WRITER - Truck Logger -
Riverdance
Question: What’s between you and being crushed by the Titanic?
Answer: A few old tires.
Look up! A rust-red steel wall that ends somewhere in the heavens with the rigging of a modern ocean-going cargo ship. Look down! The churning froth of The River being agitated by the diesel engines of one leviathan and one buzz-bee of a boat. Such is the view from the deck of a working tug on the mighty Fraser. The two craft couldn’t be more unlike and yet, where is the music? For, sure as there is freshet in spring, this is a tango, a waltz, a push-pull dance of a David and Goliath who are bound in purpose.
Confucius say, “B.C. built on end of tow line.”
Or maybe it was Captain Russ Cooper of Westminster Tug who said that. Or maybe it was his grandfather, who in 1919 was piloting “The Shuswap,” a steam driven tug that hauled barges from Mary Hill to Steveston. It is these men, these boats, these forest products and this great River that have carried the through line of the British Columbia drama for well over a hundred years now. There are fewer tugs, fewer barges and booms today, but The Dance continues. Without it, we would be Regina.
Russ Cooper’s office is exactly what a Captain’s office should be: awards, citations, clocks and chronometers, photos of favorite tugs and a great expansive set of windows that allows him to look right at “The Hyack” and “The Hunter” and his other expensive children dockside below the Westminster Quay. Captain Russ knew at the age of 6 that he would be a Tugboat Master. And so he is. His company, Westminster Tug Boats Inc., is still a private, family-run, hands-on business. (He hasn’t had a union grievance in as long as he can remember. “I got a problem? I get right down there with the guys and see what we have to work out.”) Nevertheless, given the extraordinary economics of today’s logging markets, Westminster is a part of Rivtow. And Rivtow, which in turn operates as its own identity, is a part of the huge and well-healed Smit International.
The new steel-hulled Z-drives start in the range of $3.5Million. The big escort tugs found along the Coastal routes in the Excited States can run $11Million. And rumors persist of an Australian beauty built recently for $20Million.
Aboard The Hyack
Captain Randy and his shipmate, Scott, have a simple assignment: push and pull the “Taurus” into dockside so that it can load up with a shipment of raw uncut lumber bound for Oregon.
Captain Randy is an old salt in his, let’s say, late thirties; but shipmate Scott – all of 25 - is somewhat typical of the new generation of tugmen. He quit school at 15, following the footsteps of his beachcomber dad, and he’s been happily on the River ever since. Skipper Randy has Grade 8. So here are two dropouts who are nevertheless local geniuses of a kind. Like many of their brethren who operate the big machines on and off the side of the mountains, these are men who have a practical wisdom and uncommon sense deep within their skin. “No room for error. No expense spared. Can’t afford the down time.”
Three out of five who try this life, simply don’t make it. Sure, you can extol the virtues of working 7 days on and 7 days off. (“Get more done. Finish projects around the house.”) And on a glorious spring day in April, you can talk about the deer, eagles, sea lions, and nesting osprey that from time to time will keep you company on these long shifts. Not to mention the 9 or 10 killer whales to be spotted each year off Robert’s Bank. But none of that takes into account the icy dark winter and the cold and dangers lurking therein. Reach into the water for a line in the unholy months and for one numbing moment it’s shades of Shackleton in the Antarctic. Try stepping gingerly along a 10-inch walkway 15 or 20 feet above the water to poke the log boom behind you and you’ll know this is not a job for fireside philosophers.
Continued on Next Page
