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The following text is posted along side the diorama Welcome to a day in the life of the Merrill & Ring logging camp. This diorama was meant to be a snapshot of life in and around the logging camp and is based on the pictures that you see around the display. The diorama focuses on three areas: the camp itself, the log dump and a logging side. The camp housed 200 men. Your job today to is to find with the help of some hints 37 of those men. Our logging side has two steam donkeys, one for yarding and one for loading. A lot of firewood needs to be cut to keep the donkey engineers happy and their boilers running at full steam. The rigging slinger and chokerman are in the clear as the turn heads down the hill. The rigging slinger has sent the other chokerman to the backend to help the head rigger with setting up the next road change. There’s always lots of work to do on a skyline show. Whether it’s moving blocks, stringing straw line, rigging trees or stripping trees, an extra man always comes in handy to help set up. Meanwhile the hooker is notching his next road line stump. The landing can be a dangerous place, as you need to keep you eyes open at all times, watching out for incoming logs, the swinging Mclean boom and that wild loading engineer who never wants to give you enough slack to set the tongs properly. But they manage to work as a team and get the wood out safely to the trackside and onto the disconnects. Focusing on the camp you can see the different buildings that were used from “bunkhouses” that the crew called home and relaxed outside or perhaps took in a friendly game of checkers, to the large repair shop complete with a blacksmiths forge, lathe and drill press and the mechanics to keep all the scrap iron working. There were no power saws in those days so the saw filer’s shack played an integral part of the production process as sharp saws were a necessity and the filer needed lots of light to see what he was doing. You’ll notice a friendly soul is waving a greeting while off in the distance someone finishes using the outdoor plumbingJ while the camp dog soaks up the last rays of the day. Firewood was everywhere both for heating living quarters and firing the locomotives. Every morning the crew marshaled at the bulletin board near the shop reminding everyone Safety First! The “Theodosia, Powell Lake and Eastern” as it was known reached a maximum length of 31 miles making it the longest railway in the Powell River area. That being said keeping the track and existing grade in top shape was a full time job for much of the crew housed at the camp. This particular day two crews were out tending to the line. One lucky crew was working in camp today. I guess they had lunch in the cookhouse! The final destination for all traffic was the log dump. This tidewater dump used a par buckle system to offload the cars as they made down under the power of the two truck shay locie #4. The locie engineer was checking with his fireman on the water supply. Hopefully someone let the boomman know it’s time to dump the load. Out past the dolphins the tug readies another boom. So concludes our day at the Theodosia Arm Operation of Merrill & Ring. Did you manage to find the following: Yarding engineer and fireman Loading Engineer Firewood Cutters Head Loader Rigging Slinger Chokerman Head Rigger 2nd Rigger Hooktender Chokerman(pulling strawline) Shop foreman instructing blacksmith Mechanics working on equipment Track repair crew The checker game The saw filer’s in the shack with saws Men lounging around camp Men heading out to work Men on the locomotive Men at the dump Men on the logs on the water
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