Skeena Forest Products -- Safety First Please
Photo: Mill machinery, Terrace, BCWhen I was at university, my best summer job was at Skeena Forest Products. The sign in front of the sawmill on Highway 16 west of Terrace showed how SFP, the company initials, also stood for the safety slogan.
As general office help, I recorded information on tree farm license maps, and kept records in the log yield book as the trucks came in to the mill. It was a pleasant workplace that smelled like wood. My co-workers were interesting too.
One soft-spoken man had scars on his arms that looked like claw marks -- I imagined that he had tangled with a grizzly. Later I found out he was a veteran of the Korean War. Another woman had an unfamiliar surname I later learned was Basque.
The man who hired me, Mr. O'Gower, as I thought he said on the phone, was far from being Irish. He turned out to be Mr. Ogawa, a Canadian-born Japanese.
My journey to work was unique. By cutting through the pole yard and across the tracks, I could save myself a couple of miles. Often I had to climb over empty flat cars waiting to be loaded with logs. I found this challenging as I had to avoid touching anything; I didn't wanted to get rust or grease on my office girl clothes.
If the train wasn't too long, I preferred to walk around the stationary cars rather than climb over the iron couplings. It was hard to know when the trains would start moving. Sometimes they were so long that the engines in the yard seemed miles away.