1944-1945 Year Book - the Gatineau Valley Historical Society

Ottawa Ski Club Year Book 1944-45 45
baked pork chops, and apple
pie. Bill Irving and Dalton
Wood weren't going to let the
boys in the Southam get ahead
of the Plaunt Lodge squad, so
they put delicious rice pudding
with raisins on their· menu for
dessert.
After supper, each bunkhouse
gang got busy installing
built-in sinks and cupboards
with a masonite top. Another
evening's work and they should
be complete.
George Brittain had a few of
the boys over on the ski tow. A
cut ten feet wide and eight feet
deep at its maximum depth is
called for on the blueprint to
make the tow much more efficient,
and ·easier for the customers
to hang on to.
SUN. OCT. 29, 44.
Wilf, the caretaker, insists it's
"Daylight in de Swamps" when ·
he comes to wake us up at sixthirty
in the morning. We're
too sleepy to argue the point, so
we get up anyway, at least the
cooks of the week-end do; start
breakfast of bacon, eggs, porri.d'ge,
etc., and once again we
surprise ourselves by hitting
the trail by eight-thirty.
We split ourselves into two
gangs for the morning, the
larger part on the bridge, and
the rest on the ski tow.
By noon the masonry part of
the bridge, which amounts to
two sides extending fifteen feet
past the bridge itself on each
end, or a total length of about
190 feet, was nearly complete.
Don't know what we'd do without
Prince. That noble beast
with Dalton Wood at the reins
seemed to know exactly what
we were doing and pitched in
with all his heart and weight.
(I mean Prince-not Dalton).
Without him, it would have
taken us at least another
four weeks to complete it, and
with smaller rocks at that.
There is more water flowing
through Fortune Creek now but
that diidn't hinder us much.
The cooks really went to town
on the dinner today : Consomme,
Baked spare-ribs with dressing,
Creamed peas, Mashed potatoes,
Tea, and Chocolate pudding. We
didn't lose much time polishing
that off. Nor did we give it
much time to digest, for we
wanted to get on with the work
and try and get home early this
evening.
The ski-tow crew hit some
pretty large boulders and bed
rock, which they are uncovering
ready for blasting at a later
date. Hooking up the scraper
to the tow rope and using the
motor with a "forward~3topreverse"
signal system didn't
prove very satisfactory. We
may try using a stone boat. atfair
with 4igh sides and see if
that is practical. If that doesn't
work, then it looks as thoug!h
we'll have to use the old chain
gang system of shovelling the
dirt from pile to pile down the
hill to be used as fill at the bottom,
where the blueprint calls
for an increase in height at one
spot of around six fe~t.
Three of the bridge gang
went over in the afternoon to
the Practice Slope where an intermediate
jump is being constructed.
This is designed to
encourage jumping as far as