Ocean Falls Museum - Personal Recollections

Brian Adams - Resident (47-65)

The school hill was, by most of my generation, considered the premier sledding hill in town, especially for our home made bobsleds. We would often race down the hill with as many as 6 or 7 people on board screaming "track below" to warn those coming up the hill that we were on the way down. That scream sent the little ones scattering all over the hill to get out of our way. We had our share of accidents but the worst I recall involved an overloaded "bob" piloted by Alan Unger that, as I recall, crashed into the low retaining wall that surrounding the school playground. He sustained a serious head injury in that particular accident if I remember correctly.

Perhaps my most vivid memory of the Crown is lining up for the matinee sponsored by the local fire department each year during fire prevention week. The cost of admission was was combustible material and more often than not consisted of a rolled bundle of newspapers. When the doors opened, we would hand our "admission fee" to then Fire Chief Vic Anderson and be escorted to our seats by Reg Blackwell. ( One of the photos in the original "Rainpeople" shows one such event) Of course we all remember well the regular Saturday afternoon matinees. The Friday night movie, that as youngsters we were allowed to attend due to the fact that curfew (applied to all under the age of 16..violation meant a ride home in the police jeep with Const. Ken Parks) was extended to 10 pm from the regular 9 pm, was always looked forward to after what seemed like a long school week. Wednesday night at the movies was considered adult night. Children had to be accompanied by an adult. I remember talking my mother into taking one of my best friends, Bob Langdale and I, to see Dracula on one such night, and spending the entire time under the seats. Then telling the rest of our friends " we saw Dracula!" and what a great movie it was. My mother was the only one of our party to actually see the movie and she thought it was "dreadful". Going back a bit further, the Crown was also the location of many a Company sponsored Christmas party for the elementary school children. The party would typically begin with a selection of cartoons and finish up with a visit from Santa, sitting in the orchestra pit, handing out the traditional bag of Christmas candy and an orange and then calling up the children, according to age groupings, to receive a gift.. Needless this event was always very popular. The Crown holds one more special memory for me in that it was the venue in which our band, the Centurions, made its debut. The occasion... a local talent show. During rehearsal, I remember looking at all those seats in the theater and thinking can I do this. When the time came and the footlights were turned on I was fortunately unable to see any faces in the crowd and though not totally relieved, my pre performance panic subdued considerably. As to the quality of our performance....conveniently, I can't remember.

As a youngster, Bob was in the habit of meeting incoming ships, wagon in tow, to offer "porter" services to arriving passengers (for a small fee of course). On one particular occasion, he offered to haul a woman passenger's luggage to the Martin Inn where she would be staying between ships. True to form, it was raining cats and dogs that day. Covering his load with his raincoat, he dragged it to the hotel and collected his fee. As it turned out, it rained the entire time this lady was in town. On the Sunday, Bob happened to run into the lady again. She "hired" him take her baggage back down to the ship...still raining (surprise?). While making their way to the dock, the woman asked Bob if it ever stopped raining in Ocean Falls, to which he replied, in typical Bobby Langdale fashion, " how would I know, I'm only six."

Teachers I recall include Mr. Higgins (Socials) Mrs Christopherson (French) Mrs Davies (English), Mr. Robinson, Miss Roles (sp?) Mr Partello. Frank Canty was my home room teacher in both Grade 11 and 12. I had forgotten Mr. Singh, I believe he taught me chemistry. These are all I can recall off hand.

The French teacher was in fact Mrs. Christopherson. My Sister, Brenda was already in Grade 8 or 9 when Mrs. Christopherson arrived on the scene so I must have had her in Grade 12 only. Brenda asked that I mention a memory of her time with you; an incident in which she get very close to getting strapped for sticking "kick me" signs on the back of a student. I guess on the day in question everyone was doing it but her transgression was the straw that broke the camels back so to speak.

Someone else from the Class of 65 and someone I played a lot of pool with when I was supposed to be studying for exams. Hi Frank, glad to see you have joined the group. I had hear from my sister that you were in the Terrace area. I guess she had run into you on a few occasions. I remember well the long hours we spent in the pool hall and your patience in teaching me the finer points of the game. I also remember the hours we spent riding our Honda's together. I still bear the scars of my crash with you on the valley. How about those days at UVIC. Do you recall the name of the family we lived with out in Sannich? I also remember one day after school, going to your home to eat cherries that had been canned by your mother. We got into one that hadn't been sealed properly and had fermented. Boy, was that a pleasant afternoon!

I was in my final year of high school the year the slide struck. I remember hanging out with a couple of friends that night at the Martin Inn coffee shop when the lights went out, enjoying cokes by candle light, when we heard the roar and felt the shudder. I distinctly recall thinking that it sounded as though all the surrounding mountains were coming down at once, then silence. I remember running home in a panic, passing people going in the opposite direction shouting something about a landslide. At the time my family was living in a duplex across from the carpenter shops on Marine Drive. As I neared the house I could see people beginning to congregate just down the street from our house and soon to be joined by our local RCMP. Whatever had occurred had done so close to where I lived. As details slowly became known, I learned that the home of one of my oldest and closest friends had been hit by a landslide as had some others. Due to illness, Bob Langdale had not been out with us as was his custom. Instead, he had been at home in bed. I would not learn of his fate till much later that night. Residents on the west side town, cut off by the slide were, as a precaution, evacuated to the mill as were residents whose homes were close to the eastern edge of the slide. This group included my family. We spent that night in the mill's finishing room. As the night wore on I learned that Bob and both his parents had survived the slide but that searchers will still trying to locate his brother. Bob was an only child. It wouldn't be until the following day that I would learn the brother they were seeking was actually me. The magnitude of the disaster and the tragedy that accompanied it gradually became known to us as the night wore on to morning. Seven fellow residents, known to us all, had perished, including all four members of the John Dicker family who had occupied the other half of the Langdale duplex.

I too remember the great fishing at Jenny Bay. I remember being there once with Frank Rowe and his Dad fishing for halibut. Frank snagged a rather large one and in order to handle the landing of it I was instructed to shoot it with a 22. I got so excited that I literally blew the thing off the line. I was not popular. I can also remember wading into the river there and catching the spawning salmon by the tail and dragging them on to the shoreline. There was also the remnants of a chicken farm a few yards (can I still use that term?) back off the shoreline in the bay. My memory is not all that clear on this one but I think it was at Jenny Bay where, in the remnants of a cabin, we found an old crank-style gramophone with a small selection of self recorded records. I remember in particular listening to one that the cabin's occupant had received from family, extending Christmas wishes for 1920 something. It was raining at the time we listened to this and I couldn't help thinking how depressing it must have been alone in that cabin at a time of year families traditionally spend together. We left everything as we found it but I have often thought since that perhaps we should have loaded that gramophone into our boat and brought it back to the Falls with us.

The Catala, Queen of the North and the Northland Prince were three separate ships. The Catala of the Union Steamship Line made regular stops in Ocean Falls along with the Cardena and Camosun, until 1959 when Northland Navigation acquired the assets of Union. None of the Union Steamship passenger ships was returned to service by Northland although they did reactivate the small freighters Skeena Prince and Haida Prince. I used to meet these ships on Sundays to get the Vancouver Sun for my paper route. Northland's Queen of the North was the former Princess Norah when operated by Canadian Pacific. It was subsequently renamed the Canadian Prince. The Northland Prince was a larger combination passenger/freighter type vessel that Northland had built to better serve the needs of coastal communities.

I especially remember the Booze Cruises returning to university following the Christmas break. We used to have some wild parties in that back lounge. On one of these trips, the dinner gong, given to the Captain when he assumed command of the vessel, went missing and I don't think it was ever recovered. There was a rumor that it got tossed overboard but I can't verify that. On another such trip, a couple of drunks, who shall remain anonymous, "borrowed" a 25 gal container of ice cream from the ship galley and went cabin door to cabin door in the wee hours of the morning offering tablespoons of ice cream to sleeping or otherwise incapacitated passengers. There was also a trip in which a group of us removed the flag from the stern and strung it up in our cabin. As this could have been viewed as an act of treason back then, the ships steward graciously pretended not to see it when he arrived with goodies we had ordered through room service. And lastly, I fondly remember those Thursday mornings meeting the "Prince" at 6am to sort the Vancouver Sun for delivery to customers before heading to school.

OF Duck© Brian Adams - Displayed with Permission