WRITER - Truck Logger -
Riverdance (Continued)
Aboard The Hunter
Operating this huge and expensive and magnificent Z-drive demands all the attention you can give it. For, unlike a traditional boat, that requires forward-reverse-forward-reverse action to maneuver, this baby has twin propellers at the back, each of which can easily rotate 360 degrees at the flick of a joystick. Which means that this tug will do practically anything Captain Bob Olson asks of it. Barely touching the two matching sticks, each with its own electronic read-out, Captain Bob can spin this thing around on a dime and spit you a nickel change. And it doesn’t hurt having that extra drive right in front just about dead centre of the bow. With all this power and maneuverability, you can pull a fully loaded ocean-going vessel from your high front end without ever confronting the fear of swamping yourself.
Olson’s favorite tugboat story (other than the sockeye and oolichan catches, of course) concerns the day he stood on the dock and watched a near-disaster unfold. A self-dumping log barge was loaded flush to the top with hemlock. A tiny dozer idled alongside. Someone dutifully opened the ballast to tip the barge. The load was clearly too high and top heavy. In a matter of seconds the whole thing flew over on its side, sending its murderous cargo flying into the water. Captain Bob was madly snapping pictures assuming that he was recording a horrible tragedy. Instead, a small River Miracle: every single bit of that hemlock flew over the top of that little dozer, harming, in the end, absolutely nobody.
Shipmate Wilf Wilson had his own near-death experience - early on, of course. “I went out on deck to take a pee, and suddenly I’m in the water. ‘Course I’m too young and stupid to be afraid. So I grab hold of one of our towlines, not thinking, of course, that I can have my hands chewed off, my arms yanked out, or be pulled under and into a propeller. Thank God, after what seemed like 6 hours, but was probably just a few minutes, one of the guys happened out on deck and saw me and here I am 25 years later.”
All the while, these two work in unspoken concert with one another. They pull another of these giant cargo ships from its narrow berth, turn it round, point it down river and watch as Pilot Bill Burnett runs the boat under its own power towards the Alex Fraser Bridge.
The folks in the condos and the gingerbread houses dotting the banks of the North Arm are complaining less these days. First they bought for the scenic view; then they bitched because the scenic view had sound effects: tug engines, horns, Morse Code being kept alive in case the radios ever fail.
Slowly – inevitably – The River has won them over. It is The River that for all these years has taken the logs and chips and fuels and machine parts. It is The River that has linked the enterprise of the Coast and The North with the cities and The South. It is The River and the men who wouldn’t give you the world for a 9-to-5. It is The River and the men who keep The Dance alive.
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