Ted Hume has a lifetime of memories of the Port Mellon townsite. A lad of 10 when he first arrived at the Rainy River village with his mom and day, Pearl and Ernie, Hume figures he had the best childhood a person could ask for.
In this month's installment celebrating the 100th birthday of Howe Sound Pulp and Paper, we turn our eyes to the area that most workers and their families called home - Port Mellon. While it's safe to say everyone's experience at the townsite was unique, few folks were more grounded in the life of Port Mellon than the Humes.
"We moved to Port Mellon in 1946. Ernie came out of the dry docks in Vancouver after the war. It was a neat little town. It was like one big family including the guys in the bunkhouse," is how Ted describes his first impression of the site.
Along with rural people throughout Canada, Ted's schooling took place in a two-room schoolhouse. "There were two classes, so you could sit in the same seat for five years at a time. You could always participate in another grade as long as your work [in your own grade] was done. When the World Series was on we would listen to it on the radio," he reminisced.
The Humes came to a "brand-new house" when they moved to the mill town. With no siblings, Ted had an easier time of it than some.He laughed at memories of the old community hall.
"It was in such bad shape, halfway up there were bars just to hold the walls up. We tried to play basketball, but that just wouldn't work. The only game we could ever play there was badminton."
However, there was one other sport that consumed a great deal of Ted's life - boxing. A talented boxer, Hume was a Golden Gloves champ in his prime.
And movie time was a hoot in the old hall.
"Somebody's dog would go by at the wrong time and wag his tail and that was it," Ted chortled.
In the '50s a new element came into Ted's life, a spunky young woman named Louise, originally a city slicker from Kitsilano in Vancouver. The pair have been married for 48 years.
Louise vividly recalls her first experience at Port Mellon. She was staying at the Seaside Hotel and could have anything she wanted to eat. "The lemon pie looked so good, but it tasted like the mill smelled. I had to wait until the waitress wasn't looking to get rid of it," she recalled.
The hotel itself was only accessible by a swinging bridge from the townsite. Boys being boys, one of the great pleasures was to get under the bridge and get it swinging when some poor sap was trying to find his lurching way home.
"It's a wonder it never collapsed," Ted mused.
The community was a close-knit one that banded together. The citizens worked and played together. One of the hottest tickets in town was the annual Robbie Burns night. Louise recalled, "You waited a good year or until somebody died to get a ticket" to the event. The senior Humes went to 23 consecutive Burns nights, first at the old hall and then the new one built in 1956. And the younger pair continued the tradition with Ted proposing on a Burns night.
Parents to three, Louise remembered the challenges and perks of raising kids so far off the beaten track.
Her youngest son, Billy, had a knack for hurting himself. He broke a leg falling, ended up with a royal goose egg in another fall a week later and had the cheek to tell the medics to hold his bed in the infirmary because he'd be back the next week.
"I told him if he was, I'd kill him!" Louise said, only half joking.
One of her sharpest memories is of giving birth to her only daughter, Kathleen. At the time the hospital was in Garden Bay. The plan was when labour started the Humes were supposed to stop in Sechelt and pick up the doctor on the way. The doctor wasn't available, so they continued on. Around Secret Cove Louise's water broke. Shortly after, the car hit a pothole and the hapless woman had a contraction at the same time. Half out of his mind with the drama of the whole adventure, Ted leaped out of the car when they got to Garden Bay and informed the nurse that his wife was in the back of the Volkswagen and she may have given birth.
"To this day I'll always remember her calm reply, 'Well let's just see, shall we.'" Louise shared.
Nowadays there's not much left of the old townsite. The old houses with walls thin enough to hear your neighbour snore through were long ago torn down. Tar Paper Alley's shacks were mowed down and most of the rest is gone too.
Some of the old town has been absorbed into the present mill site. The old school serves as a training centre.
The first time Louise saw her in-laws' old home after demolition, it was a jarring sight.
"All that was left was the fish pond. I thought then I could understand how someone who lost a home in a war would feel. It was an eerie feeling."
While the buildings are gone, the ghost of good times past and the memories of friends who were closer than family will never die for anyone lucky enough to call Port Mellon home.
Watch for the next chapter in the history of Howe Sound Pulp and Paper in late March.
