A Truck Load of Wood

February 19th (Wednesday)

It was an almost cloudless day as the sun came up over the mountains and landed on our boat at around 08:50. Ken came by the marina at 10:00 to pick us up. We had told him in the past that we would be happy to give him a hand getting a load of firewood, and today was a beautiful day for doing so. 

We drove out past Martin River, and followed the logging road along the shore of Cousins Inlet until we reached where the river flowed out from Twin Lakes. As we drove along the first of the two lakes, we were able to look down through the trees to see that the lake was still covered in a thin layer of ice. It had been another chilly night last night, with a heavy frost.  

We drove slowly along the logging road so that Jason and I had a chance to take in the views of the mountains in the area; we had never been in this particular area before. We also kept our eyes open for some good trees for firewood. When we got to the end of the first lake we started to get into snow, and it quickly got deeper. The snow was frozen so hard that the truck barely left any tracks on the top of it, and we decided it would be best to turn around.  

As we made our way back down, we spotted two nice Alder trees that were just up the bank from the road. Ken said that he had found that he could easily burn the alder trees that were cut at this time of the year, in his wood furnace at home, and that Alder was the type of wood that he was looking for. 

Jason scrambled up the bank, into the forest, and quickly fell both trees out onto the road. 

After he had removed all of the branches from the trees, one at a time we hooked up a chain around each tree, and connected it to Ken’s truck. He then backed up, and in so doing, pulled the tree until it was lying lengthwise along the road. After a couple of pieces were cut, we were able to use them to prop the tree up onto so that we were easily able to cut the rest of the tree into lengths. 
Ken wanted pieces that were about 18” long, so it was a much different process than when Jason and I had gathered wood for our small fireplace on board. While cutting up these trees, we both found that we kept making the pieces shorter and shorter. We had to keep reminding ourselves to make them as long as Ken wanted them to be. Once both trees were cut into pieces and piled at the side of the road, Ken drove up and we loaded them all into the truck. 

 

We continued on down the road a little further and soon we spotted another two trees. We repeated the process, and we quickly had his truck piled high with firewood. 

On our way back past the beginning of the first lake, we stopped to take a walk down the short trail to the lake. It was a beautiful spot in the sunshine, right where the river flowed out of the lake and down to the ocean. 

Here the water was free of ice, because of the flow of the water, and since we had brought our fishing rod we made a few casts. Unfortunately we did not get any bites.  

Back at Ken’s place in Martin River, we unloaded the wood and went inside for some hot soup for lunch.  

After we were back at home, Blair, one of the locals, came by. He was on his way to the bar, and he invited us to come along to see the place and to meet a few more of the locals. Since being here at Ocean Falls, we had heard a bunch about Saggo’s Bar, which was also mentioned in most of the cruising books, and we had been planning to go one day before we left Ocean Falls. Saggo’s Bar is only open on certain days of the week, and so, since Blair had stopped by, we decided today was a good day to go and check it out. We got to meet a few more of the locals, and to hear many stories. We had a good time.