Back in those days, there wasn't hydraulics, lift-trucks and-stuff-like-that, you- you pile them on a truck that had a stationary roller on the back ... Then once the car was empty it had to take all that and pile all in the crossers on skids to the side of the laneway that you're in. A lot of handling, a lot of work, a lot of physical labour. But it was just the way it was back then.

And then dad was pretty- pretty crafty and pretty handy fellow and- and ah, they built tongs and-stuff-like-that for skid and logs and did repairs and made horseshoes ...

Interviewer: High-school. B-C-I. ... And if you thought Queen-Elizabeth was big, how was B-C-I? Speaker: Um well- I'm sure it- thinking back now it felt terribly intimidating. You-know I was terrified mostly of a guy named Jesse-Tomlinson, who was a guy that was at ah Queen-Elizabeth, for some reason I was terribly intimidated or frightened of this guy. I thought he was gonna beat the hell outta me. B-C-I I remember always had a- a- a- not a dark side, but a rep around town that that's where some of the skids were. Interviewer: And what were skids? Speaker: Well they were kind-of the rough types, ah leather-jacketed, long-haired, mullets.

Ah not- I don't think there's any real local slang that is really like specific to North-Bay you-know-what-I-mean? Like I-think it's just- like when I was a kid like all the different little groups of kids in school had their little names like the jocks and the preps and, you-know, and the skids. Like I know some places don't use the word "skid" you-know like h-- that's what we- you-know when I was growing up that's- was the word. Like skids and headbangers were sort-of like interchangeable you-know-what-I-mean ...

Well, my brother Johnny was younger, like- so he sat up on- on the seat with Tom, and Tom was driving the pony, and we put the uh goat in the back of the- the wagon, you-know, and of course, who was to hold the goat, only me. ... I got a- a hammer-lock on the goat. I got him like that, holding on to him like that, and of course he's skidding all the way to the back of the- of the wagon, you-know? He's wanting to get free, you-know, and I'm hanging on to him ...

Interviewer: Winter-time roads were slippery. Speaker: ... He 'd be drinking all night the r-- Kennedy-Road two lanes was snow covered. And I guess he started skidding and he was like this, this, this and in the ditch. Almost tipped over.

So we were going up to get a conga-drum and um she had pulled out of her drive-way and she was taking her boyf-- her boyfriend to work and she skidded and lost control of her car and hit us um broadside. I only remember the a- the flash of orange.

... I was the first man out of the aircraft and the dropped the second too soon and I had to lift to get over the high tension wires, and when I hit the slew it was in ah spring and it was froze, lost my foot and skidded across with the wind blowing me. No, we dropped in to ah Fort-Norman when I was out in the arctic there too, winter exercise. That was kind of interesting. (laughs) Four weeks, five people in a tent.

When we got to the end, he started racing down the runway. And I clouted him in his ah earphone and told him, I said, "The flap lock." And he had to shut everything down and we skidded off the end of the runway just about into the trees.... Well apparently the same guy had that happen to him and the same pilot about a month later with some guys and ah he flew right into the trees and killed everybody.

I remember boardwalks when I was a kid in Kirkland-Lake. The sidewalks were narrowed together like docks like this stuff- ... Three of four feet wide and I remember we'd ride our bicycles on it and ah, skid our tires on it and get in-trouble for that.

Driving along and away went a wheel off down the road and into the fence. ... And I'm skidding down the road on three wheels.

Interviewer: What is this called? Speaker: Those are called skid-tongs. Interviewer: Skid-tongs. Speaker: Or log-tongs they could be called. Interviewer: Log-tongs. Interviewer: And- and when you're skidding, there's two horses- there's a whipple-tree here- here a double tree, a swivel hook and the swivel hook- hooks into that. And when you're the teamster, you got to pick that leg of the tong up and swing it. ... I know one- one set of my log tongs went to Japan and apparently they're building- doing log building over there and that's where they went.

I heard my father saying that he worked in a woods when he was young and he said some of the timber, the logs that they'd condem, say they weren’t fit for anything, wouldn’t use them to make a skid way to pile logs on.

... my dad put together a machine that they call the jammer for lifting the logs rather then rolling them off the sleigh and having the horses pull them up on a skidway. This machine picked them up off the- the sleigh and put them on the log pile.

Or where you get a skid way to put them on the sleigh and bring them up to the barn.

Interviewer: Now how do you skid logs? Speaker: (Laughs) Well you put them in ah s-- whippletree and chain and drive them into the bush where the log was and hitch onto it with the chain onto it and then you pull it out with the horses into an open space. Or where you get a skid way to put them on the sleigh and bring them up to the barn. And ah some of them you could skid them out into the field and then load them onto a truck. And later on, I skidded them out into the field and loaded them on to the- a wagon and brought them to town with a tractor and wagon. Ah, good load on the wagon about eight miles to save hiring a truck. And ah I like working in the bush and ah worked for people at Poland. Cutting logs and skidding and- and got used to doing it so.

Interviewer: So what would be the biggest tree you could cut down? ... What kind of things did you learn? Speaker: Well, to start with they ah- they got through the bush and they pick out the skid ways where they're going to put- skid the logs onto and then the road ways so when you following trees, you don't follow the tree so they have to move all that brush you-see?

He- right now he's working um in the forestry industry and they work to ah set up the plots for the tree planters. So he's driving a huge skidder in the middle of nowhere.

Speaker 1: No but I wouldn't let anybody into my bush with a skidder. Speaker 2: They just destroy every tree. You-know they get one where the horses would work around them. Speaker 1: No, you would never get into my bush with a skidder. Interviewer: So a skidder is what? Speaker 1: It's what they skid the logs with. Speaker 2: It's a big heavy- Interviewer: Big heavy thing.

You couldn't buy a bush lot today even with your big skidders and-stuff and pay for it in three weeks. You couldn't do it. 'Cause it's going to cost you two-hundred-thousand or three-hundred-thousand for that.