There was rarely a time in my life when there wasn't a pick-up truck close by. My dad always had one for work, in addition to the family car. My first licensed vehicle was a 53 Ford pick-up with a flat head V-8 and a transmission that required double clutching. That was Johnny Ritchies old truck that I got for 75 bucks...cash of course, no payments. That would be around 1976 or so.
Me in front of dad's old Chevy truck...on a Christmas tree hunting expedition...up on the Jackson Bros logging road in the early to mid 60's.
Dad ( Ken Pearson ) digging out the Chevy. This is our old house on the corner of Whitaker and Davis Bay road.
This is what dad used the pick-up for mostly. In the winters when logging was shut down, he went back shake cutting. ( cedar shakes for house roofs ) This involved getting a permit to harvest dead and down red cedar logs. They were cut with a chainsaw into 24 inch long blocks ( shake blocks...left hand side of the photo ) The shake blocks came home to our yard, where they were hand split into 24 inch tapered roof shakes. Then packaged in a muscle powered pack frame set-up. (shake bundles are on the right hand side of the photo ) When enough bundled shakes were ready, they could be hauled to the buyer by pick-up or the buyer would send a big truck around. Some years, dad did it all...cut and packed 24 inch shakes...hauled other peoples shake blocks to the shingle mill...and drove George Boser's larger truck to pick up other shake cutters bundles. This was in the day before truck cranes...so the 3 or 5 ton truck got loaded by hand, usually only my dad. Things got tricky when the load got to be more than 8 feet off the ground, and it was necessary to throw the bundles up over your head. I'm thinking that all this bull work was why someone invented growing dope in BC...it was just so much easier than shake cutting for extra cash.
Here is someone else's video of the hand splitting process....thanks for this...YouTube is amazing!
Davis Bay, the corner of Westly and Whitaker road. Wes Anderson ( Stan Anderson's brother ) bringing home a small load of shake blocks on his Chevy truck to his house. ..in blowing snow. Wes had a mechanical splitting machine set up at home. ( old school method of working at home ) This would be in the early 70's..
And as a P.S....there are a few new photos of the Jackson Bros falling crew on the blog post "Logging Re-Posted "
Owning a pickup truck can be a costly expense. You can recoup some of your cost by monetizing your vehicle. Read on and we'll explore ways you can charge people for your services.
The first truck of my family was a 1978 Chevy Suburban. I remember that I used to ride at the back to enjoy the view of the countryside.
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