Written By Kenneth Kinder
In my last newsletter I wrote about my introduction to British Columbia, and some of my memories. It would take several pages of written text to present all that I can recall; but I will share a chosen few with you. I wrote about my nephew Jack Cox, and the place he and his wife Marsha lived far back in the wilderness. Now I want to tell you a few stories about the many jobs that Jack has held during his lifetime. Jack is a unique person, but he walks to a different drummer, but you also have to realize he is a direct decendent of my brother-inlaw John Cox. Yes John is the one that is twelve short of a dozen, so please have a little mercy on Jack as I present his case.
I will start with some of his jobs prior to going to Canada. He worked for his father assembling motorcycles at his shop for X amount of dollars per bike. After a short time at this scientific endeavor he realized his brain needed more of a challange. His attention was diverted from motorcycle racing to horse racing. He got so interested in horses that he bought one. This horse (Oklahoma Jack) won a few races and that was like winning at gambling the first time out of the chute. He was hooked and this was the beginning of a life that wavered but is still with him today.
He was fresh out of high school, had a few bucks, and a brand new Chevrolet van. He couldn’t afford a horse trailer, so his next choice was to take a cutting torch and cut the top out of this new van. This allowed head room for his horse as they prepared to travel around the states to race at the fair circuits. The seed doesn’t fall far from the tree huh ? Any how his horse won a few and lost a whole lot more, this along with requiring feed , stables, jockies etc. caused Jack to reassess his situation. He only had control over a few of these options, so the one he chose was to be his own trainer and jockey. Sounds great huh? Well you haven’t met Jack, because he is over six feet tall and weighed well over the jockey weight of 110 or less. So the next brilliant idea is to reduce his weight so he can compete with his fellow jockeys. Is any of this making sense to you? Well it didn’t to mother nature either.
Even if Jack could get below 140 pounds without having blackouts, his tall frame would create enough wind resistance to handicap his effort. So in the long run he got a job blacksmithing and shoeing horses that served him well, and made the needed money to pay for the requirements of Oklahoma Jack. He followed this dream for a few years with more than one horse, and I sincerely believe he was a happy camper, but life took another turn for him and he got out of the racing business.
He left Pennsylvania, his primary place of residence when he wasn’t following the circuit, and relocated to California. After several ventures in a variety of jobs, i.e. construction, clearing brush, painting, roofing, and the list goes on. He some-how ends up in Canada and falls in love with the wilderness. After a lot of begging, pleading, and all types of pressure he convinces his parents they should finance the acreage that he was to occupy for a number of years. After he got married and relocated his bride in this land of promise he then had to find employment. 100 Mile House the town that was the nearest had a few sawmills, so mill work and all it’s related activities were the main hopes for a job. So this is what Jack did in spurts. By that I mean he would fill in with legitimate jobs between some of his strange efforts.
British Columbia is a beautiful place that God created, with an abundance of lakes, waterfalls, and rivers, and close by the property that Jack had purchased were two of these lakes. Canim lake, Canim waterfalls, and Mahood lake. This was a place that more than one of our presidents was flown, to experience the natural beauty and wonderful fishing. On our first visit here we were looking down on the body of water that left Canim lake by means of this tall waterfall and fed Mahood lake. The water was so red or orange it looked like someone had poured many gallons of paint into the river. What we were witnessing, were thousands of Kokeenee returning to spawn. They were trying to make their way up that waterfall to return to the spot where they were born.
In the middle of Mahood lake was an island owned by an absentee, wealthy owner, and on this island was a nice lodge that he had built. Jack had contracted with him to cut and deliver many cords of fire wood for cooking and heating. This wood had to be cut on the main land and be transported to the island by any means at Jack’s disposal. So Jack and a friend of his got out their trusty chain saws and cut more wood than they could deliver. I don’t believe they ever considered how they were going to deliver after they acquired their bounty. Any way the day of reckoning arrives and these two characters left over from Tom Sawyer said I know what we will do, we will do like Huckleberry Finn and build a raft.
So they built a raft and that is when the fun began, because they had no idea how to load this vessel or better yet how to sail or navigate this raft across the lake to the island. This had to be done not once but many times to fulfill their obligation of delivery. After many attempts, and failures, they discovered the proper way to operate their raft. Their next challenge was to transport on heavy seas. Due to the length of time that it took to cut the wood, build the raft, learn to navigate and transport their load, winter had set in and the lake had heavy squalls and tall waves abounded. This caused them to stall on many occasions, and make final delivery in the following spring.
Jack realized this was not a good way of working, so he decided to try his hand at building log cabins. Jack was not afraid of hard work, he could lay down next to it and go to sleep. Seriously he was a work horse, sometimes misdirected but never lazy. He could tackle a job get very involved and then change directions just as quick. It was as if there was always another pot of gold to be discovered elsewhere. Usually we will find our treasures right at home. These log structures are not as easy to build as one might suspect, because it requires falling timber, cutting logs to length, stripping the bark from the logs, and then scribing the contour and adging to make a perfect fit to the adjacent log. After doing this you have to fit these logs one on top of the other, chinking with insulation between each opening. First you had to dig a trench to prepare a footing and foundation. This had to go below the frost line, and in some places this was several feet deep.
After a couple of cabins he decided (been there done that) and was off to another task. Jack eventually tired of basically going around in circles, and decided to relocate back in the states. He and his brother Mark joined forces on more than one occasion and had a striping and sealing business in Florida, and a used car lot in California, but this was not where his heart lies. Jack gave this all up and now is back doing his first works of blacksmithing and shoeing horses in Pennsylvania.