Jackson Brothers Logging

Burns and Jackson Logging, hauling a 180 ft spar tree with a 29 inch top....in the 50's

My dad worked for Jackson Bros logging on and off, as a faller for many years. When we lived on Davis Bay Road, that was Jackson's logging road. All the kids knew to stay away from the small hill just outside our house when a loaded logging truck could be heard rumbling towards us. One fine day, when an empty truck went zooming up the hill, it hit a pothole and the trailer jumped off the back of the truck. The loose trailer rolled through the ditch and right through our fence, just feet away from where I was playing on the lawn.

When we moved to a new Davis Bay house, the majority owner of Jackson Bros, Mike Jackson lived a few doors down on Whitaker road. One of my first paying jobs outside of doing dishes at home and mowing my parents lawn, was mowing the lawn at Mr. Jackson's property.
I was 12 years old and had big dreams of the payday that a guy would get for working for a millionaire. Mr. Jackson was a very fussy kind of man, and demanded all kinds of trimming and detail work for his dollars. I was just a little peeved when after all that screwing around, he didn't pay me right away. A couple days later my parents got a phone call from Mr Jackson, saying that I could come and get my money now. So away I went, not more than half a block on a nice summer day to collect my dough.

Instead of a fist full of cash, I received an envelope. Inside the envelope was a cheque from Jackson Brothers Logging ....for two dollars. Two...not twenty, not twelve....but two dot zero zero dollars.
A few years later, I got a summer job at Jackson's as the welder/mechanics helper
 ( gopher and floor-sweeper ) This where I worked with Floyd Wilson ( Davis Bay neighbor, and awesome all round guy )...and Al Hemstreet, Awesome welder/fabricator.

These photos are from the Sechelt archives...mostly from the Pete Jackson collection....two are from the Carolyn Keeley collection.
 That needs a quick Pete story...
When we lived in the Whitaker road house, Pete would always be at Floyd's visiting. When Pete left to go home, he drove past our house and without fail would blow yarder signals on his car horn. At the time I thought it was the corniest thing in the world. Now I think I would pay someone to do that once once a while.  Pete is one of the last of the old guard still standing from those days depicted in the photos that you will see soon.
When Apple or Microsoft brings out a time machine one day in the future, my first trip... is going back to the 60's and 70's, to talk to the all the loggers that were in my world, when I was a kid.

photos in this installment come from the Pete Jackson Collection and the Sechelt  Online Archives 

Jackson Bros Cat and arch, skidding logs from the experimental thinning operation on the tree farm

In the mid-fifties, showing off the tree thinning operation

Log dump at Roberts Creek, which is now...ground zero for the enviro/green movement on the Coast

Log sort at Wilson Creek. When I was a kid, I could hear the outboard powered work boats pushing logs around at night ...working with the tides to make their job easier. There is a condo development there now.

Wilson Creek log dump in the 50's

Jackson Bros sawmill in Wilson Creek, beside the highway

Wilson Creek log dump

Logging at McNab Creek in the 20's ( past Port Mellon ) with a steam train and steam yarder

Aerial view of the Wilson Creek log sort back in the day

Pete Jackson, Mike Jackson and Al Jackson. I grew up with Al's kids in the neighborhood, Steve and Dean. The old man must have worked a lot...I don't remember seeing him much. I never knew Al's real name for years...around the "boys"...he was always referred to as Porky Jackson. Mike was nick-named the Black Prince, and Pete was Part-Time Pete. Dear Pete...if you read this, have your sense of humour screwed on right...I don't want an old loggers big fist to come flying at me on day when I'm back on the Coast

Jackson's crew and trucks in the 50's. That truck on the left used to haul logs past our house on Davis Bay road. That's the one that dropped it's trailer.

Al Jackson with the little D-4 cat that is in the photo of the Cat and arch set-up

Loading logs "old school"...notice the lack of hard hats

Mike Jackson on the Cat...in the 50's

Off Highway logging truck in 2005

Jackson's built "cherry-picker"...approx 1950

Logging truck accident

Jackson Bros road building equipment at the Gray Creek yard

Experimenting with using hydraulic jacks to fall trees ( to get them to go in the right direction ) The photo doesn't say so, but I gotta think that the faller is Art Wayment

Loading up an off-highway truck

Early version of a log skidder

Setting up a slack-line machine

Very old logging truck...likely had hard tires ( no air in them )

Pete's son Scott, ran this machine down at Twin Creeks for years, to pull logs out of the water

The truck driver, supervising the loading of the logging truck

Sechelt MayDay Parade in the 50's

Awesome photo of a "Donkey" sleigh.. getting hauled across what is now Highway 101... the IGA mall in Wilson Creek is there now. This is looking Southeast, towards what would be McCollough Rd. It looks like the area in behind was cleared then....as it is fully treed and green now.

Jackson Bros truck mounted yarder