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Digger Man

Digger Man Blog

by Nick Drew  |  Thu 12 Sep 2019

Doug Hamilton’s Machine Memories (Part Ten)

Continuing our series focusing on the memories of retired plant man Doug Hamilton in his own words and featuring archive photos from his own private collection.

Doug Hamilton’s Machine Memories (Part Ten)
Work on the Long Spruce Dam was progressing well and sometime later Doug’s wife Catherine arrived from England after what must have seemed like an eternity. Doug said, “From Winnipeg we went to visit Catherine’s relations by train to Prince George British Columbia, where we stayed for the winter in a motel. While we were there, we learnt that our hopes and dreams of going up to the Limestone Dam project had gone as a decision was made to mothball the scheme for at least 10 years”. “While returning to Winnipeg we stopped and looked in at the massive Lornex Mines, where I was offered work, but I had to be in a company house, but sadly I did not have the necessary deposit or any type of credit rating in Canada at that time. This was a real shame as they ran some giant Wabco Haulpak 3200B tandem-drive dumptruck’s. These monsters were powered by a GM locomotive engine capable of producing 2,000hp and had a capacity of 250 tons, it would have been nice to spend some time on one!”. “Onward back towards Winnipeg and BACM (British American Construction & Materials Ltd) tried to get me over to James Bay on the Quebec Hydro Dams project, but they wouldn’t let me in because I couldn’t speak French, which is the first language in that part of Canada. The alternative was to send me up to Pickle Crow, Ontario for a short time to work at a copper mine”. “Catherine went to stay with our friends Ian and his wife, and I set off in our Ford Cortina towards Thunder Bay, I had done 700 km then to my horror I realised that I had yet another 500 km north on a gravel road, did I say road, it hadn’t been graded for 20 years by the looks of it and then out of nowhere came a big horny Moose who wouldn’t let me pass I think he was in love with the Cortina, he finally gave up on me and I went on. Eventually I got there and was assigned to drive a Terex 3307, thank heavens as they were a good truck!”. "Pickle Crow was a copper mine that had been scaled down due to the minerals. As a driver if you got off the truck or looked too closely at the rock face security would be all over you like a rash, as there was gold present and other valuable minerals. However they would let us take rock samples and fools gold from a certain designated area as souvenirs". More memories from Doug in the next instalment here on the Digger Man Blog soon.

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