IUOE News Winter 2013

Member Profile
The Kenney Dam project circa 1952, where Marcel was stationed between
working on the Yellowhead Highway, Kitimat Tunnel, B.C. Rail
mainline and highway, and building man-made islands in the Arctic.
Building B.C. “the Dupuis way”
From that point on, the Dupuis brothers’ legacy in construction
reads like a four-decade glossary of jobs and projects all
across the province, servicing and operating heavy equipment
and cranes, and both serving as
foremen and elected shop stewards
along the way. Ed’s work featured
largely in cranes operating on bridges,
while Marcel focused more on
mechanical servicing on road building and facility
construction.
After completing the Yellowknife work—the only job on
which the two brothers worked together—they both returned
to B.C. Ed was placed on the project building the road
connecting the former mill town of Woodfibre in upper Howe
Sound to nearby Squamish, where he was one of the few who
learned to run a “Cat”.
Ed then spent three years in the small First Nations town of
Shalalth on the shore of Seton Lake, west of Lillooet, on the
huge Bridge River power project. This included completing
the water tunnel, which had been left half-built years earlier
due to the depression, through Mission Mountain connecting
the Bridge River to Seton Lake to power the turbines. It was
one of the largest power projects ever built at that time, and
was where Ed learned to run a power shovel.
Following this, he went on to train to operate larger Linkbelt
and American cranes. “I went up north to Graham Island
(the largest of the Haida Gwaii islands, then known as the
Queen Charlottes) to be put in the Taseko mine.”
Ed says his most traumatic job was on the Ironworkers
Memorial Bridge (then known as the Second Narrows
34 News December 2013
I landed in Normandy on D-Day. I
was wounded three times. When I
got out of the army, they gave me
$100 and said ‘there you are.’”
Crossing), when on June 17, 1958, the span peaking the arch
on the northern side of the bridge collapsed after being placed
by the crane (later deemed to be caused by an engineering
miscalculation). Nineteen workers were killed.
“I was on vacation that day,” he says. “I heard about the
crash on the radio while I was in Calgary. The guy who
replaced me was killed.”
Marcel has had an equally challenging career. Starting in
1948, he built flood dykes near the town of Deroche on the
north side of the Fraser Valley. He then worked in logging
camps, and helped rebuild the Yellowhead Highway between
Port Edward and Prince Rupert as a cat skinner (small bulldozer
operator) and then a road to a new mine east of Burns
Lake. He even refurbished an old school bus and used it as a
mobile home.
“I travelled with my wife (Peggy) from job to job for over
five years,” he says.
Marcel then trained as a heavy duty mechanic while building
the Kitimat water tunnel as part of the first stage of the
Kemano power project. In the early 50’s he was stationed
north of Vanderhoof to build the Kenney Dam on the Nechako
River (to power the new Alcan aluminum smelter) and then
on to Tahtsa Lake to complete the
Kitimat tunnel in 1953. He then spent
6 ½ years building the B.C. Rail mainline
from Horseshoe Bay to Squamish,
and then the same highway.
During that time he and Peggy settled in Deep Cove in
North Vancouver, not far from where the bridge his brother
helped build would be located.
The Dupuis brothers enjoying some down time. Both are still active
members of their communities who enjoy travelling and keeping
themselves busy.