My earliest memory that I can think of was when I was 2 years old, or at least that’s what mom tells me.  We lived in a bush camp in the Whiteshell Provincial Park.  My dad had a sawmill there.  For some reason I was along with my cousin Earnie and he had to walk back into camp because of some trouble with the pickup.  He was using the pickup to put sawdust on the road so that the trucks wouldn’t have trouble on the road.  I don’t know if he got stuck or the truck broke down.  All I can remember is that he ended up carrying me back into camp.

I also remember one winter when the horse that had been used for skidding logs onto the rollway for the sawmill got sick and had to be put down.  During my wanderings around the camp I took a walk to where the body of the horse was.  When my parents found out about this they became quite upset.  This was the same winter there was a bobcat that had been seen around the area.  It's paw prints had been seen in the snow around the slab fire.  My parents where scared that the dead horse could attract the bobcat.  Oh, the innocence of childhood.

Another memory that comes to mind happened when I was 5.  As was usual all the hired help had left camp for the weekend and dad couldn’t get the HD 5 running.  I don't know what the problem was but he needed to get it pulled to start it.  So I got my start in running equipment.  He hooked up the TD-6 to the HD 5 and helped me onto the TD-6.  He showed me which lever to pull to make the cat go and climbed onto the other cat.  I pulled the lever back and off we went.  My operating skills did not involve steering so we just went in a straight line, over logs and all.  A nice bumpy ride but to the best of my knowledge we got the job done.