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OE Career offers up valuable life lessons By Leslie Dyson Brother Bob Cameron lives in Whitehorse now, but he got his start as an operator when he was just 14 years old and living in Wembley, west of Grande Prairie in Alberta. It was summer holidays and, being a farm kid, he wasn’t afraid of hard work and knew a lot about running equipment. He also came from a family of Operating Engineers. “I was pulling a packer with a tractor,” said Cameron. “The guy running the cat said, ‘Let me break him in. It won’t take long. He’s got four older brothers who are great operators.’” At that time, it was only four years since he discovered he had brothers, but more about that later. By the end of the shift, he was running a dozer, pushing earth across a swamp. He ran cable dozers. The fellow who recommended him also terrified him. “He told me, ‘If you break a cable, I’ll kick your ass.’” Born during the Depression in 1936, Cameron said, “I was a lucky one. I got regular meals. For others there were more meal times than meals.” He credits that bit of fortune to being raised by his aunt. His mother died after he was born and his father, a tough and harsh individual, decided he couldn’t raise him and his other five children on his own. Cameron was taken in by his aunt, but his siblings were sent off to live with their grandmother in a house nearby. The siblings were given the last name Cahoon. Cameron grew up believing they were his uncles and aunt. At age 10, he heard a rumour that he had siblings. While helping his father to fell trees with a cross-cut saw, he confronted him with this new information. His dad was at a loss for words. He simply told him to cut down another tree. “He must have been trying to figure out what to say to me,” Cameron said. When his father did finally speak, “All he said was, ‘What do you think of having them for brothers?’ I burst out bawling,” Cameron said. “At seven the next morning, I was on my bike and to my grandmother’s house pounding on the door.” He demanded to know the truth. She admitted that was the case. By 15, he left school and worked “skinning cat” (operating a dozer) on the Hart Highway, outside of Dawson Creek. From there he went to Kemano, working as a labourer. He couldn’t work as an operator because it was a union site and he hadn’t yet had an opportunity to sign up with Local 115. In 1954, he took a job running a D-8 dozer on the pipeline along the Alaska border. The following year, he did roadwork on the Alaska Highway for the U.S. Army. He finally had an opportunity to join Local 115 while clearing a site for a radar station in Fort Nelson in 1956. From there, it was operating dozers, loaders, graders and shovels outside of Prince George, along the PGE Railway, between Dawson City and Inuvik on the Dempster Highway, near Revelstoke on the Trans Canada Highway, at the CanTung mine in the Northwest Territories, outside Bedford along the Cassiar-Stewart Highway and at a gas plant in Fort Nelson. He also took a job in South America, but couldn’t get used to the heat. On a mine site job in the Northwest Territories in 1961 it never got warmer than –60º F. “We had old-style equipment that used heavy gear lube. The iron became brittle, but we had to keep it moving. One guy had to stay up all night keeping the equipment running for 10 minutes at a time to keep the bearings from seizing up.” Cameron said that working as an Operating Engineer was a lot better when construction camps were available. “You worked seven days a week and long hours. You were about ready for bed when your shift ended…They were a lot better than living 200 miles away and having to travel to work, but I could see the camps were fading out.” Once the camps were gone, problems often developed when big projects got under way, he said. The living out allowance was supposed to cover the cost of a motel room in a nearby town. If the motel wasn’t halfway between home and the job site, the rooms would quickly fill up and there would be nothing left. If you find a room, price gouging was the next hurdle. “They had three prices—one for regular times, one for tourists and one for pipeliners. Holy Christ, it would be $75 a day, when it should have been $15! Some guys found ways of getting even with the people taking their money. Things would be smashed. By the time you got to work, everyone was mad at each other. But everybody wanted that money (the allowance).” Cameron, like many other construction workers, resorted to purchasing a travel trailer. “I worked with first-class people all the way through. There were so many people that I learned from. You think you’re getting to where you won’t learn much more, but…” He then recalled the story of Moose, a push cat operator. He didn’t know that you have to open the scraper apron and pump the bucket to pick up a decent load of gravel. After one shift, one experienced member of the crew told Moose how the work could be done more efficiently. “I thought about it,” Moose replied, “but, no, my way will work.” ‘I’m not saying it won’t,’ the other fellow persisted, ‘but try it. If it works, you’ll learn something. If it doesn’t, we’ll both learn something.” Well, Moose tried it with the open apron and the job was finished much sooner. At the first opportunity, Moose called to the other crew members, “Why didn’t you tell me this before?” They yelled back, “Because you’re bigger than us!” Cameron said one of the most valuable lessons he learned was how to properly tell people how to do their job better. “You have to put them right and tell them. It’s better for everybody. Everyone’s drawing the same pay so you have to find a way to say, ‘Shape up or we’ll stop carrying you. You can work either downhill or uphill.’” Cameron said he also worked with great bosses. “Anybody who has a good rapport with people, you’ll do a good job for. If you’re fussy about your work but there’s a guy who’s down your throat and doesn’t appreciate you, you won’t want to work.” The greatest support during his career, however, came from his wife Doe (Maybelle). “My wife saved me. For a good part of my life, it was just a hazy blur. I had a little too much capacity for whisky. I would have done myself in. It was quit drinking or quit breathing. In ’79, I quit. I just decided that if I was that stubborn to drink, I could be that stubborn not to drink.” Cameron retired 11 years ago and now spends time every day with his grandchildren. He has four children, 12 grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. The Cahoon brothers (Cameron’s siblings) were also members of Local 115. Jim eventually owned a mobile crane, Sam and Roy worked underground and Art did pipeline work with a side boom. |
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