PART THREE, ---
In the 1950's between the construction of the, Saint Lawrence Seaway, the Trans Canada Pipe line, and the Elliot Lake uranium mines, the demand for cement was tremendous. John Grant Haulage was just a small trucking business at this time, but he had his foot in the door at Saint Lawrence Cement. There certainly was no shortage of work. Up to 90 & 100 hours on duty time, for a week was not unusual. *NOTE; Log books did not exist in Canada at that time.
There were times (In the summer heat) that you had to pull over, off the road, and try to get some sleep. Either you sat up and leaned over the wheel, sweating and getting cramps, or you got out and slept on the ground. The cabs on these Diamond "T" tractors were very small with bucket seats and no sleepers, and no air conditioning. One driver got wise and carried a war surplus Navy Hammock to sleep in. He used to sling it up under the flat deck trailers when hauling bagged cement.
The roads at that time were old, narrow and twisty. No turnpikes existed to help speed things along. The only direct road to the North Country Was by highway # 11. The first four-lane expressway was open from Toronto, 60 miles north to Barrie. Beyond that, it was #11 all the way.
The fleet consisted of about five or six drivers, with a mixed assortment of trucks and trailer types. Mel Marshal was the # 1 driver of this little fleet. He mostly hauled the set of "A" train dump trailers. He was really good at what he did. He could back the trains up to a loading dock, without disconnecting. Usually you had to break up the train, and spot them one at a time. There were no lock pins to help in backing up. Everyone used to jackknife within a few feet. Mel on the other hand, always carried a couple spare chains and binders. He would cross chain the tongue of the converter to the corners of the pup trailer, locking the converter and pup trailer into one unit. It would be the same as backing up a set of easy "B" trains, of today. He was years ahead of his time. He was also the one who taught me how to keep or get out of trouble. Load wise, police wise, or mechanical. He was a wild gypsy type that would take on jobs that was considered by others to be to dangerous, or could not be done. We seemed to have taken to each other, and while working here, he became my mentor. You just had to like the guy, it couldn't be helped.
Most of my trips were into the North Country. To get there you had to go past the gateway to the north, Gravenhurst, Ontario. Home of the dreaded hellhole of the north, the government scale shack.
To get to Sudbury, or Sault Ste. Marie, you had to drive 100 miles out of your way, to North Bay, Ontario, then west to Sudbury. The only way at that time was strait north. If you were hauling a van, # 69 from Gravenhurst was not valid. The underpass at Bala had a clearance of between 9 and 10 feet. We on the other hand, hauling a tanker, or dump trailers could clear, by a hair, and just scraping through. With care, it was possible. The government scale shack, at the town limits, guarded (like a fortress,) the entrance to highway 69 north. It sat 1/4 mile south of town, just before the junction of 11 & 69.
At times trucks were overloaded, and took potluck that the scale shack would be closed by the time they arrived. The Girls Diner, a little truck stop south of the scale always had their parking lot filled with trucks waiting out the scales. This one time in particular, there was quite a pileup of trucks, some waiting a couple days. Without CB Radios or communications, you waited for any truck coming south and stopping in for a coffee. Before the driver was even out of his truck all the waiting drivers pounced on him for information on whether the scale was still open or not. This time, and finally, the scale was closed. After the confirmation from the 3 rd truck coming in, it was about 01:00 am, and a whole group fired up their trucks and stampeded out of there. It was only about 3 1/2 miles to the scales. When the convoy approached the scale entrance, all the lights came on, and a cop came out of the bushes and started flagging them all in. The catch that night was phenomenal.
This one day, Mel, Moose, and myself all loaded bulk cement together. You scaled in empty, and then loaded from a chute. It would dump tons of products, in seconds, and was very hard to judge the weight. When loaded, you had to drive all the way out to the gatehouse, to scale out. That was when you found that you were tons overloaded. There was no scale under the loading chute. You then drove back out to rear of the property and dumped part of your load on the ground, in a bloody, dusty mess. All the way back and scale again. If you were still too heavy, you had to repeat the procedure. If you took too much off, you had to return to the loading area and start over. There was a minimum weight that you had to have, before leaving. You could be screwing around for hours. On your free time of course. Our pay was, by the mile only, or flat rate, whichever benefited the company the most.
All three of us were tired to begin with, and after trying to get legal a couple times, we had become totally fed up by now, and took off anyway. We were about two or three tons overloaded each. The only fortunate thing at that time was that Ontario was on the gross weight only, and it would be many more years before bringing in the axel weight system.
Mel was leading at this time, and pulled into Barrie for a coffee. We checked out a couple southbound drivers, and they said that the scales were wide open for the last couple of days. Here we are screwed again, no miles, no money.
Mel said that he knew of a way around the scales, but it was over light bridges and back roads. He suggested that we sleep for a couple hours, until after dark, and then make a run for it. We could either stay or run with him. All three of us went for it.
Mel passed around a couple cigars each, and said to light up and get going, we'll sleep on the back road. Damned near choked to death on that cigar, but it kept me awake anyway. We had to be up north and beyond this part of the country before daylight.
We went up to Orillia, and then turned onto # 12 to Midland, Ontario. We could not go all the way into Midland, because there was another little hole in the wall, to small for trucks to pass through. We came up to Coldwater, then down an old dirt road to Waubaushene. I did a panic stop. Mel, and Moose were gone out of sight, and I was staring at a small but long, scary looking bridge over the channel. I figured that either they are at the bottom of the lake, or they are still on the move. It was just like running over the ice roads up in the territories. I crawled over with the door open, just in case I went through. The old bridge was shaking and bouncing as I passed over it. I bit right through the cigar, wondering if the thing was going to hold up, or collapse. I cleared the bridge finally, and then had to drive like a mad man to try and catch up. About two miles down the road, they were sitting there waiting for me to show up.
From here on, officially there was no road. A trail was being blown, and cut out of the rock and bush. They were starting to build a new road up to Mac Tier, where it would hook up to # 69 from Gravenhurst, it was going to be #103
It was all blasted rock, with rough and partly sand filled roadbed. The best we could do was 10 to 15 mph. tops. This went on for a couple hours, and I thought that my back would never survive the trip. Eventually we came up to the Moon River. There was no bridge, and it was about a couple hundred yards across. We stopped and Mel said to follow him close, and stay in his tracks. He turned tight left, onto a bulldozer track. He was pulling the set of trains. Where we were going, there would be no backing up.
It was a narrow ledge cut out of the riverbank. We followed that down about 3 or 4 hundred yards, sliding on the newly spread soft sand. Down near the river's level was an army bailey bridge. The entrance onto the bridge was a tight right angle turn. Mel scraped the left bank and then inched his way around and onto the bridge. I was directly behind him. His pup trailer would not clear the side rails on the bridge, the rear tandems caught on the rail. He backed up about 3 feet and began to jackknife. We sat there for about a two cigarette smoke, what now? He was not the least bit concerned; this was just another jackpot, to get us out of.
Bill, get your bumper up against my rear trailer tires and push them over sideways, as I pull ahead. See if that will work. If it were not for those old solid steel bumpers on the Diamond "T" trucks, we would still be there. I got in and pushed against his tandems as he slowly pulled ahead. I dug my drives in the sand about 6 inches, then she finally moved, and he was clear. Moose had to give me a bit of a push to get me rolling out of the hole I had just dug myself into. We all finally got free of the construction, and took off. There would be more trouble coming back.
We hooked up with 69 again, and then headed up through Parry Sound and on to Pointe au Baril. It was still dark out and early morning. There was no food stop available all night. Everything was closed in Parry Sound. There was a 10 ft. X 12ft. cabin just before Pointe au Baril. Mel went up, banged on the door, and got the owner up. His name was Larry. He came up north, and bought some crown land for 50 cents an acre. Built his shack and was selling bacon and eggs to the odd traveller. He got up, put on the coffee, and fed us. He slowly built up a small restaurant and motel over the next 20 + years. It is still there today. LARRY'S TAVERN & MOTEL.
We all had different delivery locations. We said that when we were finished we would meet back here sometime between midnight tonight and early tomorrow morning. We agreed and took off. That was about 07:00 am.
I had to deliver in Sault Ste. Marie. I stopped for a couple hours sleep then ran the rest of the trip, unloaded and return about 10:00 pm. It was good timing both Mel and Moose, were there having another order of bacon and eggs. That was about the extent of the menu. While I was eating, lightning flashed and the thunder started to roll. Mel suggested that we try to get as far south as we could before daylight. We did not want to be caught driving through the new road construction while they were working. We were not supposed to be there anyway. No one was.
The summer storms coming in off Georgian Bay could really get rough at times, and this one was becoming full blown. We were all running empty, and could make much better time going home. We passed Mac Tier, and entered the no road zone again. In a few minutes, we came up to the Moon River. The rain was really coming down, and was beginning to wash away most of the fresh roadbed sand, that had just been laid down earlier, during the previous day.
We started our turn, to head for the Bailey bridge, when, out of nowhere, a Volkswagen Bug, came flying down the hill on the other side of the river, and onto the bridge. He slid on the wet wooden deck, spun sideways, and jammed into the bridge rail. He was drunk as a skunk. We then spent the next 1/2-hour trying to get him off the bridge, so we could pass.
Moose was starting to get cranked up by now, and wanted to drag the driver out of the bug and throw him in the river. Mel had him cooled down and we all pushed the car off the bridge by hand, and then left him there. By this time, all three of us were soaked to the skin. Moose was first across and started up the grade to the road. Stopped and waited. Mel was next. From this side of the bridge he had a little more turning space, and cleared the pup trailer by dragging it, scrubbing the tires around the rail. He was just starting to climb the grade to the roadway, when he started to sink slowly. The rain was washing out the fresh roadbed and his pup trailer was starting to slide towards the edge. He spun out, stopped, and then he became stuck. Moose backed his rig down to the front of Mel's truck then grabbed his spare 20 ft. chain and anchored it to Mel's tow hooks on his front bumper. They both tried to climb the grade and the pup started to slide down some more, towards the river. I shot across the bridge and stopped, half on and half off the bridge. Grabbed another chain and hooked it up to the rear of his pup trailer, then to my front tow hooks. We are now chained together as one, and cannot go anywhere. The water washing out the roadbed slacked off, and the rain slowed down to a fine mist.
Now what? We cannot go ahead, and we cannot back up. We are chained together, like slaves. Mel just started laughing, lit up a cigar, told us that he will see us in the morning, climbed up into his truck, and flaked out, with not a worry in the world.
It was about 06:30 am when a road grader and a bulldozer came along to start work. They wanted across the river. Mel said, be my guest, but if you want to cross, you will have to drag us out of the way first. The operators were good about it, and saw the humour of the situation. They had us out in a jiffy, but the dozer had to rework the roadbed before the grader could carry on. When we got up to the road, we noticed that the Volkswagen Bug was gone. He must have figured that we just might still be mad enough, and throw him in the river anyway. From there, back to Hamilton was no problem, but as usual, they wanted more loads moved right away. Isn't it wonderful, this world of trucking?
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