From the logging camps (6)

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“Port Renfrew 50 Years Later” completes the scrapbook made for me, by my father, John Oliver Hemmingsen. He called it “Forest Regeneration”.¹

Previous posts covered much of the book. This part accounts for a trip Dad made to the area with Uncle Bob, with my older brother John, in 1990.  For some time by then, there were roads into Port Renfrew. 

Definition of Uncle Bob: Robert Mathias Hemmingsen whom I seldom saw because he was Canadian Military, who, I nevertheless adored for his strong loving impact upon my life.²

Of course “top left” is now “below”

Tall. Girth in progress. Hmm. I guess I need to find the pictures from MY visit.   My “set” required three pictures, one on top of the other, to view the forest from floor to full height. Mine lined up, so individual trees could be appreciated.

The meat house is mentioned in the above segment. Earlier posts show the other edifices, now long gone. The dining, cook and meat houses were for the logging crew. They had huge appetites that had to be fed, not necessarily on a conventional breakfast, lunch and dinner timetable.

The reader need not do this trek to see the structures Dad referenced, for they are displayed in previous posts on this site.

Dad took my younger brother, Sean, and myself on the same journey ten years later.  Port Renfrew was, as I have been telling you, green. And blue. Blues and greens graying to slate, always changing. Ferns and moss and dew. Cones and their giant parents who hide the forest’s fauna. Creeks from drizzle, roaming to sea, finding the beach. Crashing waves throwing their suds into the crispest of air, opening a new glorious vista.

Blue teddy would tell you that life was wonderful there.

NOTES & SOURCES

1. ^{John Oliver Hemmingsen (1913-2008) authored the scrapbook entitled “Forest Regeneration”. All postings and pictures are © 2018 The Hemmingsen Family Collection. Posthumously published at this blog, protected under its copyright, below. All rights reserved.}
2. ^{Robert Mathias Hemmingsen (1920-2004) joined the Royal Canadian Artillery in 1935 (at 15!) and served overseas as a CANLOAN Officer with the 7th Seaforth Highlanders. He served in Korea with the RCA.  Uncle Bob married Marjorie Haslett (Lindgren) – my dear Aunt Ticky – and gave us wonderful cousins, Randall Haslett, and Matt and Piers Hemmingsen.}