"During the building boom they felled enough trees to make room for their buildings and left the stumps for a solid foundation. When Gordon and I arrived, there were just five ladies in Zeballos, and a wedding that night added one more.  The bride came in on the Maquinna; she had been a tablemate of ours for the few times she was not seasick.  The Maquinna returned south two days after its arrival as it carried on to Port Alice first. Gordon went back to attend a sale of lots, so that we would have a building site. Just another young miner looking for a job, and we built a small cabin of logs on an island in the river mouth. The walls were only raised about three feet, topped with a tent.

"One night in early March there was a terrible storm in conjunction with a high tide. There was up to three feet of water on the street and over twenty trees uprooted. I was safely upstairs over the general store with quite a few others during the storm and flooding. By two in the morning it had subsided. By some miracle there was only one building damaged and very little damage at that. We discovered we had not picked a high enough campsite though. But no matter, my tent-mate had gone to work at the Privateer and I moved into a cabin with an old time prospector.

"Before Gordon and I started anything in Zeballos, the management of the Privateer invited us to build our store on the Man of War Flats just over half a mile below the mining camps. We decided this was better than building in town and we put up a two-storey building with the upper storey for our living quarters. One of Gordon’s uncles was a carpenter and he brought our lumber in on the Maquinna and supervised the building of our store.  Gordon and I were the main workers; however, we did hire some casual help.

"My sister Marion came up to cook for us and we also had one boarder. A lot of miners brought their wives in, and most of them built down the road from our store.  Some built log cabins, some frame shacks, and a few just had a wooden floor and frame with a large tent over it. Two women started a laundry and French Henry built a small hotel, but that was to cover up his bootlegging activities. As in most small communities, the general store was the center where everyone came to shop and visit. We had one slot machine, which was very lucrative since there were many single men in camp with money to spend. We were there about a year when Gordon decided he’d like the business to himself and bought me out.

"Dad suggested that I buy one of the taxi outfits in Zeballos, so for three thousand dollars I became the proud owner of two taxis; one new Dodge seven passengers and an old seven passenger Studebaker, which was ideal for the Zeballos roads.  I guess the reason dad suggested this was that I had already made an attempt to get into a business in Zeballos. A former manager of the Pioneer Stages wanted me to go into partnership with him and start operating another bus and taxi company in Zeballos.

"I took over the taxi business on the first of August 1939, and for the next twenty months I was the busiest man, in the busiest town in Canada.  My licence only allowed me to go as far as the Privateer Mine, but this gave me all the business I could possibly handle. This was an ideal situation for me, as I knew everyone at the mine, and all their families. Also, I was on equally good terms with the management at the mine and most importantly the cookhouse staff. My competition had the licence and equipment to service all the mines, but it had an absentee owner so his drivers did not have the dedication to give the travelling public all the little extras my driver and I were only too happy to do. Wilf McGonigal was the name of my driver and I hired him away from Pioneer Stages, my opposition. I hired him because he was well known and well liked in Zeballos.

"I made my first trip to the Privateer at 7:30 am, left there at 8:30 am, so had a half hour to spare and usually ate my breakfast in the cookhouse. I was also at the mine for a half hour at lunchtime, but that was a busy time at the cookhouse so I never ate there at noon. Often I would go to the bunkhouse and take one of the miner’s beds for a short nap. On quiet days I would finish at 6:00 pm but on busy days it would be after midnight and on dance nights it would be closer to daylight. I only made four scheduled trips during my shift but there were always extra ones between. Between trips, I also attended all the requests for my customers up at the mine and the flats. I really developed my memory working in the taxi business; everything was done, even though I never wrote anything down.

"In every business I have ever been in, I never regarded people as customers, but as friends and treated them as such. My customers at the mine knew I would do anything I could to help them out, but I also knew they would do the same for me. At its peak Zeballos and all the mines probably never exceeded thirteen hundred people. It was cut off from the rest of the world so there was a community spirit that you would never encounter elsewhere. Naturally, there was a rivalry between the town and the mining camps, but it was just friendly rivalry and no animosity there. Zeballos had all the trappings of civilization and was blessed with the presence of a provincial policeman. This must have been a coveted posting, as his official duties would mostly consist of paper work for his superiors benefit and not much else. About the only crime in the valley would be the high grading some miners indulged in if opportunity arose.

"My headquarters in town were in the building where Jean Benedict was conducting business. This building was located between the Pioneer Hotel and the drug store and was two stories tall. She was just in the process of turning half of the first floor into a café and upstairs into the living quarters. The café was a cover up for her real business, bootlegging upstairs. She figured having me there would add respectability to her establishment, so I had extremely low rent to pay. I had to do all my own renovations but all I can remember was that I paid one dollar and seventy-five cents for a 4x8 sheet of plywood. About all I used the place for was sleeping in, but it did include a phone. After the phone operator finished her shift she would connect the town phone to one of the out of town phones so that in case of any emergencies they would get in touch with someone out of town.

"The Privateer mine had one mechanic, Oscar Young, another prairie boy who was a regular magician and could repair, replace, or weld anything, and who was only too willing to do so. I had to replace my old Studie with a seven passenger Buick; once he made me a spider gear for the rear end and I never had to replace it with a new one. The road to the mine was only a winding one-lane effort some of the grades were a bit steep. We always drove in low gear, motor off and plenty of brake for the first half mile coming down from the Privateer. Anytime we met a truck we would have to back up until we found enough room to pass. Some of our women passengers were a bit apprehensive when we were backing up or down these steep grades at night. Traffic was not very heavy, and all the time I was in the bus and taxi business in Zeballos I never had an accident with any of my vehicles. The maintenance of this highway was entrusted to a road foreman who had a truck and a helper and a couple of shovels to try and keep the potholes under control. Needless to say, it was hard on equipment.

"Being on the west coast Zeballos got more than its share of rain, but November 1939 broke all records as the bank manager recorded sixty-three inches for the month. Half a mile up from town the river had to pass through a very narrow gorge, after a couple days rain it could not handle all the extra water, and as a result the Tagore Flats would flood. These floods would put me out of business as far as the mines were concerned but I ran whenever possible. The worse day for rain was a total 7.9 inches of rain and it came mostly in the evening.

I came down the road after dark and everything was normal. I should say normal as the phone line was not in working order and had not been for several days."