It was the late 1980s. Dad was finally teaching as a full-fledged post-secondary teacher. We'd
escaped High Level Alberta (another awesome story). Thanks to a few connections and one of the vice-superintendents being a fan of Dad's, he'd managed to land this fringe job teaching at the tiny 2-room alternate school in Two-mile. We first lived in a single-wide trailer on a hill in Two-mile, and after a year or so we upgraded to a double-wide trailer very close to the alternate school. Shortly after moving the teachers in the district went on strike, and Dad had to find us an affordable place to live.
Up until
High Level, Dad had been teaching on a "letter of permission," meaning he did not have a degree in education or a certificate, but was allowed to teach by the Terrace district, and was also paid as little as possible. At the alternate school Dad was a "proper" teacher but he felt unsupported at the school. He enjoyed his students and taught them life skills such as cooking and cleaning - but even to this he added flair. I remember he taught students how to cook Oolichan fish when they ran in the spring, he made exploding homemade root beer (I think the stains are still on the ceiling in that building), and delighted in teaching woodworking when he got the chance.
When teachers decided to strike I remember him supporting the strike, and explaining to me that at the time, teachers were expected to personally bear too much of the cost of education. One of his issues was that the district refused to reimburse him for ruined clothes as the result of breaking up fights - something he could barely afford. I should say that this being Dad's first strike, and perhaps with him being an idealist, he supported it; however, he never really felt supported in his teaching career and ultimately became jaded and indifferent to strike action. He didn't know it at the time, but this strike would end up going down in BC history as one of the longest and ugliest, ultimately wiping out an entire school year in the District, and Dad was going to have to figure out how to live and feed his family on meager strike pay.
There are varying accounts on how we ended up at the abandoned house exactly - I remember that the owners of the double-wide were repossessing it and Dad was forced to find us a place to live, Mom remembers that Dad proactively went out and found the log house as a cost saving measure. Maybe both are true? I wish I could ask Dad the story one more time...
Anyhow, I do remember a lot of it. I would have been about nine years old. Dad did a deal with I think the Carleys, a logging family out in the Kispiox Valley. They owned a quarter-section of land on the Kispiox River that used to be owned by the Salvation Army. The Sally Ann had operated a correctional facility for boys called "Miracle Valley" that was abandoned after it was revealed that the man of the cloth running the facility was sexually abusing boys there. Not long after shutting down, locals went and trashed the place. The log house was supposed to be the staff residence, but allegedly was never finished and never lived in. The old "school," a 2-story structure down the road where the abuses happened, was almost completely destroyed.
Area map: Dad taught in 2-Mile, in between New and Old Hazelton. We moved from there to the Log House to save precious dollars in rent.
The deal was that Dad would fix up the Miracle Valley log house in exchange for rent. Mr. Carley would supply materials, Dad would supply labour. We were being home-schooled this year. I was in grade 4 and Rebekah was in grade 2. I was lucky because Dad decided to bring me with him as he went out to the log house to prepare it for us to move in. We had roughly a month to take it from an empty shell to... something before we moved in. I remember pulling hundreds of nails. Dad was able to recruit a small army of helpers. Fellow trades teachers, also on strike, donated their time. Mr. Bill Blackburn was one of the volunteers, as was Mr. Jones. A local church-going electrician, Norman Watt, also cheerfully came and helped with the wiring.
Did I mention the time of year? This was all happening in December. We were set to move in January 1st, come hell or high water. The house was actually in the middle of nowhere - there was only one reclusive person living on that road, and it was seldom used and a dead-end. I remember Dad had to go pay a fee to get the driveway plowed, and he put a marker at the end of the driveway for the plow. I also remember being there once working when it snowed heavily. All the vehicles got stuck, including the landlord's backhoe, and we were rescued only when the 6-wheel drive grater came along and towed all the vehicles out.
Rebekah remembers going out to work on the house once, and crying because her feet were so cold. Dad sat on some stairs, called Rebekah over, took off her boots, and warmed her feet under his armpits. Dad seemed impervious to the cold - we also remember how he'd sometimes go topless even in the winter. One of my memories is of him working outside without a shirt, smiling as snow flakes landed on him and melted.
Prior to moving in Dad and his team managed to get all the exterior windows installed, and all the exterior doors. The house wiring was started, even though there was no connection to the grid. He also managed some basic plumbing, and we'd salvaged most of the copper pipe from the trashed school up the road. I remember him teaching me to find and check the pipe for splitting. When we moved in the house was not yet insulated, and still was without many essentials including heat, water, sewer, electricity, interior doors, flooring, a waterproof roof, and stairs to the upstairs. Oh and did I mention a bathroom? Our bathroom consisted of a 5-gallon pail behind a sheet hung from the ceiling. As the oldest I had a number of chores including taking that damn bucket outside multiple times a day.
That winter was COLD. So damn COLD. We ended up camping around the fireplace in the living room, only to discover that it was not only purely decorative but actually removed any heat from the house once lit. We'd eventually got a used wood stove installed in the basement (from someone in Telkwa as I remember), but we spent a lot of cold days and nights huddled together in the living room in our sleeping bags and buried under layers of blankets. We cooked on a camp stove, and as a bonus didn't need a fridge or freezer - in fact, most mornings we'd have to thaw out the milk. Dad made a homemade "fridge" by drilling a hole through the wall and building a box around the hole. It was at these times that Dad would lift us by telling us stories and reading us books at night. It was here that he first read us the Hobbit and all three Lord of the Rings books by coleman lantern at night.
Dad turned 34 that January. He had four kids, ranging from three to nine years old. Here he is with his birthday cake in the log house. We thought we were so funny when we reversed his numbers on his cake so it said 43 instead of 34.
Dad would later say that it took weeks to get that house warm once the wood stove was installed downstairs. It wasn't just heat that was a problem though - we quickly found that water - especially drinking water - was a severe problem. Dad had installed a pump in the nearby stream, which in the winter was covered with many inches of ice. Because the ground was frozen, he couldn't bury the water line, which ran across the driveway to the house. The line would freeze almost daily. Dad would disconnect the line, bring it inside and warm it, then run it back outside, reconnect the line, turn on the pump, and leave the water running hoping it wouldn't freeze (which it would, every night). My sister Rebekah and I would take a bucket, hatchet, and cup down to the stream, cut through the ice, then scoop water into the bucket and carry it up to the house. Mom proclaimed a divine miracle when one day Rebekah and I discovered water coming out from a bank of earth across the road. We had broken icicles and found flowing water behind, this made gathering water much much easier.
Over the year Dad worked very very hard. He'd sometimes ride his bike - even in the winter - to the strike line so we could have the Volkswagon van if we needed it. When at home he worked as hard as he could to make our home comfortable. The progress was amazing. He took pride in his work, and loved adding hand crafted flourishes where he could. It was still winter when BC Hydro came to connect us to the grid. By then the novelty of camping had long worn off. I remember Dad insisting that I come along with the Hydro crew to "help," and I also remember being thrilled that I - and I alone - was tasked with running spools of wire from the Hydro truck to the work crew.
Our time at the log house was one of the saddest, most painful, lonely, and yet happiest for me. The stress of the situation compounded a number of other issues and I remember Dad and Mom fighting - a lot. I remember huddling with my siblings trying to comfort them during the fights. On the other hand I remember Dad taking swaths of time to patiently teach us. He encouraged us to be strong, creative, and inter-dependent. Many other things were added to our home schooling, including building weather bottles (barometers) with balloons on top and gathering up and hatching frog eggs.
Map of the Log House and "Miracle Valley" Ranch, as it looks today. Note the Log House and Ranch were the only structures at the time, although the field around the pond had been cleared. The old potato fields and the roads were already there.
As another example it was here that Dad, in the summer, took us down to the river and actually encouraged us to jump into the "rapids" up from the swimming pool. He taught Rebekah and I to hold our knees to our chest through the rough water, and delighted in teaching us to catch a back-eddy and swim out. I remember him encouraging me to swim across the river, and not to be afraid of the current. Seeing my fear, he smiled and said "I will do it with you." I was terrified, and he wouldn't give up until I finally swam across with him. We got to the other bank, and he smiled at me and said "see, I knew you could do it!"
Many years later I had to jump into that same river to save a drowning man as many others looked on, too afraid to jump in. As I held my breath, angled into the current, and swam under to grab the man, I thought of Dad, and his words "see, I knew you could do it!" As people thanked me I in turn thanked my Dad for teaching me.
Sophia remembers being down by the river and seeing the salmon spawning. We were scared of the salmon, but Dad told us not to fear. Rebekah and I remember swimming with the salmon, feeling them bump into us as we swam.
Dad taught us to love the outdoors here. He nurtured my drive to create and build things while we lived here. Inspired by Lord of the Rings, I made Rebekah and I suits of armour from scrap house wires and leftover cardboard. We'd make "forts" outside and play prince and princesses, knights and explorers. He delighted in teaching me how to make proper boats with working electric motors out of scraps and styrofoam egg cartons (and a hot glue gun). He built a pond on the property I think only so we could test our boats! He also taught me about how airplanes work, and made small models with me out of styrofoam. He loved to take the littler kids - Jonathan and Sophia - for walks, and in the winter did his best to make us luge tracks on the driveway.
Rebekah remembers us getting a full load of raw logs, delivered and dumped behind the house. Mom, Dad, and I started bucking up the logs - and Rebekah was jealous that I was allowed to use a chainsaw but not her (she was 7, I was 9). Denied the chainsaw, Rebekah would delight in getting to use the hatchet to break through the ice to get to the water. It was here that Dad taught us to cut kindling from dry wood.
She also remembers "the bear story." Dad was with our three younger cousins (Aliah, Joshua, and Faith). They were walking down to the potato patch and ran into a mother bear and her two cubs on the road. Dad froze, and the mother bear chased her cubs up a tree. Dad loved telling this story, as the kids started climbing up him, and cousin Joshua managed to scramble right up to Dad's head, and had a death-grip on Dad's hair, and one hand over one of Dad's eyes. Joshua had a stutter and said "U-u-u-uncle u-u-uncle Ian, there's a BEAR!" We had a phenomenally tough shepard-wolf cross dog called "Doe." Dad loved telling this story. The mother bear charged at Dad and the kids, and Doe attacked the bear, biting its rear end. The bear turned and ran back towards the cubs, with Doe at the heels. Once near the tree, the bear, cornered, attacked Doe and Doe ran back towards Dad. Once close to Dad, Doe would turn, cornered, and attack the bear. Dad loved to tell how the bear and dog chased each other back-and-forth, and all over the field while Dad slowly backed up the driveway with kids attached to various parts of his body.
When fall rolled around Dad was back to work. The Log House now had a fully finished top two floors, and had proper plumbing and electricity and was essentially a new house from top to bottom. Us kids had our own rooms, what would be the last time for many years. It was comfortable, and it was our home. Dad was pre-approved for a mortgage for the first time in his life, but didn't have a dime for the required downpayment. The landlord offered the property and house to Dad for $60,000 - the most Mom and Dad could afford at the time. I remember they seriously considered this amazing offer, but ultimately decided it was too remote and lonely for our family. We ended up moving back to Two-Mile, to a small house with 2.5 acres, a couple horses, and right next door to our cousins. We lived in this house for the longest stretch - almost six years, but I'll save that story for another time.
For us older two siblings especially, the Log House is still a defining experience in our lives. It's a great story of Dad's creativity, resilience, and hard work. I only wish he was still around to tell this story "one more time."
-Jacob
