To the Bush
In 1923 I finished the ploughing and left the farm to accompany my older brother Jim Taylor to the Murray and Omaneque lumber camp at Cross Lake. At Madawaska we met the camp clerk John Conway of Barry’s Bay. He offered us a ride into the camp. Well we had been sitting a long time on the Ottawa/Parry Sound railway and preferred to walk. Although it was 14 miles to the camp Conway and his team never caught us.
During Christmas someone had to stay in camp to feed the horses and keep the fires going to help keep the camp from freezing up. John Etmanskie, the camp foreman, also asked Jim and me to “ fix a bunk – it’s lousy.” So we boiled some water and Jim took the blankets, dropped them into the barrel and poured boiling water over them. Well Jim felt something on his arm. A big louse, full of eggs, was crawling up his arm. He picked it off and dropped it into the boiling water where it swelled up and burst open with hundreds of eggs spewing out. “ In 24 hours that thing would have been mother and grandmother twenty times over,” said Jim.
Like this year 1924 was a leap year and on February 29th, while loading logs, a spruce log fell on Jim’s left leg breaking both bones. The blacksmith and I went at that leg and put splints on and made a tight fitting box to keep it immobile. The doctor later re-set the break. Jim was 42 and it took a longer time for him to heal. But after that he couldn’t touch his heel to the ground. He had to walk on the ball of his foot. Some said he walked like a bear. It wasn’t until 1932, while building a dam for McRea on the Madawaska, that Jim slipped on a stone. It improved his footing but it was a sore way to do it.
Limit holders would hire their own Fire Rangers to look out for their interests on Crown land. The remainder of the country could burn until a rainstorm would put it out. It wasn’t until 1923 that any effective fire control was put into practice by the government of the day, the United Farmers of Ontario ( U.F.O.) under the guidance of the Ontario Forestry Branch (O.F.B.) After the Findley&Ferguson Lumber Company went under Jim Taylor became a Fire Ranger. The OFB built a few 80 foot steel lookout towers. Each Ranger was given a badge, one shovel and a 9 quart canvas pail. He was expected to supply his own car, a canvas tent, blankets and an axe. My father, Alex Taylor, gave Jim a saddle horse to patrol the hills for fire. Jim had patrol #32 ( North Madawaska) which included the Townships of Raglan, Radcliffe as far north as the Combermere and Rockingham road, a few thousand acres in the Township of Lyndoch, along the south shore of the Madawaska River and part of the Township of Ashby to what is now called Len Lake in Lennox and Addington County. His headquarters was at Moccasin Lake. Taylor would pay any extra fire fighters needed to fight a fire and the OFB would reimburse him later.
In August of 1927 John McRae hired Jim Taylor to run his lumber camp at Rock Lake in Algonquin Park. Taylor recommended his younger brother Henry ( younger by 23 years, 5 days & 8 brothers and sisters in between ) to replace him and finish out the fire season.
“ I can remember seeing the hills around the Conroy Marsh on fire at night. It looked like the lights of a town. The sun in the day was a big orange ball in the sky through the smoke. That’s the reason I spent 42 years and 19 days of my life as a Fire Ranger.”