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    The Coyote King Memoirs - Forest and Ghostwinds
    The Coyote King Memoirs - Forest and Ghostwinds
    The Coyote King Memoirs - Forest and Ghostwinds
    Ebook123 pages2 hours

    The Coyote King Memoirs - Forest and Ghostwinds

    By Michael David

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    THE COYOTE KING MEMOIRS - FOREST AND GHOSTWINDS

    Life at the turn of the 20th century. Pioneer childhood running wild in the woods of British Columbia. Forestry and hunting as a way of life to provide for family. A time when everyone had their roles to play. Too young to fight in 1st world war Dave finds his way through the woods and becomes The Coyote King. A memoir that leads you through life in British Columbia through the second world war and on. Follow Dave through his life as a Carpenter, Shipbuilder, Forestry camp stories and more. Get a glimpse into what life was like in the early days and mid 20th century in remote places of British Columbia. Where the forest is quiet, the ghost winds roam, and the game in plentiful.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMichael David
    Release dateMay 17, 2017
    ISBN9781386149514
    The Coyote King Memoirs - Forest and Ghostwinds

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      Book preview

      The Coyote King Memoirs - Forest and Ghostwinds - Michael David

      By Michael David

      Michael David

      The Coyote King Memoirs

      Copyright 2017

      All Rights Reserved

      Michael David

      http://www.facebook.com/michaeldavidartiste

      http://www.zazzle.ca/michaeldavidart

      http://www.zazzle.ca/flavoripe

      http://michaeldavidart.storenvy.com/

      http://michael-mcivor.fineartamerica.com/

      I was born in Scotland on June 20th, 1902 in Leven on the East coast called the Firth of Forth. I can remember a bit about the place. Canairchy Bray was up on the level above the seashore. Grandfather Dallas lived right in Leven and to get there we went over a viaduct or bridge. Below was a maze of train tracks.

      Grandpa Dallas was a florist and it seems he grew just about everything. His specialty seemed to be chrysanthemums and he had some almost the size of your head. Adjoining his place was a jute mill.

      I never know Grandma Dallas as she had passed away a long time before I came along. Grandpa Henderson was an old sea dog and fisherman. He had sailed the world. In Australia he must have been ashore for awhile for he found a gold nugget and had it mounted on a ring for his mother Isobel. It was to be handed down to the first boy in every Henderson generation.

      My Dad was the first to have it. I was next, then my son, Kenneth. I gave it to him while I still lived as Dad had done with me and as his father had done with him.

      About 1907 or 1908 Dad decided to come to Canada. Like his father he also spent time on the sea, after he served his time to become a carpenter. He had been in a lot of ports in the world; sailing those days was a lot of windjammer sailing. He had been to Canada a couple of times before he was married and I suppose he liked what he saw – a new country with lots of building going on and him being a finished carpenter. He would have no trouble finding work.

      The ship we came out on was called SS Cassandra. Why I remember that name I don’t know. The passage was uneventful except for one period of rough weather. I stayed in my bunk and I had a good stomach cleanout. After it calmed me down I was sure hungry. I went down to the galley and the cooks took pity on me and they sure filled me up.

      There were five of us – Dad, Mom, me (Dave), Sister Elizabeth and Brother Jim (in chronological order). After docking back East (I can’t remember the exact location) we took the train to Vermillion, Alberta, where there were friends of the folks. We stayed the summer there.

      A couple of the Cairns boys and I would go to a slough and catch leeches, put one on the top of our arch and let it suck. We’d wade into the water once in a while to keep the leech alive. When it was so full of blood it looked like a small balloon we’d smash it to see the blood fly.

      These friends called Cairns had bull teams instead of horses, and that’s the transportation we had to get to the railroad. Once when they stopped for a short rest. I was a little too close to one’s head and when he swung his head to wipe off flies; his horn barely touched one of my top teeth which broke off on an angle. A pretty close call there. They were my second teeth and that chip showed as long as I had my own teeth.

      We went on to Edmonton where we stayed the winter, and what a winter! It was supposed to be the coldest on record. I’ve been in 62 degrees below zero Fahrenheit since then and it didn’t seem to be as cold as Edmonton. I suppose that’s what decided the folks to come further West. So we moved again to Vancouver and stayed a short while on Hornby Street. Dad bought property in North Vancouver down by Mosquito Creek above Keith Road.

      I being the oldest, started school. Central school it was called. A few days later it was turned into a police station.

      Dad and an old country acquaintance partnered for a while and I think between then they built most of North Vancouver and a lot of Vancouver. We moved again to the East side of North Vancouver, east of the Grand Boulevard. It just seems like we were always moving. Dad must have had some gypsy blood in him someplace.

      At this new place we were grubbing out stumps and roots; there was a fire in a stump all the time. We weren’t too far up the hill from the tide flats and some of us kids would go down and go out on the log booms fishing. We’d catch soles, Tom cod and crabs. One day we took along a gunny sack and brought home as many crabs as we could carry. I got mothers copper wash boiler and put it on one of the stump fires, filled it with water and dumped the crabs in. They tasted alright anyway.

      About 1912 or 1913 at Moodyville an old Spanish galleon was to be disposed of. They tried to burn it, then tried chopping it, causing a lot of chips and shavings. They then went uptown to Paines  Hardware store to get coal oil. In those days, we got coal oil and gasoline in four gallon cans. It was dark in the storehouse of the store and the men came away with mostly gasoline.

      They soaked  the old ship with it and struck a match to it. Being mostly gasoline the darn thing exploded. A couple of men got killed and the rest badly burned. She still floated so it was towed out of the inlet to open water and dynamited. It somehow sank.

      I forget how long we stayed at that place, then we moved again to about the centre of North Vancouver. 15th street and Ridgeway Avenue out among the stumps again. Dad built another house. I was going to Ridgeway school. There was a Manual Training School there once a week. We were coming out one noon and I slid down the wide banister of the steps and ran a huge splinter in the cheek of my arse. I carried it in my rump until Dad got home from work that night. It was almost swollen over by that time. Pa got a large pair of pliers and he almost had to probe for it. The second try he managed to get a good grip and yanked it out.

      Shortly after that – you guessed it- we moved again. This time North to the Bulkley Valley at Francois Lake. It was August of 1914. Dad had bought a team of horses and the necessary farm equipment. We took the boat to Prince Rupert, and it was some boat trip, going through the Johnson Straits and the open water of the Queen Charlottes.

      The ship rolled and tossed til I was sure we were going to founder. Mom, sis, Jim and I spent the time of the storms in our bunks, seasick. I was watching out the porthole from where I lay and I would see nothing but the sky for awhile. Then, as the ship rolled back I saw nothing but water rising up higher and higher til I thought  it would come in the porthole – but she always rolled back.

      Dad, the old sea dog that he was, was in his glory. He stuck his head in the cabin door to see how we were making out and said "A fine bunch of sailors you guys are.... He had his stinking old bulldog pipe, a fogging away. He then backed out and went up again to the fore part of the ship to watch the waves smash into it. We finally got to Rupert.

      Dad and I went with the horses and equipment in the boxcar from Prince Rupert. We stopped every night for two nights as they only ran the train in the day time. Each night we went uptown (what there was of it) and had a good meal in a café. On one of those stops we had our first taste of moose, which we enjoyed. Between stops it was just sandwiches.

      One of the horses was a balky and I ‘ll swear he left his hoof prints on the roof of that boxcar. We finally got to Burns Lake, where we unloaded.

      Mother and the other two kids came along on the first through passenger train to run day and night. The line was called The Grand Trunk Pacific or just Grand Trunk. After unloading and getting the wagon set up, we rested, then loaded up and headed out 16 miles to Francois Lake which was an all day haul, up and down a few gullies. We stopped and stayed at Tom Harris’s farm until Dad got our property located. We pitched a tent there and Dad got an old trapper to help build a log cabin. His quarter section was about half a mile from us. It took the rest of the summer to get the cabin built and we moved in before snowfall.

      There was no school up there then. So we kids just went wild for a year or more. We had a whale of a time, chasing squirrels, and shooting rabbits and grouse, which were plentiful. We had a cocker spaniel that would almost clime a tree after a squirrel. He’d be barking below the tree; Jim would be on one side and me on the other side pegging stones up the tree, but the squirrel would scamper up another. Once when rising up with an armful of stones I heard a rock coming down- smack on top of my head. It split my scalp and I was bleeding like a stuck pig. I streaked for home and met Dad before I got there. I must have looked pretty bad. He swabbed the blood off me and tied his big red hanky on my head. He didn’t want mother to see me all covered with blood. I didn’t look so bad when he got finished.

      Dad had and old 43 German mauser rifle that shot a slug about the size of the end of your thumb and once when the folks were spring cleaning, the gun was laying on the bed. Dad had his back to us doing something to the wall. Jim and I got the gun, and I said This is how the soldiers use it in the war. It had an elbow sling that I showed him how to use. I took aim at the back of Dad’s head. As the gun was too heavy, I lowered it and pulled the trigger. There was a live shell in the gun. Boy! What a blast. The gun kicked off me over

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