Mike Pearson's Adventures on a Pale Blue Dot

I went on a short day trip with an old Sunshine Coast buddy yesterday. When I say old, that means that we have known each other for around 25 years or so. Old... has nothing to do with the fact that this guy is approaching 80 years old, and drives a SUV on bad days, a BMW convertible on nice days, and owns a 300 horsepower boat. I met him back in the days when I was building marine structures, boathouses, docks, a floating store...and the such. I met this fella, when he approached me about building a set of boat ways on his waterfront property. We seemed to get along from the get-go...and away we went from there. That would be me...back in the late 80's...early 90's building a boathouse for a 55 ft Fleming motoryacht...the photo was taken by my dad Building curved docks...back in days gone by We both live in Vancouver now, but his boat stayed on the coast, in a marina boathouse. ( I'll get to the JCB story in a minute ) My friend paid a local guy to start the ...

I was poking around....here and there, and I found a few photos that you night enjoy. Plus..at the end, a great video that documents the history of logging in the Squamish area. It features a ton of film/video of seldom seen operating old time logging equipment True story...this is the hospital that I was born in....Garden Bay BC...back in 19something something.  The hospital was built to treat loggers who got hurt in the surrounding mountains and inlets. It was too far, and too much of a wait to go to Vancouver...too many men suffered and died, before they could get treatment. Opened in 1930. 1st Pacific truck...built in Vancouver, and getting shipped to Newfoundland P-16 with a spar One of Doug Sladey's trucks Lake Cowichan log train Harrison Lake steam yarders Campbell River steam donkey Vancouver Island 1987 Truck mounted log boom ...Quesnel 1950 2 man chain saw Nice tires...looks like this might have been a 2 trailer set-...

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 block...