The following year and at the age of 15, I was 6'1" and 196 lbs. I had made it through another School term, including another season of midget hockey. We had suffered the usual losses and I had just gotten over a fractured foot that took me out of the game, It happened accidentally when I playing defense, and I was struck by the heel of a hockey stick across the top of my foot.
A painful recovery indeed. When it happened, my coach and I both thought the injury was just a bruise I would get over in a few minutes, but that wasn't the case. My next shift out made the pain even worse, so I was benched for the rest of the game.
The 1/2 mile walk home was a real chore and I had to sit several times on a plowed snowbank before I finally reached home. My mother insisted I should see our family doctor and called him to see if he could examine me right away due to the discomfort I was in.
We had no car in the family at the time, so a taxi was arranged for me and I was whisked up to the Doctor's office. He confirmed it was broken and he placed my foot and lower leg in a plaster walking cast. I walked home due to the fact there was not enough money to hire a taxi for the return trip.
At this stage in my story I'll express how Fernie B.C. was fortunate to have exceptional doctors, considering it was only a town of 3500 people in a Coal mining, not rich environment. They all operated out of the same Clinic that was led by a well known family practitioner and surgeon named Dr. George La Rue. He was accompanied by his younger brother Dr. John La Rue, Dr. McRichie and Dr. East. The situation with George La Rue was that, although he was involved in many delicate operations in large hospitals in the U.S. and Canada, he loved the town and beautiful surroundings so much, he moved to the area just for that. He was truly a blessing to the town.
It was an era when Doctors still made house calls, worked together in some cases such as a mine accident that involved several injured men. It wasn't uncommon to have explosions or cave-ins in one of the several underground mines in the Crows Nest Region. I believe the Comradarie was much greater than it is today. Night calls at home were common.
Fortunately for our family, right around the same time I had my misfortune, my mother was standing on a tall stool attempting to hang some curtains over a window, lost her footing and plunged to the floor and shattered her left ankle. It was terribly broken and the other doctors determined that she should have her foot removed. Dr. George La Rue knew the circumstances of our large, father absent family and although being away, called and requested they not do it until he arrived home. He arrived back in Fernie and immediately rushed to the hospital. He told my mother he was going to try to save her foot and immediately started his attempt to do just that. For hour upon hour, he placed all the fractured pieces together with screws and wires. Then he totally immobilized her entire leg with a cast that required her to lay on her back for what seemed like forever. Slowly, over the course of a year, her leg healed through all the pain and misery she was experiencing. There was an ever present fear of infection. Many times us kids cried for fear of interruption of our mother's recovery. Frequent visits by Dr. La Rue ensued. She was our rock and we couldn't lose her. We didn't, and she eventually was able to have the last cast removed for good and slowly began placing weight on her foot.
It took several years before she could walk without a noticeable limp, but as she got into her older years, she could walk quite normally but with a slight swelling in her ankle that never went away. She had no lasting pain from it.
It wasn't the last time Dr. La Rue was to be involved in the lives of our family because when ever some medical attention was required in our family, we would call for him. I'll always feel blessed that he was in our lives throughout the growing and adult lives of our years.
To continue my own experience at the age of 15, I was able to hire back on with the same Topographical Survey crew from the year before, when we did the Elk Valley job. However, this time it was mapping the Flathead range to the East of Fernie, B.C. and the Flathead valley stretched from Corbin Alta. all the way to the U.S. border, just north of Kalispel, Montana. The road was a 4 wheel drive trail ,very similar to the Upper Elk Valley road.
This time, there was a ranch similar to the McGinnis Ranch in the Elk Valley. It was owned by Len Washburn, an old retired Game Warden who retired to resume guide and outfitting for American hunters in the Flathead range. He too had a cowboy there who tended to things named Fred Harbinson.
When our camp was established close to there, Walter Walls, another school classmate, and I would visit there for hours in the evening and listen to his stories of the past. He told us once about how, when the hunting season came, they would take the hunters out into a range area where the Elk were herded together and the Elk weren't frightened of them as long as they remained on horseback. The hunters would find a "Trophy" bull to their liking and shoot it. It was almost unfair because Elk are usually the most difficult of the Deer family to hunt. They're normally very evasive after they hear the first few shots fired in the hunting season.
The sad part about it was the hunters only wanted the head, so they would leave the rest of the animal to be devoured by the other animals such as coyotes , wolves and bears. There were plenty of those, too, so the meat really didn't go to waste, I guess. But those were the days when anybody would have loved to have it on their table. No one had any interest in packing them out.
The cowboy had plenty of stories to tell and we enjoyed hearing them all. To soon, the evening was done.
Since we were mapping the rivers and streams as well as the mountain ridges, we were often required to take the creek bed elevations every 50 ft. or so all the way up to their source. this mean't having to wade up the center of the creek to do it. It was also spawning season and the large lake trout from the Flathead Lake in Montana would swim up the tributaries to lay their eggs. Often we could see and feel them brush against our legs on their way upstream. Being up to 15 or 20 lbs., we managed to snare a couple and take them back to the camp to have them baked for dinner. I must say, there's no better tasting fish than a trout or landlocked salmon cooked on the same day.
The job lasted a little better than a month from start to finish, so we still had a month of vacation from school to go to work somewhere else. In the meantime though, I had never been to a bigger city, so Walter and I decided to go to Calgary Alta. for a week before we went to work at Bricker's farm bringing in the hay crop. We boarded the Greyhound bus in Fernie immediately after I went to Trites Woods general store where I was measured up for some gabardine strides with the narrow ankles that were in style, and I hadn't afforded to buy some earlier. Walter Walls already had some, and I wanted the same. Away for Calgary 200 miles we went to stay at his Dads place. For me it was a first time experience and went we arrived that night the city downtown section was all dazzling lights. From the bus station we boarded a transit bus to Walter's Dad's home. Separated from Walter's mother for several years, his Dad hadn't seen Walter for that long either. His father broke down in tears when we surprised him and I must say it was an emotional meeting, but a happy one. We thoroughly enjoyed the visit there, also visiting the Calgary Zoo 2 days in a row as well. The time raced by and soon it was time to go back home to work for the rest of the summer. The trip was uneventful and when we arrived there Walter went home and I headed to Trites Woods to pick up my ready and waiting strides.
I paid the clerk $15.00, which was a lot in those days, and took them home. I had missed my Mom and I spent some time with her, telling of my visit to the "big" City. Tired from the excitement of it all, I retired to bed early.
The next morning I woke up early and anxious to wear my new pants, proceeded to put them on. to my very unpleasant surprise, No matter how I tried, I couldn't pull them over my size 11&1/2 feet!!
What a disappointment that was!! The store wouldn't refund my money but they gave me a $15.00 credit on a $100.00 gabardine overcoat. Good salesman, that guy. Now I was broke and looked forward to working the rest of the summer on the farm. Walter's feet were smaller so he went to the store and bought them for $7.00. All's well that ends well, I guess.
The farm work and haying season came on us and away we went. It's another memorable event and a time that all us kids involved in it would jell into a group that would stick together up into our early adult years. Me, Walter Walls, Alan Neidig, Don Pisoni, Peter Elkington, Jack Brown, Clifford Corrigan, Frankie Lynch and Harold Lewis were to spend a lot of time getting in and out of mischief in the coming years.
The work was often tough, but to say the least, healthy, and we were all at the muscle building stage in our lives anyway. I'm sure we were all fortified with good breakfasts before leaving our homes, but when lunch time arrived, we were more than ready for that too. I could really eat in those days and this was one time when coming from a poor family paid off. Most everyone else had sandwiches of store bought bread and mine were made from my mother's home made bread, and as far as I'm concerned, the tastiest.
Peter Elkington was from a more well-off family and loved the taste of Mom's bread, so I would trade him one sandwich for two of his. Mine were made with thick, fresh lettuce from our garden combined with cheese and mayonaise. His were made from deli meats etc. It was a treat for both of us in the respect he loved my sandwiches and I rarely ate store bought bread with deli meats, so it was a good trade.Then we would share a sandwich made from homemade jam and peanut butter. There was never any sandwiches left over from anybody, let me say that! We all had our jobs to do and we did them.
The Roberts family actually lived on the Bricker farm and they were a large family comparable to ours, and the father was a regular worker on the farm
Mr. Roberts was an elderly man and saw to it that his sons did their share of work during the summer months on the farm. Although a poor family, he had been an officer in the Northwest Mounted police back before their name was changed to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. (RCMP)
He was a man of few words, but knew how to speak when he had to.
Later that summer his oldest son Albert, along with another kid, were suspected of robbing a horse's harness. They were hauled into court and as the proceeding went on, the Sergeant presented a written confession by the other kid implicating his son. They were both charged with the same theft.
After the document was read aloud by the magistrate, he ordered Albert to stand up to declare whether he was guilty or not. At that moment Mr. Roberts stood up and requested to speak on his son's behalf. Magistrate Marshall told him to proceed. He looked at the Magistrate and said," You ought to be ashamed of yourself in allowing this proceeding to go on this way". He continued, turning to the Sergeant, "I want you to know something. I was a Sergeant in the Northwest Mounted Police when you were still sucking on your Momma's teat, I know the law, and you and I both know the court can't use one accomplice charged with the same crime to testify against the other." "I'm requesting this whole case be dismissed."
The embarrassed Magistrate, quickly dismissed the case against them. Then Mr. Roberts turned to his son, pointed his finger at him and said, "I'll never step into the courtroom for you ever again" and left the room.
Few people knew of Mr. Roberts' past, but every one looked at him with a higher regard after that incident.
Labor Day came and it was back to school once again.
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