The Unexpected

By Sean David Snowdon

Sean Snowdon's memoir is unlike most of the memoirs on bookshelves today. It is not a memoir written from decades of looking back; instead, it is written from a near distance, before the author was forty years old. The author exhibits a daredevil behavior making forays into adventures in deep-sea diving, rock climbing, driving to Alaska, and playing with the most dangerous wildlife, pushing life and death to the limits. He also shows his deeply human and compassionate side when, throughout the memoir, he creates surprise holidays and gifts for his wife and children.
The Unexpected brings together an array of experiences from working on fish farms in small places in British Columbia to becoming a contractor and learning to settle down with a family. This memoir presents a compelling and evocative picture of what it is to be "out there" in the sometimes-chaotic world in Western Canada, where money can be earned and lost quickly.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: May 4, 2020
• ISBN: 9781645366690

Sean David Snowdon

Sean Snowdon is a young entrepreneur, always looking for better ways to gain knowledge of life mixed with the thrill of adventure, having the passion for adventure and being 40 but still containing that kid's instinct of life. Not only learning about successes and failures of life but also in the romance department, he realized that the wanting was behind another door never expected. From the arrogance of youth, believing in control, he realized that a different plan for the future was soon to be discovered. So he decided to chase the next thrill with the more dangerous wildlife and take on the world with no remorse.

Book preview

End

About The Author

Sean Snowdon is a young entrepreneur, always looking for better ways to gain knowledge of life mixed with the thrill of adventure, having the passion for adventure and being 40 but still containing that kid's instinct of life.

Not only learning about successes and failures of life but also in the romance department, he realized that the wanting was behind another door never expected. From the arrogance of youth, believing in control, he realized that a different plan for the future was soon to be discovered.

So he decided to chase the next thrill with the more dangerous wildlife and take on the world with no remorse.

Dedication

To my lovely wife, Ellie, and daughter, Emily, who no doubt saved my life.

Copyright Information ©

Sean David Snowdon (2020)

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher.

Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Ordering Information:

Quantity sales: special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the publisher at the address below.

Publisher’s Cataloguing-in-Publication data

Snowdon, Sean David

The Unexpected

ISBN 9781643780030 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781643780047 (Hardback)

ISBN 9781645366690 (ePub e-book)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020902789

www.austinmacauley.com/us

First Published (2020)

Austin Macauley Publishers LLC

40 Wall Street, 28th Floor

New York, NY 10005

USA

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Those Early Years

What lies ahead is only a mystery. As I sit here thinking about the past, I only wonder if the next 15 years will be the same roller-coaster as the last 15. Will I have the same extraordinary adventures in my next 20 years? Do I have any regrets over what I have accomplished or failed in the last 15 years? I wrestled the grizzlies of the north, swam with the sharks of the south, climbed to the skies of the west, and froze in the arctic cold of the Middle East. Many times, not knowing if I would live or die, the stress came from something so much simpler; who am I and what do I want with this one chance I have on this beautiful planet of ours? This is a question we need to ask ourselves. For me, there are major regrets in what I have done to my family; at the same time, I believe the mistakes I made have shaped me for the way I am today. As much as it hurt, I believe the wisdom of an individual is created by the mistakes of their path. If I had to do it again, would I go down the same salvation and not change anything, or would I challenge a different road?

I sit here in the parking lot at Humpty’s, in Calgary, on an Easter Sunday reminiscing about the past and thinking about what lies ahead in this horrid future of mine. I can only hope that I will still be living on the edge and fulfilling every need. One thing learned was life is not what I expected when graduation day arrived and left. When we were teenagers in our big world, we thought life was easy. We really mattered to everyone out there and should be respected and looked after by all. Boy, were we wrong! Everything I thought should be or was expected had changed my beliefs.

It was the summer of 1993, and after seven months at Supreme Convenience, I was offered a job to manage my own store in Campbell River (three hours away from where I lived). Eighteen years old and already managing a convenience store for minimum wage, I knew what the rest of my life would turn out like; I had it all planned. With many jobs at the same time over the last four years, money was never something that I lacked. Maybe time to spend it, but the most stress I ever acquired was that of sleeping through my alarm by 15 minutes. No bills, no lack of work, and certainly never a time when death was closing in on my heels. I would sit behind my desk, work the books and one day own my own store making millions. Nothing in my head was telling me any different; however, the first step to my life-change was opening my eyes to the world out there.

I arrived in Campbell River with my boss, and walked around the store looking at what we had in labor for the next several months. There were four workers (well more like babysitters sitting around doing nothing) who ran this little gas station of about ten customers a day. It took them ten minutes to even acknowledge we were there when we showed up. There was a reason that nobody came by. The outside was run-down to the point where you couldn’t tell what the paint color was supposed to be. The canopy, torn and faded, was held up by a rusted post with a garden of weeds at the base. There were a couple of tenants upstairs who treated the store as if it were their own personal ashtray leaving cigarette butts on the pavement and beer bottles stacked on the front deck. The store inside was filthy, outdated with shelves of useless, outdated cookie mixes, cereal boxes, and containers of yeast. Coffee, if that was what you called it, was somewhere in the corner between the garbage and Twinkies from the 1960s. The walk-in cooler was in okay shape; however, it was empty of the everyday necessities needed and overstocked with no-name brand pop. The store was screaming for a new makeover, and after the first day of only ten customers (and that’s not even exaggerating) we definitely had time to spend on the tear down, only for rebuilding. It was easy to drop workers, because after the first day when we changed the hours of having one worker at a time instead of two and actually making them work, they all quit except for two. One of the two workers who lasted was a good friend whom I would visit often over the previous years; Adrian Atherton. I would drive to Campbell River and party with him and his girlfriend over many weekends. Not sleeping and drinking coffee for three days straight definitely isn’t healthy but being so naive and young, I felt that I was living.

The next month consisted of 16-hour days of throwing just about everything away, redoing new floors, paint, brand-new canopy coverings. Hell, we even had a huge pile of groceries in one corner with a big sign saying free. The funny thing is, it took us two or three days to give away free food, because nobody wanted half of it, for it was useless and outdated. During the hours I wasn’t rebuilding, I was learning how to manage the books, hire and train staff, order product (always have enough so as not to run out, but make sure that it never lasted on the shelf past its due date). I moved in upstairs with a couple of roommates, and this was good considering my life was the store. I would get up at 6 a.m. to start organizing and open the store, then prepare for the day. If I wasn’t serving the few customers we had, I was cleaning the store inside out, making sure anyone coming into the store would want to come back. Customer service was the number one key to attracting repeat customers. You had to make them feel welcome, joke around with the regulars but not overdo it. The store would close at midnight; I would finish up what I was doing and try to sleep for six hours before tackling the next day. After seven days a week, 18 hours a day, the regular customers started to know me very well, which definitely would help the store? Over the next six months, I took the store from ten customers a day to a more profitable margin where I could hire more staff and even have two people at a time for a shift. When you are managing a store with all the duties and mistakes, you mature very quickly. Hiring staff was my biggest learning experience. Not only did I have to hire the right employees, but I also had to deal with trying to tell someone older than me what to do, especially since I was a 110 lb., 18-year (looking like I was only 14) kid. My biggest mistake back then was not having a life for the first year, only working. It did help with the customer service because it was always nice to visit anyone who came into the store. To pass time, I had a passion for creating. I would make candy displays at the front counter every week that would keep customers looking forward to seeing what was next. At first, we never sold any candy; however, after a while just from impulse, our order of candy shot up by 500%. People couldn’t help but look at the displays and impulsively grab a small handful of candy. I had trains going around the display and through tunnels; holidays were awesome. On Halloween, I placed spiders by the front with hidden pumps, so when people looked closely, the spiders jumped out at them, and at Christmas, I always had something special for the regular customers whether it was a free movie, coffee, or something small. I was always playing jokes on the regulars and getting them to either laugh or jump by the act of surprise. At this time in my life, I never would have clued in that this one day would be the most important factor of my giving. This would be the practice for the future needed to accomplish much more.

My life became a bit more exciting when I had a few staff, for there was always someone to talk to. Thankfully Adrian left the store at the very beginning (being a boss to a good friend is never a good idea). I thought I became friends with the other staff, but looking back the respect was never there. I have learned that being a boss, you are not there to make friends but do a job. You must tell employees if they are not doing their job, or even fire if needed but try to make their work comfortable and pleasant at the same time. There is a borderline between friendship and duty. At the time though I did not know this and wouldn’t for another decade to come. I did fire a few employees, but the ones I thought were friends, I allowed to walk all over me.

I remember one employee I hired (of course as an 18-year-old guy, sometimes you think you are making the right call but still thinking in your pants). She was a tall blonde, blue eyes, long legs and I would do anything to make her job comfortable. Of course she stayed around for some time, but it got to the point when I would wake up, walk over to her place and make sure that she wouldn’t be late, because I did not want to fire her. I wouldn’t act as a manager to a few of the employees I thought were friends, but instead do the work myself. Because I never had the respect, I ended up doing more work while they talking badly behind my back. It was still a learning curve though, and this would help me later on in life.

A year went by at the store. I was still doing crazy hours but decided to move in with Adrian and Tanya down the street and try to have some kind of life. Living above the store was great; however, if I decided to sleep in one morning, getting phone calls to come downstairs so an employee can go to the bathroom or needed something from the office was starting to shatter my nerves. I was now almost 20 and needed a life outside of the work force. I worked my whole life since I was 12, mostly to escape from home. I didn’t understand my parents and what their life was like trying to raise nine kids in a small town with no work half the time. My mother always worrying about me, I would always keep things to myself. Always having to babysit, my only way out was working, so I got my SIN number and worked on the BC Ferries cleaning rooms when I was 12. I would help out on weekends and in the summer every second night. The more I worked later on the less I had to be at home, so by the time I was 15, I had three to four jobs at a time until I was 17. And that’s when Supreme Convenience became a factor, Don (the owner) told me to quit all my jobs and work all the hours I wanted for him.

Moving in with Adrian was great at the beginning. My hours at the store were less; I still put in seven days a week but only worked from 11 a.m. till midnight that would give me some time at night to hang out. A week went by living there and one night I remembered this beautiful woman who came in to visit. We were playing cards and my mouth fell open when she let herself in through the front door. Rayna had long, wavy, brown hair that matched her seductive eyes. She was 5’ 9", 130 lbs and two of the most beautiful dimples on either cheek when a smiled appeared as she noticed me. Within a brisk walk, there was a diminutive wobble as she walked across the room with confidence in who she was. Not only did I see her as good-looking; but there was something about her I never felt before. I needed to know her and wanted in the worst way to date her; unfortunately, I had never been with a woman and had no confidence in myself so that never happened. I did acquire the presence of her after a while and soon fell into the great friend stage with no chance of anything more. Of course when you like someone so much, you fall for them more every day and when you do everything for them and are always around, they become close to you. I would look forward to finishing my job and running home to wait for Rayna, and when I wasn’t around, I would think of her all day at work. She was always around until she started dating. Then I would only get to see her a few times a week. When she broke up with her boyfriend, I would be right there waiting. There were many times I would want to ask her out, and of course when the time would come, I would back out.

Six months would go by, and then one night off to the bar I would go with everyone. It was fun at first for a few hours, but by the time the alcohol caught up with me, the fun turned to a nauseous feeling in the stomach. For the first time partying with everyone, I tried to keep up with the drinking but soon found that a mistake. I hardly remember the night, but do remember staggering outside feeling sick and sneaking behind the fence on the side of the building to get sick. I dropped straight down and didn’t wake up for three to four hours. I woke up with vomit all over myself, looking at a few little bushes in front of me, not knowing where I was and thinking that someone robbed me and threw me in the woods. I thought I was either going to die or already dead. Everything was spinning in circles and every time I moved, I would puke. I crawled for half an hour forward until there was a bright light and a silhouette of a man standing there asking me if I was okay. God, is that you? I asked. My answer came pretty quick when he murmured something and slammed the door. Another half an hour went by when I started to realize I was in-between two buildings downtown behind Overwaitea food’s grocery store. Crawling to the pay phone in front of Overwaitea, I called a cab and headed home to die in my own bed. It took me three days before I finally was able enough to work properly. I never went back to the bar for a few weeks, and when I did, I made sure I didn’t drink as much. It took a while at the bar before I realized my limit of drinking without the nausea to follow, and this was about three beer.

As much fun as it was partying with everyone, my job with the store was still my baby, so the next six months I went to the bar once or maybe twice a week. Every time I did though, boy did I have fun? I figured out if I had four beer, I would be sick all night, but if I had rum and coke, I would drink none stop all night and be fine in the morning. The bar would close at 2 a.m., and off to Patty Joe’s (a 24-hour run-down coffee shop) we’d go for nachos and coffee. For the next four hours, we would party drinking just as much coffee, as we did alcohol, no care in the world without thinking anything about our future.

When Rayna wasn’t dating, she was always by my side dancing and snuggling up against me at the coffee shops. After a while I became that good friend with no chance of a relationship. The times that she would date, I would see her a lot less and spend all my time at the store. There were many times that I would be pounding back coffee, just having fun, when my phone would ring. When my phone rang at 5 a.m. (which was quite often), then we all knew it was only one thing: staff, calling in sick again because they knew that I would always be there in their place. So I would drink more coffee, jump in a cab and off to work. I would pull a double shift after being up all night, waiting for that moment at closing to catch up on sleep.

For quite a few months, I was required to work more and more. I was used by the staff because they knew that they could. I started working longer hours again, trying to accomplish my work on a day-to-day basis and do the work of others. This time it was harder, because it was a year and a half later and we had the customers that a store needs (It wasn’t a number one store by far, but definitely was busier). I was slowly starting to feel overworked from being there every day doing everyone’s jobs. I was becoming annoyed at the staff for not getting the work done, or not showing up all the time. If I was tougher from day one, I wouldn’t have been in this spot, but when choked at employees, they would get pissed as if I were the ass. To try and keep them happy I would hide most of my anger, which would only build up more every day. After staff would quit, which would force me to deal with training new staff while working even longer hours.

For months, my days consisted of waking up at 6 a.m. going to open the store, work shifts all day and train staff; then at midnight work to complete the books, for I needed to send in the report every Sunday to the owner. The moment it seemed I could sleep in one morning, a staff member would quit (I was getting miserable all the time having gone through all the original staff), which would leave me angrier and having to deal with more work and less sleep all over again. I wasn’t eating properly and as to sleep; I would be lucky to get four to five hours a night. I remember one night coming home, feeling extremely sick from exhaustion when I barely made it through the front door and dropped on the floor. My roommates made it back as usual most likely around three to four in the morning when they hit me with the front door. There I dragged my ass to the couch and dropped until they woke me up at 6 a.m. I was no longer thinking straight, so the staff would be harder to deal with and the work would pile up more every day. It would take everything for me to go to work to a store. I no longer acquired the passion for my job and it was a challenge in keeping the place up to par. My friends tried for months to get me to quit, but I was a manager, I wasn’t going to give that up; I didn’t want to fail at what I did, so off to work I’d go.

The day finally came when I was burnt out, sick all the time and just couldn’t take it anymore. I made it to the store in the morning, and remember Don calling me about the money not balancing again. One thing about Campbell River was the theft. There was stealing all the time, not only from the customers but also from some of the staff. And when you are a manager not capable of doing your job from whatever reason, it is pretty easy for anyone to take advantage of that. I remember there was even one time that we had two cops hide out in our walk-in coolers, for there were a few guys going around the town with shotguns robbing convenient stores. So here Don was telling me that we were again short in funds. Not being able to take any more negativity from the store, no sleep and always feeling faint, I broke down in tears and told him I quit. I said I would give my notice and that I was done. I remember him saying he knew something was up and wanted me back in Port Hardy working one of the stores with him, but at that moment in my life I felt like a failure and just needed to get my life back on track and feel normal. I knew that if I went back to Port Hardy, things would go back to normal, I would get trained on how to deal with staff, or people for that matter; and it would be a very different atmosphere for working. After the previous nine months, I knew it was time to change my career and try something different. I wasn’t really mad at anyone but myself for letting it get this way.

About a week went by, when Don’s brother was now taking over the store. My shifts were down to normal and one day I got home at 2 a.m. from an amazing stress-free night out on the town, slept for four hours then got this phone call from one of the staffs saying again he wasn’t coming into the store. Of course my reaction to this was, It’s not my store any more, phone Jim. Maybe I should have just gone in, but I was done with the staff bullshit and went back to bed. Whether or not they phoned Jim I never knew, but I do remember getting a call from Don an hour later telling me to move my ass down to my store and open it. That was my turning point, I did go there and open it, phoned another staff member to come in, then left the keys to the store and the keys to the car that he bought me a year prior and said, See ya.

That was my last day of ever doing any work in a convenience store again (well for money that is, but that is another day coming). Rayna broke up with her boyfriend and the next week that went by, I was following her wherever she went. Now not being able to pay for rent, Adrian was good at the beginning about letting me stay there and we just kept track month to month of what I owed. You see for the last year Adrian had no job, and since he was a good friend, I would pay for all of their coffee and nachos at Patty Joes. Hell, if we ever went out, I would pay for them. I didn’t make much working at Supreme, but getting credit cards was easy. Within a week I had collected four or five credit cards with a combined value of $9000, and two bank loans equaling $5000. Now that I was out of work, and all my cards were now maxed, it was me who was completely broke and Adrian was the one working at a mine and making good money. I had nothing to my name and trying to find a job anywhere to pay the bills. Rayna had found this job back in Port Hardy for a daycare, so my time to see her was only on weekends. I remember her inviting me one Sunday. Trying to find work, I turned her down.

I did look around that Monday, found nothing of course and was sitting there at 11 p.m. playing cards with Adrian and Tanya. Feeling not wanted, discouraged about no work, I got one of my nutty ideas, left the table, collected my Walkman, batteries, some banana chips, granola bars, water, a rain jacket that didn’t do up the front and my bike that was always stuck on one gear and told everyone, I’m out of here, I’m going to see Rayna and when she opens the door, I am finally just going to grab her, kiss her, and tell her how I truly feel.

Of course Port Hardy was about 250 km away from Campbell River, so they thought that I was insane and probably wouldn’t do it. The door slammed behind me and they didn’t see me again for the rest of the week. I had lots of batteries for my Walkman, music going. Feeling good, I started bike riding through the streets of Campbell River on my journey. Riding a mountain bike seemed easy and a good way to go, for now anyways. An hour went by, I was outside of Campbell River when I dropped my flashlight on the highway and pieces of it flew everywhere. I spent ten minutes trying to find everything, with no success and then decided who needs light, I continued on bike riding into the dark. I went till about 3 a.m. when I started to feel exhausted and sick from no sleep, so the ditch seemed like no better place to crash for the night. I figured there was no other five Star ditch down the road, so I broke off a bunch of fir branches and tried to sleep in the cold. Shivering for about two hours, trying to get any kind of sleep, I awoke to raindrops starting to fall, so off I went again. My Walkman died, and when I went to get my batteries they were gone, either from a small hole in my pants’ pocket or tossing and turning in the ditch for two hours. There I was about six hours away from Campbell River, and ten hours away from Port Hardy with no batteries, not much food left, no money, lots of water (except it was the rain now coming down on me with only a raincoat that I couldn’t do up the front). Was this a well-planned trip? No. Am I comfortable? Hell no. Do I want to be back at my place? Oh yah. Is this girl worth the bike ride? Thinking about this while looking up both sides of the highway, I continued down the pavement towards her in the rain. In the middle of nowhere the way I looked, I doubt that anyone would ever stop for me. It didn’t matter for never hitch hiking in my life I was too nervous to even try, so with one gear on my bike, I continued biking soaking wet.

Living in Port Hardy my whole life and even to this day, I can honestly say I never loved seeing that sign Welcome to Port Hardy as much as I did that day. I arrived at her apartment around 6 p.m. that night, knocked on her door and when she opened it and saw me standing there with a bike soaking wet all that came out of my mouth was a tired, sore groan of Hi! That was it, no kiss. I was too damn tired and, let me be honest here, probably didn’t have the guts to say anything anyway. My knees were killing me, my back, sore and my ass, shit, sitting on a bike seat for 17 hours straight, my ass was killing me. A smile slowly swept over on her face, which at least showed me she was happy to see me. Looking back now, I was one of her best friends; however, I know she must have known all along how I felt but probably was glad I didn’t ask her out. She made me spaghetti that night, we cuddled on her bed watching T.V., and before my head hit that pillow, I was out until nine or ten the next morning. For the next couple of days, Rayna would be at work until about three and I would visit family and friends around town and then head back and spend the night with her, listening to her day and problems she encountered with some of the staff. That is probably why we were such good friends. Not only did we have fun partying at the bars, hanging out doing whatever we felt like, but I was always a good listener. Men usually think the women complain to us so we can fix their problems and be the super-hero, but I always seemed to get along better with the women. I was never in any position to fix anything, but listening to them and letting them tell me about all what was on their mind seemed to be enough. Life was going perfectly with Rayna; she would work in the day, and we would spend the night together playing cards or talking about anything. It felt as if I were in a relationship, one sided unfortunately but still she was all mine for the time being. The only thing I was missing was getting a job. At this point I had been out of work for about two weeks and for me that was not normal, considering I always had anywhere from two to four jobs at once since I was 12. As much fun as this was, I did know it was about time to find work, especially since all of my cards had maxed out a few months prior and now I couldn’t use one card to pay the minimum payment on another card. People on the other end started to get testy about not receiving any more cash. The phone calls were starting, but I wasn’t worried for they were really nice people on the other end just asking politely when I would give them some money and get caught up for the last two months. At 19–20 years old, no job and owing close to $15,000, it was a little stressful but hey, tomorrow was another day, I was sure it would work out in a couple of months. Rayna had a great idea, Why don’t you try and find a job in Port Hardy, and then you can move in with me? And of course, there was no way of saying no, for I was already passing that through my mind, only then that would give me time to win her heart (I already had the last year and a half to do that, but this time would be different). So Friday while she worked, I went job hunting. Living in a small town of Port Hardy your whole life, everybody knew what kind of worker you were, so finding a job only took me a couple of hours.

My sister worked at Omega fish plant around the corner from the BC Ferries. Due to my history of work ethic and the fact that my sister was an excellent worker the plant gave me a job with one of the fish farm managers. The farm was inside the bay, so every day I would get a boat ride to and from the farm. This was perfect, for not only was I making $1700 a month (300 more than my last job) but also, I could start a life with Rayna, win her heart, and live happily ever after.

The fish farm had a float house anchored down to the ocean floor about 1000’ off shore. It was nestled in a cove, so it would be protected from most windstorms throughout the year. On the back and front of the house, there was a walkway attached that stretched about 400’–500’ on either side. The walkways were like grids with 50’ x 50’ pens on either side of them. The pen was open to the ocean floor and there were 2" round metal bars that were 3’ high and attached every 4’ to the walkway. The net would come in from a barge and be placed in a corner of one of the pens, waiting for us to open it up. Each net would weigh a ton out of the water, even though it was lighter in the water, it would still take three or four of us to slowly open the net and spread it around the 50’ pen. A good hour and this net now 50’ x 50’ was open hanging on the bars and dropped 50’ deep towards the ocean floor, waiting for its arrival of the guest. The net was like a chain-link fence but made out of a thick black twine. The farms tried many times raising Chinook salmon; however, with the salmon with their weak hearts, they couldn’t be kept alive, so Atlantic Salmon was the best salmon for survival.

Working the fish farms during the day was excellent. I got to drive the boats around the farm, feeding the fish about two ton of feed a day, enjoy the warm sun and listen to my Walkman and the best part of it, get paid to do this. I would work the day and head home for the night; yes, this was fine for the rest of my life, I was now set. The only flaw in this was a couple of weeks went by and Rayna decided she had enough of Port Hardy and headed back to Campbell River, now leaving me stranded there. Having no work and creditors now phoning me every couple of days, I wasn’t about to quit my job, especially since I loved what I did. The next couple of months on the farm, I started to get well-liked for my attitude, and most of all my work ethic. There was one person on site all the time for eight days on and six days off; then there were four of us who would come in every day from town and leave at dinner. Mike Blake and I were the two whose job was feeding the salmon mostly on a day-to-day basis, and when we were not feeding, we were helping everyone else either dropping nets for cleaning, moving or counting fish. Mike’s dad was the manager of the farm, so he was always slacking in work which didn’t make him that popular with the guys. All the guys that worked on the farm were from Newfoundland and did they know how to have fun and work hard, so I developed a relationship with them very easily without trying. I loved working the farm but hated living in Port Hardy, so I tried for the first two months as hard as I could to work the eight on and six off. This way I could move back to Campbell River and still keep my job. I finally got my chance and now was back to Campbell River living with Adrian and Tanya again. With Omega, their main office was out of Campbell River and they had about six fish farms isolated around the north end of Vancouver Island. The eight days was the same shift for all the farms, so finding a ride to Port Hardy was easy. I could live in Campbell River, meet at the Mohawk gas station and catch a ride up to Hardy for the crew boat to take us all to our farms. After a couple of months, the thing that I found out quickly on the ocean was how my hands would get a barely tolerable skin rash. From always having my hands in salt water and the dust from the fish feed, my hands would break out. At night I would scratch them to the point where they would break open and bleed. I couldn’t even hold a spoon at lunch, and since I wouldn’t want to slack in my job duties, I would have to deal with the pain in the day.

When we cleaned the nets, we had to pull the 50–100 Ib. concrete weights up and over the system. This way the nets could be pulled up. I was skinny and only weighed 120 lbs. It would take everything (and do I mean everything) I had to accomplish this. The smaller weights that were 50 lbs. for the smaller nets I could accomplish, but the bigger ones would take me a good few minutes to lift up (my problem is when I am determined to do something, nothing stops me.) Since my hands had very bad eczema and were bleeding, lifting these weights took everything I had for not looking like a slacker among the other workers. I would scratch so bad at night, I even tried tying myself to the bed to prevent it from getting worse. I tried every cream known, I would wear rubber gloves with liners (but working in salt water every day, they still would be, soaked and besides the barnacles ate through the gloves pretty quickly). I even pissed on my hands one day in the hopes that it would help. Over the couple of years, it just got to a point of dealing with it. The six days off, I was almost able to get my hands to a bearable state, but after the first day back at work, they would crack, bleed and blister all over again. One time I lifted up a 50 lb. weight over the system when I noticed the rope holding the weight was frayed down to a small couple of strands. Before I could do anything further, the strands broke and I watched for a split second the 50-lb. concrete block fall 5’ smack on top of my two big toes. Holy shit did that hurt! Miraculously I didn’t break anything; however, I did rip both of my toenails off my feet and that didn’t stop hurting for the next couple of days. Instead of going to the hospital to get them probably looked after, I kept working out my shift with bloody and painful feet. Now it is maybe 18 years later and both of my toe nails don’t grow properly, because they are attached only at the base. If I bang my toes lightly against something, I will be in pain again for a few days due to the base of the nail ripping up.

The money situation, was very tight. On my time off, I still couldn’t afford to live, for now with all of my credit cards and bank loans, the collection agencies were now banging down my doors threatening me every day. Of course being young and trying to make it, added stress to myself. I was making more than my previous job, but I was spending one and a half pay checks a month on living expenses, so this left me with very little to pay all the creditors. My food for camp was anything that didn’t cost much, so cooking I definitely had to learn. Eight days in camp and by myself at night would give me time to learn. There was no cable where I was, so watching nothing on CBC didn’t appeal to me. At five when everyone left, I would clean up the house, try to cook something within my budget, and on the ocean, there was an abundance of fish. We were allowed to have some Atlantic salmon for dinner, if we wanted, so if I couldn’t catch much cod, then I would dip into the salmon. Since buns were cheaper at the Superstore than bread, I would use them for salmon sandwiches. For six months I would eat salmon macaroni, salmon sandwiches, baked salmon, tried deep fried salmon, salmon casserole…salmon anything. Eating like this, I would then pay something every month to at least two creditors, which would leave five or six still screaming.

Every couple of months, one of the other fish farms would need extra staff for counting, moving fish or to replace someone who was sick. After being there for six months, I had earned an excellent reputation for work ethic and ability to get along with the other workers, so I was always the one who would head out to the other farms. This was a dream for me, for out on the farms some of the guys were divers; therefore, at night we would have all the seafood one could eat. I would make up apple pies (for being on a tight budget that was one thing I soon became good at making) do the cooking and clean up and in return they would do the diving and obtain the food. Alaska king crab, halibut, scallops, oysters and I would say abalone, but we all know that is illegal. God I would eat like a king for the eight days, way better than salmon. Another thing the other farms had was satellite, so at night there was so much more to watch. On one of the farms it was a tradition to watch the Simpsons on T.V. every night at 4:30. This farm was one of my favorites. The manager was easy going, there was so much to do and one of the other farms was just down the pass around a couple of islands. Out of the two farms, someone would quite often head over for a visit, exchange movies, food, or just shoot the shit. Everyone seemed friendlier between the two sites.

The summer was the best, when the guys would leave the site. Then it was just me with no one around except for the lights of the small town flickering way off in the horizon. I would feel like Kevin Costner in the movie, Dances with Wolves, where I would fish at the end of the system in the complete nude. I would listen to music, fish, boat around the islands setting crab traps or just doing nothing. I would always have a pair of shorts nearby though, for every once in a while, at around 6–8, one of the head managers of all the sites would crash at our site in Hardy Bay. We all called him Koopmen. His job was to spend some time making sure that everything was running smoothly. Unlike some other staff, I never felt threatened by him. I always felt that Koopmen respected me regardless of all the crazy shit that I had done. I was known for swimming in the ocean (all year round). I would just run and dive off the end of the system, or roll into the open pens to patch a hole, so we didn’t have to pull up the net for an hour to do it. Playing pranks on everyone (even Koopmen) was something I always did. You would get about 60 ton of feed for the fish, once a month, so this was kept in a 1200 Sq. Ft. float house (with no interior walls) that had the garage door as an opening to forklift the feed in and out. The seagulls and crows would fly in to peck at the 50 lb. bags of feed. We had a net over the garage door, so that they couldn’t get in. One day working, I opened up the net and went on with my business feeding the fish. Once I noticed four or five birds in there, I snuck up dropped the net and then grabbed the birds, when they tried to fly out the closed windows. We had big storage containers for the fish feed that would hold 400 lbs. of feed, so I took one empty container and started to place a half dozen seagulls and crows into it. That morning I waited until the crew boat came in with the workers, and around 9 a.m. when we were all working, I mentioned to Tony (one of the other staff) that there was something wrong with the container and that we should get the manager. With Mike close by, I knew that as the manager’s son he would take matters into his own hands. Not disappointing me, he quickly went over to the container, threw open the lid not expecting six birds, fuming, flying out at him. Even though Tony and I practically pissed ourselves laughing, it didn’t bother us at all that he didn’t find it as funny.

Summer eventually turned into winter and the winters in Port Hardy consisted of a dark gloomy five months with non-stop rain. Every couple of weeks, at my last resort of living and leaning towards suicidal depression, the sun would gaze out from the clouds for a day and give hope and a bright future ahead of what forgotten summer looks like. Then just as fast, the winter would gloom on with the sound of non-stop rain haunting everyone.

I took a second job on my time off working at the Mohawk gas station doing a graveyard shift. Since everyone I knew was still into drinking at the bar, I was getting tired of the life style (and it didn’t matter that I had no money anyway.). I was still living with Adrian and Tanya. At this time, I owed them $1500 for the three months’ rent from the past, and was barely able to pay the rent on a month to month. Not only that, but they had the nerve to tell me they were charging me $100 a month for interest on what I owed them. Things were a little cold in the home, for after a year of paying everything for them, their way of paying me back was somewhat different to what I believed it should be. We would be at our usual coffee joint and with only enough money for coffee, I would sit and watch them eat lunch. Then to top that off, when it came time to pay the bill, they would sit and wait for me, while I counted out a buck in nickels, dimes and pennies. I never expected them to pay me back for what I did for them; however, those few last months living with them, I did find out who my true friends really were.

I wanted a new change in my life, but at that moment was too busy working between two jobs to find a way out of my impossible debt. The phone calls would be nasty and non-stop all day long, even after my cell phone got disconnected. It didn’t take them long to start phoning the house where I lived and find a way to harass me some more. The worst two days of my six off were always the first day and the last day. My last day in camp would usually consist of me waking up at six and working until five where we would then jump on the crew boat and head into Port Hardy for our time off. I would catch a ride to Campbell River, usually showing up around 10 p.m. where I would start my graveyard shift at Mohawk. That first night I would do everything and drink non-stop coffee just to put in another eight-hour shift and try to pretend I had the energy to go on. My last day off would be working a graveyard shift until 6 am, where the crew would swing by Mohawk and we would drive to Port Hardy and work the rest of the day until five. Usually by the time five came around, I would re-live my baby years all over again almost falling asleep in my dinner. It would always take two – three days for my body to get used to the normal sleeping habits again; then, on my 8th day, it would start all over again. I don’t know how it started, but over the couple of months everyone on the farms knew everything about Rayna. I was so much in love with a one-sided relationship idea, that I couldn’t stop talking about her. It started out by mentioning to one guy, that when asked if she was my girlfriend, I