A Prairie Boy's Adventure on the West Coast
In the fall of 1948, Earl Paton was 19 years old. As a youth, Earl attended the one-room schoolhouses of Netterville and Wiseman before boarding in Gravelbourg to attend high school. He was a farm boy and he helped his parents, Billy and Florence Paton, along with his brothers Adrian and Jim, on their farm 13 miles northeast of Gravelbourg.
Earl in 1949.
Earl was a product of the dirty thirties, and his birth on May 24, 1929, coincided with the first dust storm of that era. As a teenager, he had not ventured far from home. Trips to Moose Jaw and Regina were his furthest destinations. In 1948, his aunt and uncle, Gilbert and Jen Bekker, were planning a trip to Vancouver and he, along with his other aunt, Mary Paton, was invited to make the trip with them. It was difficult to find a good-paying winter job in rural Saskatchewan at the time, and Earl thought he may have better luck obtaining employment on the West Coast. They travelled in a Ford Monarch and Earl recalls the shiny leaping lion ornament that adorned the hood. Once they arrived in Vancouver, Earl took a ferry to North Vancouver and then a bus to the address of a cousin, Florence Wilson, living in that area.
Earl immediately began his search for work, and he was able to secure his first job by checking the listing in a government office. He took a job as a caretaker in a Vancouver courthouse; however, this opportunity was short-lived. He was hired to replace a fellow on medical leave, but the leave was not approved by a doctor, and, as a result, Earl was out of work.
Earl decided he may have better luck finding employment in Victoria so he boarded a steamship to the island, where another cousin, George Wilson, was currently living. Earl recalls that there were no ferries to transport vehicles to Victoria at this time, so cars were driven onto the dock, where they were lifted onto the steamship and tied down, open to the weather. On his arrival in Victoria, Earl boarded a bus for Delta Street but soon discovered that despite his efforts to get it to stop, the bus was a “rush hour” bus and he went for a much longer ride than anticipated. He recalls other passengers offering reassurance to the prairie boy on his introductory bus ride.
On the island Earl began his search for work and was able to secure several different odd jobs. Many of these coastal jobs involved skills that were new for a Saskatchewan farm boy but he was eager for work and took any opportunity that came his way.
Port Alberni
He was hired as a pin setter in a bowling alley, a job involving manual labour. When the alley became busy in the evening, Earl would receive a call to come and set pins. The job required a great deal of agility as each pin setter was responsible for two or three lanes, rushing out to reset the pins after a ball was thrown. There were a number of different games played, five-pin and ten-pin, and the pin setter needed to set the pins accordingly. The job could be dangerous, but Earl was young and agile and managed to avoid being hit by a pin or ball.
He was also hired to scrape barnacles off the hull of larger ships. The ships would come in to dry dock and the workers would use a tool that resembled a hoe to scrape barnacles off the hull. Earl recalls that it was very dirty work and he needed to wear a parka with a hood to protect himself from the barnacles that rained down on him. The removal of barnacles prevented the boat from rusting underneath the crustaceans. When the water was drained from the dry dock there were often many fish left flopping on the dock. The workers were instructed to throw the fish back into the ocean, however, Earl mentioned that many of the seasoned employees didn’t heed this rule and often went home with fish to fry for supper.
The boats in the dry dock presented another employment opportunity for Earl. He was hired to paint the hulls once the barnacles were removed. This was a physical job, as the paint was applied with long poles to reach the upper parts of the hull. Although Earl cannot recall what he was paid for these jobs, he does remember that the painting job was the most lucrative.
The opportunity to gain employment as a driver presented itself so Earl secured a BC driver’s license. A local plumber had recently lost his license due to speeding offences, so he hired Earl to drive him around the city. Earl was always eager to learn, but the prairie boy didn’t have many city driving skills, and the plumber soon discovered this. This was another job that didn’t last long.
The Christmas season offered another job opportunity, as Earl was hired to pick holly. The holly grew naturally and would be harvested to market across Canada. Earl sent a package of it home to Gravelbourg, and when his father, Billy Paton, picked up the package at the post office, he opened it and shared it with the other folks who were gathering their mail. He also left a bit of it with the postmaster to add some holiday spirit to the Saskatchewan post office building.
Earl was hired to repair wooden vegetable crates at a market garden. The crates, which held vegetables such as carrots and celery, often required some patching. Earl recalls that the nails used to fix the carts were very cold in the cool weather and often made his fingers numb, so he would put an electric light bulb in the metal can of nails to keep them warm.
He travelled to Duncan as there was a job opportunity in this community to plant trees. He stayed in a work camp here for a short time but found the work difficult and monotonous. The reforestation job required good rain gear and was a very physical job. His foreman was a “mountain man” and Earl recalls that he had a great love for his hunting hounds. If the foreman didn’t show up for work in the morning, his hounds had found a cougar during the night, and he would be out with them for the hunt.
At the end of the winter, Earl returned home to the prairies. He recalls that he was able to save $1000 from his many odd jobs, an amount which he considered to be a large sum of money. This likely influenced his decision to return to the coast for the next two winters of 1949 and 1950.
A new coat of paint for the funnel (Earl is on the left)
On his return to the island the following winter, Earl was hired as a deckhand on the steamship Princess Maquinna, transporting people and goods up and down the coast. The ship travelled up the coast for 4 days, delivering goods along the way, before making the return trip. Earl described the purpose of the ship as very similar to that of the trains that crossed the prairies, allowing people in remote areas of the island to travel and receive supplies. One of the old-timers on the ship took Earl under his wing, ensuring that he got the on-the-job training he needed to keep the job.
Seasickness was a reality for many on the boat, and Earl was no exception, as this was his first experience at sea. He was one of the lucky ones who could continue to work despite feeling ill, but he remembers another fellow who was not as fortunate, suffering terribly from nausea. Earl said that the fellow’s face was “as green as the shirt he was wearing.” Earl chuckles as he recalls, “He was so sick he was worried he was going to die. And then he was worried he wasn’t going to die.”
The ship brought supplies to Indigenous groups along the coast. Indigenous men would paddle out to the ship in their canoes to receive the goods. Earl recalls they were very skilled in canoeing as they had to navigate their small boats in the swells of the ocean near the larger ship. If the canoe was at the top of a swell, the deckhands would throw the goods up where they were caught by the occupants of the canoe but if the canoe was in the hollow of a swell, the parcels would be tossed down to the smaller boat to be caught.
100 cases of beer slung down number 2 hold
They also delivered goods to the Bamfield Cable Station, an English company with an underwater cable to Australia. The only access to the station was via ship, so all of their goods, including food and clothing, were brought on the ship. The station was high up on a cliff near the ocean, and the goods had to be loaded onto a platform, which was lifted up to the station via winch. The water in this area was quite calm allowing the loading to occur easily.
Cases of beer were delivered to some of the ports. Earl recalls that the beer parlour in Tofino had an agreement with the crew members regarding their delivery. They allowed for two percent dockage so if one hundred cases were delivered undamaged to the back door, then the crew members could return to the boat with two of those cases. Earl mentioned that this particular cargo was “very well looked after.”
In some larger ports, like Tofino and Ucluelet, the goods were loaded onto a platform which was winched off the boat and set on the dock. The men on shore would throw out mooring lines to keep the ship stable while it was being unloaded. On one occasion, they pulled into a port to find that all the men on shore had left for the night. The ship needed to keep to its schedule and so one of the old-timers asked for a volunteer. Earl was eager to earn a reputation as a dedicated and hard worker so he agreed to help. They asked Earl to clasp his hands around the hook that was used to pick up the cargo and they swung him ashore so he could throw the mooring lines out. Once the task was complete, he returned to the ship in the same manner. Earl said, “Safety procedures were rather amiss at the time.”
Most of the trip was in the open Pacific, with the exception of Port Alberni which was further up an inland channel. On one occasion they were caught in a storm in the channel and forced to drop anchor. They were going to stay in the channel but they received word via radio from Seattle that the storm was over. Earl states that it may have been over in Seattle but it certainly wasn’t over where we were. The deckhands knew that they were in danger as the older crew members refused to go to bed even though they kept repeating, “I’ve seen it worse. I’ve seen it worse.” Eventually, they pulled up anchor, the ship turned, and the top deck dipped in the water. Earl recalls he was very scared, but soon afterwards, the storm settled, and “the old guys went to bed, so we did too.”
The following winter Earl returned for a second season on the Princess Maquinna. After his third winter on the west coast, he settled into a lifetime of farming in the Gravelbourg district. He reflects that the lessons he learned on the coast translated into advice he could follow for the rest of his life. “I found out that it doesn’t matter if you are the highest-paid or the lowest-paid guy on the ship; you all run out of money about a week before payday.” At the age of 95, Earl is still easily able to recall the adventures he had in BC as a young prairie boy.
EARL PATON was born and raised in Gravelbourg, SK and farmed in that district for most of his life. As a young man in the 1940's, he sought employment on the west coast during the winter months and he is still able to recall those experiences with clarity. Earl, at the age of 95, currently resides in Saskatoon. Earl's story was recorded by his niece, Valerie Guillemin. Valerie is the daughter of Adrian Paton, Earl's brother.
“people stories” shares articles from Folklore Magazine, a Saskatchewan History & Folklore Society publication.