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Charlie's photo description: That's the second set-up for the sawmill. After a year or so we
moved it down on a creek closer to the timber and a better place to set up. The first place was too
flat. We couldn't get rid of the sawdust. So there was some logs that got left from the year before
and bugs got into 'em, so I just cut 'em up into boards and built a bunkhouse [ ca. 1943]. We set
up down there with the D4 because then I could bulldoze the place out and fix it up nice because
I had the blade. The guy sitting in the door playing a guitar is little Gabe Sabourin. He didn't
want to come to the sawmill that year because he just got married. So I told him well why not
come out there and take your wife and she can eat with us. She can help my wife with the dishes.
So he set up his tent across the clearing here. And the other one there, that's Henry Squirrel. He
was stuck here this past winter. I lent him money for a ticket to get back home. He lives at
Yellowknife now. He's a good man. He used to work for The Bay mostly. He's not a strong
fellow. And the little fellow there, the Bull Cook we call him, that's Thomas Hope. That's a
nephew. He's a boy from my wife's oldest sister.
Caption Source: Charlie Hansen interview.
Photographer: likely Charlie Hansen or Isidore Villeneuve but with a new sharper camera.

Photographer: Milton J. Campbell

Milt Campbell's Audio Caption for photo: 102. This was this boiler. As you can see it was an awkward looking thing and I left it to pretty near the last and we finally hoisted her up and load her on one of the sleighs and it never give a bit of trouble. It went right into Mercury Mines then.

Photographer: Milton J. Campbell

Charlie's photo description: When we set up the mill there was a patch of timber on the
highest point of land that we had around that country. It was mostly tall white spruce and the
only patch that I've seen. Most trees were black spruce. We get eight, nine, ten logs out of a
white spruce. Some of them were thirty, thirty-two inches on the butt. That was the cream of it.
There we are sitting on one of them there. From left to right is myself, my father-in-law [George
Sibbeston] standing there with his axe and he always had the little stubby cigarette in his mouth.
The next one there is George Cli. That last guy ls William Cli. The Cli family lived down in Two
Islands. His father was the Chief after Joe Hope. Good man that.
Caption Source: Charlie Hansen interview.
Photographer: likely Isidore Villeneuve but with a new sharper camera.

Milt Campbell's Audio Caption for photo: 103. This was this boiler. As you can see it was an awkward looking thing and I left it to pretty near the last and we finally hoisted her up and load her on one of the sleighs and it never give a bit of trouble. It went right into Mercury Mines then.

Photographer: Milton J. Campbell

Caption Source: Bill Addison because we ran out of tape & time (at 1 am) before Charlie could
describe it.
Photographer: likely Isidore Villeneuve but with a new sharper camera.
WDA's Comments, 2014 Feb 11: All moving of logs onto stoneboats or sleighs in the bush and
off them into piles at the sawmill and from the piles to the saw carriage was done by humans
without mechanical assistance. See Photos I 04-105 for examples. The lumber was likewise all
moved by hand. This log must weigh hundreds of pounds. Charlie Hansen (right) is a small man
yet he is lifting a huge weight. The only safety gear was their own mental acuity. Their safety
shoes are soft moccasins. Charlie expected much of himself and those who worked for him but
he had a soft heart for people like Isisdoe Villeneuve who could do little more than operate the
throttle on the saw because of his rhumatism. I don't recognize the person on the left.

Caption Source: Bill Addison because we ran out of tape & time (at 1 am) before Charlie could
describe it.
Photographer: likely Isidore Villeneuve but with a new sharper camera.
WDA's Comments, 2014 Feb 11: All moving of logs onto stoneboats or sleighs in the bush and
off them into piles at the sawmill and from the piles to the saw carriage was done by humans
without mechanical assistance. The lumber was likewise all moved by hand. The logs they are
handling must weigh a few hundred pounds. Charlie Hansen (right) is a small man yet he is
moving a huge weight. The only safety gear was their own mental acuity. Their safety shoes are
soft moccasins. Charlie expected much of himself and those who worked for him but he had a
soft hea1t for people like Isisdoe Villeneuve who could do little more than operate the throttle on
the saw because of his rhumatism. I don't recognize the person on the left.

Milt Campbell's Audio Caption for photo: 104a. Just an ordinary Cat train is one, two, three, four, five sleighs. That was about the usual thing for these International DD40s. They'd handle five sleighs with five, ten, fifteen ton. It just depended on how much frost you had to contend with. If it was very cold., it was just like pulling over sand. If the weather was warmer, around zero, you could move a heck of a load. But if it tightened up why you had to cut your loads down and double up. We pulled that stuff you're looking at all the way from Grimshaw to Yellowknife. It was more expensive than shipping by boat but we got it there in March and the boats didn't come in until June because you can't get across that lake until the ice goes out. At this time, Yellowknife was booming and there was a lot of stuff that they could use. I haven't a picture but one of these outfits, the one I was driving, had fifteen ton of powder [dynamite] on my first sleigh and I wanted to know where it was so I kept it right in the first sleigh behind the Cat. I sure did. For fifteen tons, some of that was forty percent and some of it was sixty.

Photographer: Milton J. Campbell

WDA's Comments, 2013 Sep 13: Note that my numbering error resulted in two 104 photos. They are now labeled 104a and 104b.

Milt Campbell's Audio Caption for photo: 104b. Just an ordinary Cat train is one, two, three, four, five sleighs. That was about the usual thing for these for these International DD40s. They'd handle five sleighs with five, ten, fifteen ton. It just depended on how much frost you had to contend with. If it was very cold., it was just like pulling over sand. If the weather was warmer, around zero, you could move a heck of a load. But if it tightened up why you had to cut your loads down and double up. We pulled that stuff you're looking at all the way from Grimshaw to Yellowknife. It was more expensive than shipping by boat but we got it there in March and the boats didn't come in until June because you can't get across that lake until the ice goes out. At this time, Yellowknife was booming and there was a lot of stuff that they could use. I haven't a picture but one of these outfits, the one I was driving, had fifteen ton of powder [dynamite] on my first sleigh and I wanted to know where it was so I kept it right in the first sleigh behind the Cat. I sure did. For fifteen tons, some of that was forty percent and some of it was sixty.

Photographer: Milton J. Campbell

WDA's Comments, 2013 Sep 13: Note that my numbering error resulted in two 104 photos. They are now labeled 104a and 104b.

Would a modern car have survived being hauled like this from Grimshaw, AB to Yellowknife?

Caption Source: Bill Addison because we ran out of tape & time (at 1 am) before Charlie could
describe it.
Photographer: likely Isidore Villeneuve because of blurred edges.
WDA's Comments, 2014 Feb 11: The sawmill lacked sufficient power to saw frozen logs even
with Charlie's new Cat D4, however they could cut down trees and saw them into lengths
suitable for sawing using hand saws. Thus, the winter was used to accumulate a supply of logs to
put through the mill the following summer. It was also used to cut smaller trees for firewood.
Charlie was still supplying Fort Simpson with most of its firewood, plus its lumber, plus lumber
for the US Army.

Photographer: Milton J. Campbell

Milt Campbell's Audio Caption for photo: 106. Has a caption on the back. "Hans Capstan cook shack and tent. Channel ten miles from Fort Resolution." Stuart McLeod took that picture. I didn't think it was quite ten mile. We used to call it seven mile because it was the closest we'd get to mail. The mail plane stopped at Resolution. You'd work all day and at night you'd go in for the mail on foot or snowshoes. It was in the winter. You'd run into Resolution seven miles, pick up your mail and visit for a couple of hours and come back to camp. We never thought anything of it.

This is the Yellowknife Transport boat camp. That was the first boat camp. They later built a huge affair down at Hay River on the island. Across the channel because the channel you could get up to Smith but you couldn't get across that lake 'til on in June before the ice went out. By going to Hay River, the Hay River would come down and cut a channel through into the Mackenzie and it would give you an extra two weeks of navigation.

Photographer: Stuart McLeod

Charlie's photo description: That's the Army. I don't remember the reason but they were
gonna send somebody down to help get logs out for something or another. They sent these two
guys and you can see the big stone boat behind the Caterpillar tractor there. They had a D4 with
a Hyster winch on the back. It was narrow gauge. It wasn't very good. The one I had was a wide
gauge with the wide pads but that's what they were doing. They spent most of the time with their
feet in the fire. I remember them standing around there one day. They hauled three logs before
dinner, three logs after dinner and they said that was a good day's work. The rest of the time was
spent standing there with their big boots. They had Army boots on you know and that's not
footwear for that country. I remember one of them keeping a foot in there too long. You should
have seen the dance he put on when he took his foot out and stepped on it. Could that be me
standing by them there?
Caption Source: Charlie Hansen interview.
Photographer: likely Isidore Villeneuve because of blurred edges.
WDA's Comments, 2014 Feb 11: Charlie Hansen is on the right

Milt Campbell's Audio Caption for photo: 107. That's the Hudson's Bay boat. and barge going down the Mackenzie. Well, I don't know whether that's on the Mackenzie or on the Slave. That'll be the old Distributor.

Photographer: unknown.

Charlie's photo description: That's telephone poles. They were building a phone line down
from Norman down to Aklavik and I was into that Bechtel. Price, Callaghan (BPC), wanted
thousands and thousands of telephone poles. Thousands and thousands never got there. They
were just abandoned along the Canol Road.
Caption Source: Charlie Hansen interview.
Photographer: likely Charlie Hansen or Isidore Villeneuve but with a new sharper camera.
WDA's Comments, 2014 Feb 11: It seems more likely that the poles were for a telephone line
along the Canol Road and not from Fort Norman or Norman Wells to Aklavik. BPC is Bechtel,
Price, Callaghan the contractor for the Canol Pipeline and the Canol Road.
I saw salvaged coiled wire remnants of the line 1977 Aug 28 along the Canol road in Yukon and
NT, but no poles that I can recall.