Tent Town - The Early Days
My father’s name was Alex McLeod and the following detail is a description of our time in Holberg between 1950 and 1951.
In early 1950, Dad managed to land a job working on heavy road equipment somewhere in the wilds of Vancouver Island for Marwell Construction. The plan was that he would break trail. Mom was to dispose of our worldly goods, tuck two kids under her arm and follow as soon as possible. The destination was to be Holberg, on the northern reaches of Vancouver Island.
The whole project was hush-hush as they were constructing a road from nowhere to nowhere to establish an early warning radar base, part of the Pinetree Line as we were later to discover. The road would lead from what would later become established as an air force base to the top of a mountain which would be flattened out to accommodate radomes.
We sold all our worldly belongings in Penticton, went to Vancouver to Wosk’s furniture store and bought what we needed for Holberg. I was three years of age at the time. This was loaded onto a ship and tagged for delivery to Holberg where my father would claim it upon arrival and escort it to Tent Town which was a small stretch of plank covered gravel on which our tents were erected.
All was planned to have us arrive in Port Hardy on a DC3 shortly after the furniture had been delivered. Well, we arrived alright, but Dad had forgotten to meet us. So there we were, on a landing strip in a strange place. A worried wife and two tired kids, aged two and three. Somehow Mom was able to reach Dad by radio phone to let him know that we had arrived. We managed to get a lift to Coal Harbour. A smell greeted us that I will never forget as long as I live – whale! I still remember waiting on a dock, in the dark, for something to happen. Dad somehow managed to arrive in a water taxi from Holberg and later that night we arrived in our tent in the bush. That’s all there was, a tent in the bush, no furniture. The boat came into Holberg Harbour every two weeks and Dad had forgotten to arrange to pick up the precious cargo. It was a little bit like camping for the ensuing week and a half, fun for us kids, but not much fun for Mom and Dad.
Eventually the stuff arrived and we settled into a life in the wilderness.
Tent Town consisted of about 10 house tents sitting on plank platforms built out from a plank road that rested on a bed of gravel and earth. The landscape was rather sparse as the area had recently been "logged out". Tree growth was stunted and small, and there were large stumps all over the place. In the summer, the landscape came alive with bright pink and red fireweed. The location of our tent was where the Pinauds presently have their trailer situated. Out back of our tent was a large marsh area where one could almost always see wild deer and the odd moose. Cougars were plentiful, and as I recall, somewhat of a hazard in the area. We lived there for about a year and a half, through the winter and rain seasons (this area, as I understand it, boasts record rainfall every year for Vancouver Island). Small lizards, slugs and the odd rat were the resident wildlife.
Just before tuning in one evening, rather than use the "potty" in the tent, Dad took me out (in the dark) to pee off the edge of our tent platform. This exercise was tricky at best because of the guy ropes that held the tent erect. I thought I had tripped over a cat. Dad quickly illuminated my gymnastics to discover that I had tripped over a dead rat. Bit of a shock for someone who had never encountered a rat before. We did our duty and returned to the warmth of the tent.
Shopping was unheard of. There was no place to shop other than catalogs and offers found on the backs of Kellogg’s Corn Flakes boxes. To get our groceries, a list would be prepared and dropped off at the Union Steamship Lines office in Holberg. Two weeks later, a ship would come into Holberg inlet to drop off our groceries and pick up the new lists. The ship would then continue to all the other remote towns and villages around the island and repeat the process. I can vividly remember the trek to get to Holberg. If we were lucky, it was on the back of a construction truck, but many times, it was a hike! When we arrived, all the kids were wearing life vests. At that time there were approximately 350 people living there, all in houses built on rafts! We would stand on the docks and throw pebbles at the jellyfish in the bay.
As I recall there were quite a few kids in Tent Town, ranging in age from toddler to about six. There was no school close by so I assume that we were all of pre-school age. On my fourth birthday, all the kids in the settlement were invited over for my party. After the bash, we all lined up on the front riser step for pictures. The film was eventually used us and sent in for processing about a month later.
When we finally received the developed pictures, with all us kids in our party hats, with whistles and balloons, directly under the platform on which we were standing, was the face of a cougar. Dad loaded up his 30-30 rifle to go and have a look, but by now, whatever it was had left. We expect that he might have been living in the box that our stove came in. Dad immediately conducted marksmanship classes with mother, where the road ended, just east of our tent. Cougars and bears were fairly commonplace in the area.
While we lived there, a cougar apparently attacked a trapper, came through the window of his cabin one night. Despite severe injuries, he was able to subdue the animal. The story was published in Argosy magazine, with the usual flourish of literary license, but the facts were quite accurate. It was a very large cat. As I recall, it was hung by its feet in front of the floating butcher shop in Holberg for all to see. There are photographs of Dad and I standing beside the beast, with Dad holding its head, and me holding its tail. Due to the record size of the cat, the tail was removed and sent to UBC in Vancouver and the rest of the carcass was given to the "bottom feeders" in Holberg Bay.
I remember Stump Lake, situated on the north side of Tent Town. That is where we got our drinking water, and where the adults took an occasional dip, with a bar of soap. Nobody in Tent Town would know the luxury of a real bath until they again reached the "outside". There was a small wooden boat that always had water in the bottom, probably due to the rainfall in the area. I do remember Dad taking me out in the boat upon occasion.
As it was always wet there, we wore gum boots most of the time. I vividly recall walking over to a pile of wood, and getting a nail right through my boot and into my foot. I cried all the way home. Mom dressed it with mercurochrome and a band aid, and sent me back out to play. Sure enough, there I was on the same wood pile again, and repeated the performance with still another nail. Who ever it was that said "once bitten twice shy" didn’t have anything on me! Slugs and lizards were a part of life. I can remember "spitting" on these unwary creatures as a form of entertainment.
We spent a lot of time back in the bush and ate a lot of berries and things. How we never managed to poison ourselves is beyond comprehension. Some of the kids in the group must have known what was good and what was bad to eat.
One day, a package arrived at the post office. It contained two brand new shiny red plastic pistols. The people at Kellogg’s evidently had some wizard invest this marvelous toy. When you pulled the trigger, a roll of paper would shoot out of the barrel. It then took a Rhodes Scholar to reload the damn thing.
We listened to the radio a lot. Mom had purchased a Westinghouse short wave radio capable of receiving the ship-to-shore channel, to find out when our groceries were due to arrive. We also were able to pick up a number of other stations, mostly late at night due to the remote nature of our encampment. Music was provided by Hank Snow, Dennis Day and a collection of Guy Lombardo’s greatest hits via 45 rpm records that Mom had purchased to pass the long days and nights.
It was an adventure for us kids, but I must say that Mom and Dad really had a challenge in their hands in those days.
This detail was provided by Rod McLeod for use on the Pinetree Line web site in October 1998. Photo cedits: Alex & Rose McLeod - Marwell Construction Company Limited. You can contact Rod via email message at ramcleod@home.com
