By Ed Stozek
For the Herald

In 1936, Henry Edwards spent two weeks cutting and skidding logs at Hilton’s camp located west of the Kippan’s Mill site. It was hard work as there was a great deal of snow that year.

The next winter he went to work at Kippan’s Mill. Edwards had his own men who were either paid by the month or by lumber planed from the logs that they cut. Initially. For every 5,000 feet cut, Edwards got 1,000 feet of planed lumber. He stayed at the camp all winter long.

“I never had a written agreement, never had an argument. Kippan made contracts with some people, but I never had a contract with him. Kippan’s word was good and mine was good, too,” Edwards said

A team of horses was essential for work in the bush. Edwards always kept a spare horse at camp in case of injury. Since the logs were skidded down to the bottom of ravines a horse could step on or be impaled by a limb and become lame. There were times when a horse was not able to work for more than a month.

Typically, the day’s work started at 7 a.m. with the goal to get back to camp before dark and get the logs scaled so that the men were ready to go again the next morning.

During Edwards’ second year at the camp, Kippan built a row of shacks for the men to stay in.

“There was no paper on the outside, just rough lumber. You could see the stars through the cracks in the roof,” he said.

Several years later Edwards built his own cabin. He made several additions and added wallpaper and linoleum.

“It was just like home,” he said.

“During the early years of operation there was an abundance of labourers. If you didn’t do your share of the work you were asked to leave. His word was law, don’t buck him. There was an incident where someone was stealing hay. Kippan erected a pole in the middle of the camp and said that if he caught the culprit, he would hang from that pole. The men didn’t know if Kippan was serious or not, but the stealing of hay came to an end.”

The men loved to play pranks on one another. They unhitched horses, hid saws and axes and sometimes ran into a shack and made off with someone’s cooked food.

For leisure time on Sunday many of the men visited or went fishing at Edward’s Lake. Some rode in Tom Winder’s truck box and attended dances at Crawford Park or caught a ride to Dauphin.

“I rode on that truck, I nearly froze to death.”

Edwards was promoted to bush foreman taking over from Dan Menzies. During the summer his job included scouting which ravines to cut in. When winter came he allotted these specific areas for farmers to cut.

He also ensured that the scrub was cleaned up and burned. If farmers did not follow the correct procedure then he went to the office and they did not get their lumber until the area that they had been responsible for was cleaned up.

One year, after a wind went through the park, park officials wanted the downed trees cleaned up. To prevent confusion, farmers went to Warden Bob Hands for a permit and he then sent them to see Edwards who directed them where to haul the logs from. The logs were planed at Kippan’s Mill and then the farmers picked up their quota.

By 1944, when the need for lumber diminished and labourers were hard to get, Kippan scaled down his mill operation and installed a portable steamer. Instead of 22 men he only needed half that number. Production was about 95 per cent less than in the heyday years.

For the last year of the mill’s operation, Edwards scouted the areas to be cut and that fall he did not go up to work at the mill site.

For Henry Edwards, “The minute the fall work was done I headed for the bush until seeding time.”

(Quotes from taped interviews by T. Tabulenas courtesy of the RMNP archives)