous loads of pottery, leading pigs, and whatever.

 

Big load, small tough man.

There are lots of tourists at the market, but the Indians just ignored them and go about their business. If the tourists want to buy from them, they almost seem to be reluctant to deal with them – quite a change from most tourist spots!

There’s a magnificent old cathedral overlooking the market square, where the white-robed priests hold mass inside, while out on the steps the Indians venerate their ancient Mayan gods by dancing, burning copal (incense) and lighting firecrackers – sometimes there’s a cloud of incense in the air and a din of crackers. The priests obviously don’t like it, but it’s good to see natives who can still hold onto their old beliefs. Then they go inside and do the Catholic ritual just to cover all bases…

 

Burning copal incense.

 

Then they pack up all their goods and trek back over the mountains to their homes again. I really admire those people……

In Guatemala City I found a really excellent pension (low cost hotel). It looked like nothing from the street, but inside was a beautiful, tiled courtyard, with balconied rooms all round. Most of the patrons were Guatemalans from outlying districts, mostly ranchers, and were all gentle and friendly. We all ate at one big table, and it was a real family atmosphere, with lots of talk. One day an elderly Canadian arrived. He’d been on the shuttle bus from the airport and saw the ‘Pension’ sign outside and asked to get off there, but everyone else on the bus was telling him that a tourist couldn’t stay in such a place, and he should go to one of the big hotels. But he persisted, and arrived with his bags in this place – it turned out that this was his first experience ever in a foreign country! He was a talkative, friendly character, so he fit right in at the table, and was rewarded by his persistence to get out of the ‘tourist’ track. He was a retired teacher, but now in second childhood, and had been reading a book about how to travel on the cheap, maybe the same one I had read (there was no Lonely Planet guidebook in those days), and this was his first trip. So, he was fascinated with my travel experience, and I tried to help him all I could. I led him all round town – not the tourist sites, but the places that I find interesting, like the local markets, and the small mechanical shops, and local bus depots where country people come to the city. He was absolutely fascinated by the street where all the brothels were located, and I wonder if he might have found his way back there later.... There was an election coming up, with a fair bit of nervousness that the opposition might attempt a revolution, so lots of armed troops standing around. This wouldn’t be any danger for foreigners, as long as you just stayed out of the way and didn’t get involved. But one day at the big table the old fellow asked a local black English speaker at the table if he thought there was going to be trouble. The local fellow gave big wide grin and said, “I hope so.”

Turned out he was an opposition supporter. This really scared the old fellow, and I had to help him get a ticket out of the country as soon as possible, so I sent him to Belize. He had a ball there, and continued his travels. He later wrote me about multiple trips in Africa, always travelling like a young backpacker, and considered me to be a hero for introducing him to such travel.

More volcanoes in Guatemala.

There was a large vacant lot in Guatemala City where I’d already picked up a couple of fragments of obsidian (the black volcanic glass that was used for making knives long ago). Now a machine had dug a drainage trench across it, so I dug through the dirt and found lots of broken obsidian knives. It was quite a thrill, though probably illegal, to be excavating these archaeological ‘treasures’.

Lake Atitlan, Guatamala.

In one long very hot day I rode through three countries – El Salvador, Honduras, and into Nicaragua. The windshield on my bike had been smashed in a fall in Belize, so the scorching hot dry wind mummified my face into a stiff mask and cracked my lips such that it even hurt to drink a beer …. Then on through Nicaragua which is also pretty dismal and hot and flat in the western part.

Costa Rica

Costa Rica is a totally different culture from all those other Central American countries. No revolutions and army control there - they were very proud of the fact that they have more school teachers than soldiers. Costa Rica has a mostly middle-class society, instead of the vast poverty and small wealthy elite, typical of the rest of those countries. Costa Ricans certainly aren’t rich, but everyone seems to have enough to get by comfortably. The people all seemed happy and content, which was a refreshing change from Nicaragua and Honduras. It’s amazing how one small country can be so different from its neighbours – I guess it just depends upon what sort of people got to lead the country in the early days of settlement – in Costa Rica it was benevolent intellectuals, in the rest of the countries it was brutal military types. I sure hope they’ve been able to keep those differences to this day.

The geography is also a refreshing change. The capital San Jose is up in the mountains, so is cool and fresh, with enough rain to keep everything green – it’s like perpetual spring time. Lots of beautiful scenery all round, with volcanoes, rainforest and neat plantations. I could easily live there….

The road south soon got into some rough, remote mountains, and climbed to 11,450 ft altitude. They are named Cerro del Muerte (Mountains of Death), and I couldn’t help thinking about that morbid name as I battled a very rough, loose gravel road through cold rain and fog – maybe just as well that I couldn’t see what was off the edge of the road!

Later, down on the coast at the tiny settlement of Golfito, I met another expat American. This one was an ex-marine, who had lost a leg in Korea. He was living there like a king on his American pension. He’d been a gold dredger on the nearby Ossa Peninsula, but found it easier to be a trader, bringing out basic supplies in a river boat, to trade to the Indians for pigs which he shipped to San Jose for a huge profit. Now he had a small store in town, and was starting a chicken farm, feeding them on dried fish that the locals would net for him. A real bush entrepreneur. I was tempted to buy a used portable gold dredge that he had for sale, but it wouldn’t have been workable without a couple of partners, and even then pretty questionable. When it comes to gold, especially in remote locations away from the rule of law, there are always thieves and rogues around, so even if you do find some, they’re liable to thieve it from you.

Panama

Lots of bad roads for a motorbike in northern Panama – loose, rocky gravel for miles and miles and miles, with only occasional large cattle ranches.

I still vividly remember skidding on some loose gravel and falling in the middle of the road, with a big truck bearing down and also skidding on the gravel while trying to brake. The gravel was on a smooth, hard base so it was like marbles on a dance floor, so slippery that I kept falling as I tried to lift the bike. Just managed to drag the bike out of the way and the truck went skidding past in a cloud of dust…..  But finally got to the Panama Canal Zone, with fine highways and all facilities – what a contrast.

I’ve always been a bit fascinated by the Panama Canal, so really exciting to see the engineering work, and big ships traversing the land.

In those days there were lots of passenger ships carrying migrants from Europe to Australia through the canal, and I was hoping to get a cheap ride on one of these. But it wasn’t to be – of course the migrants never missed their ships, so the cheap berths were all full, and the only berths vacant were very expensive first class. I didn’t have enough money left for that….

The road doesn’t go all the way to South America, the missing portion is called the Darien Gap, but I tried to go as far as I could. I don’t remember how far along it was, but I came to a wide river. It didn’t look all that deep so I just rode into it – not a good idea, should always wade in to be sure. Turned out this one was deeper than I’d figured, and pretty soon I was floundering along with the water up to the air cleaner and surging over it. The bike was really struggling, but kept going to the other bank. There I talked to some Indians who were on foot, and they told me that there was a deeper river ahead, and this one was rising due to lots of rain.

So, I decided it was wise to go back right now while there was someone around in case the bike stalled, and I needed help to get it out. This time I hit a couple of even deeper holes where the bike seemed to dive it up to the handle bars, but amazingly kept running. It grunted and heaved itself just out of the water, then stalled – great relief…..

Then I had to camp there and drain all the water out of the critical parts and dry it out, before heading back north.....

 

Now that I couldn’t get any farther south, and couldn’t go to Australia, the holiday was over, and I was headed north in earnest. I was getting low on money and it was springtime coming in Canada, so work would be opening up there, so rode and rode and rode. Back through Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatamala, Mexico and USA to the Canadian border – 6000 miles in the month of April 1966. And that was only a 250cc bike, but a brave one…... It had the excellent BMW suspension, with a European spring seat and a luxurious Californian foam saddle, so was really comfortable for long days on the road.

Through Texas, and Louisiana, up the Mississippi River, through Tennessee, Kentucky, and Virginia to Washington DC. Lots of beautiful scenery, and historic country, but only stops for fuel and food. I was so comfortable on the bike by now, with 6 months and 16,000 miles of riding, that I could sit on it comfortably all day long. Rode past the White House and on up the freeways past continuous cities to New York City – what a contrast to the deserts of Mexico just a few days ago! Then through more continuous cities through Boston and finally into the mountains of New England.

Now this is getting pretty far north, and April is only the start of spring here. There weren’t any leaves on the trees yet, and it was getting very cold – lots of stops for hot coffee. I can remember one stop when I was so cold that it was like rigour mortis, and I couldn’t bend my arms enough to lift the cup to my lips…. There I met an old, grizzled, Harley rider who gave me a tip – go to a laundromat, strip off all clothing possible, and put it in the drier for a while. Ten minutes later when it’s all hot and fluffed up, put it back on, with the waterproof riding suit over top and a hot coffee inside, and you’re wonderfully warm and toasty for another hundred miles or so.

Finally ran into lots of snow, and getting rapidly worse. Tried to find a budget hotel, but only very expensive ones in that upmarket town. In desperation headed out of town into the blizzard – not a real smart move, and I don’t know what I was hoping to find, but soon came to a big construction area where they were making a new parking lot for a shopping centre. In the middle of this area I could see an old house that hadn’t been demolished yet. By now the snow storm was really thick, so that I could ride up to the house with no one seeing me. I rode the bike inside through the back door and disappeared. Inside was a grand old empty house, complete with a fireplace! I hiked over to the supermarket and got lots of food and a jug of wine, then settled in there for the duration of the blizzard. I lit a fire in the fireplace with scrap wood and broken furniture, and had a really comfortable couple of days in there. I even did an oil change on the bike in there.

When the blizzard cleared I had to do a fast dash to the Canadian border, because my temporary registration and insurance expired on the last day of April. I just made it, only to find that they wouldn’t let me into Canada without paying a heap of customs duty on the bike! So, I had to ride south again to a decent sized city where I could sell the bike. By now the registration was expired, so I was really lucky when a random police check stopped a bike in front of me, and was busy with him, while I rode past.... whew!

So, I arrived back in Canada on a train and started looking for work.

Found a job with a mineral prospecting crew, and was soon slogging through the Canadian muskeg with a cloud of biting black flies and mosquitoes around my head…..  What a change from the last few months......

 

Prospecting, Canada 1966

Black Flies, Mosquitoes, and Muskeg

The long motorcycle trip to Panama and back was finished, and now I needed to get a job and build up finances again…. I wanted to save as much as I could as quickly as I could, and have some adventure at the same time, so decided to find a job in mineral exploration. That would mean working way out in the bush, where food and accommodation is provided, and little chance to spend anything. Must remember that this was the 60’s and there were job opportunities everywhere, and there was a boom in copper prices that year, so mining exploration was hot. Only needed to front up and claim you could be useful to the company and they would give you a go, so different from now (2019). So I fronted up at one of the biggest mining company’s corporate front office. Not the usual approach for applying for a job, but I had long ago learned not to start with the personnel office….. The receptionist was a bit amused and dismissive, but fortunately let me in to see a chief geologist who was just the right man. He was equally amused at such an approach but was sympathetic and knew the structure of the industry, so referred me to a small prospecting company that they sometimes contracted to do their field work.

Turned out it was just a three-man company, a geophysicist, a geologist, and a bushman. They kept a couple of crews out in the bush and had a good reputation of producing results. They had just finished the winter season and were gearing up for the summer. Several of the employees would only work in the winter and refused to go bush in the summer. They preferred to put up with the cold and snow instead of the black flies and mosquitoes of summer. So that left an opportunity for me. Little did I realize why they refused to work out there in the summer, but I would soon enough find out…..

The company had just bought a one-off newly invented electronic system for detecting dispersed mineral deposits. Supposedly state-of-the-art, but turned out to be not yet fully developed, and almost no instructions or established operating procedures. I guess I was partly hired because I had more electronic background that they did, and they hoped I could figure it out…. Which I did eventually, but lots of stress and difficulties doing that out in the remote bush…..

The first job was in northern Ontario. By boat across a remote lake. The boat was scheduled to come back in 10 days to collect us. No other way to get out in the meantime, and no radio to call if an emergency, so we were really on our own. I don’t think labour regulations would allow that situation these days…. With Mo the geophysicist, Jim the bushman, three labourers, and a heap of camping gear and food. All of them very experienced bushmen, so they knew how to set up a comfortable camp.

This is a really comfortable camp for the Canadian bush. Lots of covered space for cooking and equipment storage, even in rainy weather. It’s essential to keep all food outside in case of a bear raid. Bears and mosquitoes are the pests of the Canadian bush…..

There’s a special wood-burning stove, called an Airtight, made in Canada, especially for such camps.
It’s made of thin sheet metal, so is light enough to pack in, and is cheap enough to leave behind to rust away. The thin metal throws a LOT of heat, glowing dull red sometimes, and holds enough wood to burn all night. It’s essential for survival in that climate to have such heat to dry wet clothing, as it can get very cold any time of the year. The stove is also excellent for slow cooking food during the day when we were out on the line. Just load it up with wood in the morning and put a big pot of meat and spuds and vegetables on top, and of course set the burn rate for slow. We needed a lot of meat and ‘power’ food for the long hard days, often wet and cold, tramping through the bush, and too tired for cooking after a long day, so it was ideal to come in and find it all tender and ready, so just dig in and gulp it down.

This is a more elaborate camp, with plywood walls and floor, and a tent roof, but the same smell of wet socks and unwashed men, no showers available.… No beer in that box, all camps strictly dry…

Another essential in such a camp, with six men in one place for that length of time, is toilet facilities. That was Mo’s specialty, and he took great care to set it up. The setup was just a pole to perch on, nailed across a couple of close-spaced trees, and hole dug underneath, but for Mo it had to be positioned exactly right. He spent ages hunting for just the right spot, far enough from camp (and of course downwind) but not too far, some bushes for privacy, and most importantly a good view….

 

This is a muskeg tractor, the only vehicle that can travel in that terrain.

And this is the track it leaves behind…..

My very first day on the job meant a four mile walk through country like this to get to the prospect. The rest of the crew had just come from a winter of working on snowshoes, which is very heavy work, so they were very fit and walked at a heck of a pace. I’d just spent six months sitting on a motorcycle, so my butt was as tough as old leather, but my legs weren’t fit at all. I had to really struggle to keep up, and in a male crew like that, one must never be seen as a slacker. So I suffered in silence, and I would have quit right then if I could have, but the boat wouldn’t be back for ten days, so I just had to hang in there….. But by the end of the summer I was as tough and fit as the best of them, as we shall see…. 

A strong part of our crews were Indian lads from a tiny settlement in Manitoba. These guys worked hard without any fuss, had excellent manners, and were really good companions to live and work in such trying conditions, never complained and moaned. The company had discovered this settlement years ago, and always called on them to send workers for our crews, wherever we were working. On one crew we had a pair of identical twins, which we couldn’t tell apart and they enjoyed keeping us confused. But we could tell them apart every evening when it came to desert after the evening meal. Desert was always a can of fruit with a topping of condensed milk, and one fella always called for peaches while the other called for pears, so of course they were known as Peaches and Pears. We seldom got a chance to go into a town for recreation, but when we did they always wanted to go to a cowboy movie, and then they cheered for the cowboys in white hats rather than the Indians…..

The equipment we were using was ‘Induced Polarization’ (IP), which had only very recently been applied to geophysical exploration. It consisted of applying alternating currents to the ground, and then measuring the voltages induced at electrodes stuck in the ground a distance away. The currents were applied between electrodes at 200, 400 and 600 feet behind the site, and the voltages picked up between at electrodes at 200, 400 and 600 feet ahead of the site. Insulated wires connected it all together. The transmitter provided the current from a load of heavy batteries or a portable generator, which all had to be back-packed through the bush. Once the readings from a site were recorded, the whole assembly had to be moved to the next site and set up and another set of readings recorded. Of course, this meant a lot dragging wires through the bush and carrying the equipment. The fella in front had to drag the three receiver wires out ahead and drive stakes and hook up wires at 200, 400, and 600 feet, then walk back to the 200 stake, and as soon as the reading was done drag them ahead to the next site and set the stakes again. As soon as the reading was done the fella working behind had to pull those stakes and hook them back up when the operator dragged the wires to the new location.

Set up and taking the readings in Quebec mountains.

This the precious data we collected and the geologists back at camp plotting it on a map.

The geologist studying the results

We did several miles of line every day, so those guys walked many miles back and forth pulling wires all day long. The operator and assistant back-packed the equipment to the next site and set up again, over and over again. The battery box weighed 70 lbs and was awkward and unbalanced to carry over rough and difficult terrain

That box is full of heavy batteries, and weighed 70lbs, and the load is way back, so an uncomfortable carry over difficult footing… Not me in this photo, but I carried that load a lot, and sure got fit and hard that summer…

The ‘lines’ were cut lines through the woods, in a grid pattern usually 200 feet apart. They’d been cut by contractors, using a compass and measuring tape, placing a stake every 200 feet. The cut lines were supposed to be wide enough and clear underfoot to make easy walking, but seldom were….. Usually the lines were littered with half-felled saplings and stumps to trip over. The contractors were often fly-by-night characters, and the locations were very remote, so they knew their work wouldn’t be inspected. In the muskeg country it was swampy and muddy and tangled undergrowth. Very exhausting terrain to hike through….

These posts mark out a claim that had been staked by a prospector or mining company, and they now wanted to know if there are any anomalies underground that might be mineral deposits. If we detect an anomaly in our readings they would then bring in a drilling rig that would bore out a core of rock from way down there. Always big excitement what would come up…..

These were mostly small, very speculative companies, the ones that run on ‘penny’ shares on the stock market. It’s a big gamble, mostly don’t find anything, but if it’s a real strike then the stock market goes wild and fortunes are made overnight. Of course, there’s lots of manipulation and skull-duggery going on. If there’s some mineral but not enough to make a mine, then the company is likely to leak exciting news to try to inflate the value to drive a short run on the stock market so they can sell their shares at a profit before they crash to nothing. If it is a real significant strike, they try to hold back the news so they and friends can buy up cheap shares before the news gets out and sends the price up. Lots of rogues in that business….. I’ve seen a geologist make $20,000 in a couple of days when a colleague passed an insider tip about another prospect. Of course a geologist isn’t allowed to speculate on the prospect he’s working on ‘cause that would be insider trading, but they give each other tips and then have a relative or friend buy shares under a different name….. The poor mugs in the city just speculating on the stock market board are a step behind, so they don’t get a chance for the easy money…. But of course someone has to fund all this risky and costly exploration….. I wish I’d been more prepared to take advantage of that opportunity when I made a real discovery later on …..

The copper price was very high that year so there was a rush to see who could find some copper, and after a whole lot of hard rough work we did eventually find a rich deposit for new mine, as you will see!

 

Black Flies

Black flies are the curse of the Canadian bush! These aren’t the ordinary pesky little bush flies that just fly into your eyes and crawl up your nose. These are after blood and bite out a bit of skin to get it. They’re very persistent and, unlike mosquitoes, can crawl in through any hole in a shirt, like the gap where the cuffs button up or a small tear. So, you must wear heavy duty long sleeve work shirts and thick jeans, even in the heat. You wouldn’t expect it to be very hot in Canada, but in summer in that muskeg country can be stifling…. The thick forest stops any breeze, and all the water underfoot makes for high humidity, and working hard so pouring with sweat all the time….. Couldn’t work there at all without powerful insect repellent, so we brought cases and cases of OFF, which was the most effective repellent in those days. Every morning it was mandatory for everyone to start out with two spray cans in their pockets so they could be sure to last out the day. Spray yourself all round the head and arms and hands, then you could see a thick halo of flies staying just outside the cloud of fumes. As the repellent evaporated and washed off with the sweat, the halo got smaller and smaller until the most persistent flies started land and bite, so had to stop and do another spray. I once heard of a helicopter being sent out at great cost just to bring more cases of OFF to a crew who had run out…..

Mosquitoes

The black flies loved the hot days, and then hoards of mosquitoes took over for the evenings and cool cloudy days. One day when we were confined to camp due to rain, I took the opportunity to hike off and look for some claim posts for the next prospect a couple of miles away. When I started out there weren’t any mosquitoes due to the cold rain, so I didn’t bring any repellent, and I didn’t think I’d be away for long, big mistake….. About the time I got to the area, the rain stopped and it became muggy and overcast, just what the mosquitoes love best. These claims had been staked in a rush, so there were overlapping claims and posts everywhere. So, it was very confusing and it took a long time to sort out. Because I didn’t bring repellent, I had to constantly swish a leafy branch around my face, and I do mean constantly, but the skeeters were still getting through and all over my hands. Only had to pause for a couple of seconds and they’d be all over the back of my hand. When I had to stop swishing long enough to write down long numbers from those claim posts I was immediately smothered with desperately hungry skeeters. When they’re that aggressive it’s easy to inhale one and that started a cough and then when I had to gulp some more air to cough harder, I’d suck in even more and it quickly got worse. It was no joke, it’s a desperate situation and it’s hard not to panic…. At one stage I had to lie down and bury my face into the grass to finally get a clear breath.

If you haven’t experienced northern Canada then you wouldn’t believe the vast hoards of starving mosquitoes just desperate for your blood. I’ve worked in a lot of tropical areas including the Amazon but the most hungry and aggressive mosquitoes by far are waiting in that northern muskeg country.

Then on the way back to camp I took a wrong turning and followed a wrong cut line. It should have led me back to camp, but in a couple of miles I realized it was a different line. There are old cut lines every direction out there, and all those lines look exactly alike and the thick forest all round means that you can only see trees that all look exactly alike. There are no landmarks and the terrain is dead flat so no way to get up and have a look around. It’s difficult terrain to navigate on foot and really easy to get totally lost….. And with the heavy overcast there was no sun to give a feeling of orientation, so I didn’t realize that the line was trending the wrong direction. I had a compass in my pocket but hadn’t taken a bearing on the line, assuming it was the only line in that general direction. Assumptions can lead to all sorts of troubles… Now this was deadly serious. Here I was, unsure of my way back to camp, late in the day with the light fading so I might have to spend the night out here. I had matches so I could have a fire, but in this sort of conifer forest without an axe to fell standing timber it was going to be only a small fire with twigs I could break off the trees. Anything fallen on the ground in that country is immediately rotten and would have soaked up the rain…. I could have survived the temperature, but without enough of a fire to sustain a smoky smudge I reckon by morning the mosquitoes would have sucked me dry. When you don’t know where you are, the safest move is to backtrack to somewhere you recognize. Eventually I found where this line branched off from the one I should have stayed on and just about dark I finally found the camp. Wet, tired, totally covered in mosquito bites, and much relieved….. And off course the guys in camp were also very relieved, cause I hadn’t returned and they had no way to help. No radio so they couldn’t call for a search and rescue chopper, and I hadn’t even told them which direction I was going so they couldn’t start their own search. I should have left them a map of where I was going, I should have carried an axe to blaze trees along the way, and of course I should have brought along a couple of cans of OFF.

In that thick bush country, you can’t see other crew members any distance away, so we used sound. The call is a high-pitched and drawn-out Coooooeee!, answered by Ooip-Ooip!. Sounds kind of like a family of coyotes yipping to each other. It carries really well and is a great way to stay in touch…. When my daughter was little, I taught her those calls in case we got separated in a shopping mall or a crowd, and we still use them sometimes. It might startle a couple of folk nearby, but is a lot less intrusive than shouting someone’s name loud enough to be heard in a noisy crowd, and immediately catches the attention of someone else speaking that ‘coyote’ language.

After spending most of the summer slogging through the muskeg in Ontario we got sent to a project in the mountains of Gaspe, Quebec. It was a big relief to be away from the muskeg and blackflies. Now we were scrambling up and down steep rocky slopes and dragging that heavy equipment along. The mountain we were surveying was a flat-topped mesa, with very steep sides. Chemical analysis of creeks flowing away from the mountain had shown strong evidence of copper in the water, so there was probably an ore body in there somewhere. A large mining company had recently surveyed the mountain with the same equipment as we were using but couldn’t find any anomaly. We got about half way through the job when I noted that the readings were unusually consistent, too consistent….. The ground was broken rock covered with a thick layer of moss. Then I realized that the electrical current was just flowing through the wet moss rather than penetrating the loose rock underneath. So, we tried pulling all the moss away from each stake, and working the stake down between the rocks to some soil. It was hard getting the stakes to penetrate enough, and the crew hated all the extra work. But now the readings had variations that actually indicated the consistency of the rock deep down. So, we had to do the first half of the job again, the hard way. It was a battle, but was well worth it, as we shall see.

By this time, it was October, and winter was closing in. Sometimes snow overnight so tramping over slippery footing and the melting snow on the bushes making for
freezing wet legs 

Someone was going to get hurt working in those hellish conditions, so I called Mo the boss in Toronto and told them we were quitting for the season. He accused us of being wimps and had to finish the prospect, then flew out to show us how. So a couple of days later when we were hiking up the logging trail to the work area with him, I noticed that I kept getting ahead and when I paused for him to catch up, he was breathing deeply and trying not to show that he was ‘puffed’. I was now powerfully fit and could charge up any mountain, while he had been sitting in the office all summer and was very unfit. I remembered with satisfaction my first day on the job when the boot was on the other foot, and he was charging ahead while I struggled…..

I gave him the light load of the receiver and we started working down the line. We only did a couple of setups when he didn’t arrive at the next setup…. So, I hiked back up the line and there he was on the ground with a broken leg…. Slipped on the bad footing and wedged his foot under a log and fell backward. He had broken the same leg a couple of years before, so he said he knew by the feel what had happened. Just as I had predicted would happen to someone, but of course I couldn’t crow about it right then. There was a young Indian boy who was exceptionally light of foot, and could go as fast as a deer over the rough terrain, so sent him back to camp to call out a 4wd to meet us up on the logging trail. We splinted Mo’s leg with sticks and surveyor’s flagging tape, then with one of us in each side of Mo we struggled to carry him back up that tangled slope. It was a hell of an effort to get him back up there, saying nothing, but lots of muttering under the breath…. The truck took him off to the hospital in town, while we went on and finished the line.

After work we went down to the hospital to see how Mo was doing. And there he was, sitting waiting, with no cast on his leg and looking most disgruntled. Turned out the leg hadn’t broken after all, but it was only his imagination that had jumped to that conclusion! Now that was really embarrassing for a guy who had such a big ego and had insisted that the workplace was safe, and after we had slogged so hard to carry him out for no real reason…. But we were gentle with him and sent him back to his office where he’d be safe, and agreed to do a few more essential lines before packing up for the season.

The drilling rig.

And I’m sure glad we did keep working, cause the big action was about to happen. A couple of days later, freezing with cold, we stopped to warm up by the big diesel engine in a drilling shack that had been set up on the prospect. The French-Canadian drillers were busy working away and the big diesel engine was roaring, so I had a look at the trays where the drill cores were laid out. And there was all the brilliant colours of the rainbow, from masses of ‘peacock ore’!!! That’s chalcopyrite, a rich copper ore, they’d struck it big!!! The work we had done had shown them where to drill and they had found the ore body!!!

Now I do have to personally take the credit for finding that ore body. If I hadn’t figured out that the current was only running through the moss and not penetrating to depth, then we would have got the same useless results as the previous company.

We were sharing the mining company camp that had a cook and a dining room instead of our usual tent. That evening I noticed that all the executives of the company were in camp, all sitting around their own table and were excited like a bunch of kids at a party. And they had reason to party cause they had just struck it rich! Then I realized that I should have some shares in this company before the news gets out to the stock market. But there were no vehicles at all in camp, even our van was gone. They had some lame excuse about having had to borrow it, but the real reason was that they didn’t want anyone to get out and spill the news before they and their family and friends could snap up the shares while they were still cheap before the public found out and the price zoomed up. Since I had done the critical work that allowed them to make the find, I was a bit disappointed that that they hadn’t cut me in on the action. So, I quietly gathered my essentials, and in the middle of the night I lit out walking. Walked all night and at daylight had to duck off the road when a couple of vehicles came in, then again when they came out with the execs on board, headed for the big city to play the stock market. Finally got a lift in a logging truck down to the town, but this was still a small town with no train or bus service. Slow hitching on a slow road, and no way to get to the big city quickly. Unfortunately, I hadn’t set up an account with a stock broker so couldn’t do anything by phone. This was 1966 so no phone or internet banking so I had to personally get all the way to my bank in Toronto to make a withdrawal.

The folk in the stock brokerage office were somewhat bemused by me still in my bush mackinaw jacket and shaggy hair and beard, wanting to buy shares with cash in hand. I thought I was bringing exciting news of a copper strike, the only one that summer, but they let me know that the news was already out and the share price had tripled already. It only went a bit higher after I bought in, then stabilized, so I didn’t make much from the stock market…… But it did become a mine and produced high grade copper ore for some years. It was the only new copper mine discovered that year.

This is the mine that we discovered.

So at least I had the adventure of helping to discover it, and that’s a great memory. I went to that job seeking adventure and I found it!

By working out in the bush with no living costs, I had saved up a good stake and was now ready to hit the road again. 

Australia here I come…….

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