drilling

Scanned slide of my father who worked for Pacific Water Wells, a Nanaimo, British Columbia company. From 1958 to 1968 he worked away from home sometimes for three months, earned lots of money and worked on major construction projects like the Hudson Hope Dam, Arrow Lakes Dam, Bethlehem Copper Mine, in Kitimat, Dease Lake and more. He was a welder who preferred to be busy with music.

One year I worked for Pacific Water Wells as a driller's helper. I worked in Victoria where we drilled elevator holes for apartment buildings, a water well for the Gold River townsite before anyone lived there and Powell River paper mill soil sampling in the bay on a barge. But working in Prince Rupert drilling for an addition to the paper mill during the winter was enough to send me back to school. I learned many skills working for Pacific Water Wells. And I enjoyed driving the drilling rigs, which were on army surplus vehicles that had both front wheel and rear wheel drive. And like my father, I prefer artistic activities.