When I returned to the Bulkley Valley after completing journalism school, it was an act of failure.
I’d sent resumés to so many newspapers across Canada, most of the dailies, from my student room near the University of Western Ontario, in London. (It’s a great old-style university by the way, which doesn’t get that much recognition.)
But nary a peep in response. In the early seventies there was a downturn in the economy just as I finished school. I often gave that as my mumbled excuse.
Back I came to the Bulkley Valley in northern British Columbia, with its far-off mountains running up close to loom over the small town of Smithers. The just-off-Main-Street Hudson Bay Mountain towered, its glacier and ski-runs gleaming in the sun.
My home, the home of my heart, a log cabin where three boys and their widowed mother all grew up, lay 20 miles or so farther east from the Town of Smithers, out past Telkwa and Quick to what we called Deep Creek in those days.
After my disappointment at the lack of clamoring for my services, I returned to the home place. But all the available work seemed to be in Smithers, so I took a room there.
I found employment as a Child Care Worker at the Ministry of Human Resources or whatever its name was then, for the provincial government. Child Care Workers were a definite step down from Social Workers’ positions, but that was the best I could do with just a psychology degree (prior to the journalism diploma, don’t you know).
Not quite sure what to do with me, the ministry put me in charge of the town’s teenage drop-in centre. This was basically a two-room shack at the edge of a park a few blocks from the centre of town.
Provider of life wisdom
Of introverted and easily annoyed character, I was not really the best type to ride herd while distributing life wisdom to boisterous, even out-of-control young bucks.
There were a few girls drifting about, but most who frequented the drop-in were guys. They were mainly there for the ratty pool table and the rock music emanating from a worn but nicely loud phonograph system. One of those combo phonograph and AM-FM radio furniture units. The high-decibel band Nazareth was a big favorite.
At 23 years old, I was only seven, eight years older than these kids. And, like, I’m really mature. And I was supposed to do what with these juvenile delinquents?
I want to write more about them someday, but I’m trying to get to the Telkwa High Road!
Let me give you a brief layout. Highway 16 runs its ribbon of asphalt two-lanes roughly east and west. West to Prince Rupert. East to Prince George. In our most frequented part of that road, we’d drive through the rolling terrain of trees and farms and fields, from Quick up over to Telkwa, where the Telkwa and Bulkley Rivers combine, than through that brief dip in the road to Smithers. If you kept going for quite a few hours, you’d run into Terrace and eventually the sun setting over the port of Prince Rupert.
Heading towards Smithers, turn right in downtown Telkwa to get on what we called the Maclure Lake Road. Maclure or Tyee Lake lies close above Telkwa.
And that’s the start of the Telkwa High Road, so-called because it parallels Highway 16 at an upland altitude, from Telkwa across various Babine Lake Roads and keeping on well past Smithers to the native village of Moricetown, famous for the precariousness of the old-time fishermen spearing salmon from the cliffs of its narrow river canyon.
At one turn along the way, you can head off to Driftwood Canyon and its 50-million year old fossils of redwood and gingko, ichneumon wasps and prehistoric trout and salmon.
Since the High Road ran in the uplands, often the views at sunset or from certain over-the-valley vistas opened onto a magnificence of sky and mountains and weather.
A farm on the High Road
In that year of my discontent as the manager of the drop-in center, I joined three other fellows roughly in my age group as we rented a farm on the Telkwa High Road above Smithers.
We only rented the farmhouse. The outbuildings and barn were there, but not for our use.
The four of us knew each other from the ministry social circles in town, or from parties, or through my mother who was deep in the social whirl. Two, Eric and Ron, were social workers. Rick was a slightly younger guy with long black hair who mostly went to parties, played guitar and tried to charm the ladies. He was an ingratiating and probably smart young man, doing what he wanted to do, and the other three of us weren’t that picky, we kind of liked him, and we needed somebody to share the rent.
One of the social workers I think had the relationship with the farmer which enabled the rental, and we found ourselves living in this ramshackle farmhouse on a knoll overlooking wide sloping fields of hay.
All four of us seemed to be between girlfriends or in dysfunctional relationships.
I had a broken down car of some kind. I commuted from the farmhouse to the drop-in centre every weekday, a 10-15 minute drive.
Memories
I remember two things the most from our time there. One was the great parties we managed to have. I’m not really a party guy, but the four of us worked together to put on these shindigs. The music was loud and rocking, and that was my department.
At one of these parties, I remember in late afternoon walking towards the barn with a group of people, smoking a variety of substances. I remember discussion of cocaine, which at that time in the early seventies was often considered innocuous, its addictive qualities thought to be exaggerations by the anti-marijuana crowd. There was no cocaine at this party, that I knew about anyway. But I find its mention interesting because although we lived far, far away from the centers of anything, in a rural place called a High Road, we were still connected to the impact of distant North American culture.
The other prominent memory I have, which still makes me grin at our youth and interests, were the tense team chess sessions the four of us had, while smoking whatever strong weed young Rick came across.
Ripped out of our minds, somehow we could really focus on these games. In teams of two we debated and bickered with each other about the next move, while giving the other team the gears about the quality of their previous one. Occasionally we would separate and whisper so our devious plans could not be overheard and then we would return to the table, confident.
We very formally recorded each move under our names and the date. I wish I had just one of those old game scores. That would be fun to play over….
Of course, sometimes we didn’t complete the games, distracted by animated discussions or just wanting to chill with the rock music we all liked. Pink Floyd’s Meddle was often played.
A dream fragment
Oh, there’s one other memory, almost like a dream fragment. It was a golden summer afternoon, late in our sojourn at the farmhouse, just before I found a job as a reporter/photographer with the town’s weekly newspaper. I read a book while propped up on the mowed lawn. I listened through speakers brought outdoors to the Beatles’ Abbey Road album.
Eric, the cooler one of the pair of social workers, came and sat outside not far away, and listened too.
My favorite part of the album is the second half of the second half, from “Golden Slumbers” onward. I put down my book.
Once there was a way to get back homeward
Once there was a way to get back home
Boy, you’re going to carry that weight, carry that weight a long time
And in the middle of the celebrations, I break down
On to the drumming and guitar solos of “The End” which always electrify me and then the song glides quietly onto
The love you take
is equal to the love you make
My companion rose up and against a leg dusted the wide-brimmed hat he always wore. “That will last.”
We shared a moment, with that music, and then I agreed.
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