A century out of date?
Well, so is ranching

HANCEVILLE — When
Wayne Plummer’s father
saw the new ranch house he
said ‘‘My God, you actually
did it. A sod roof. You are
one hundred years behind
the times.”’

The log ranch house is one big
room, divided into living-room-
kitchen space on one side and
bedroom space on the other. A
particle board counter and a
Werner upright piano serve to
partition the two sections.

Wayne and his wife Trena cut
the logs, peeled them, notched
them and built, as they have built
their lives, one log at a time. For
the roof they laid thick, rough-
sawn lodgepole pine planks and
over this they laid plastic and then
tarpaper.

Next to the tarpaper they laid
hay, then poles to hold the hay,
then another layer of hay and fi-
nally about 15 centimetres of
heavy clay earth from next to the
house. Thick sod would have been
ideal but sod on the Chilcotin hills
is thin as a poorhouse blanket.

Over the years, they hope to
turn the earth into sod, sod as
good, perhaps, as the settlers
found on the Prairies three and
four generations ago.

A friend mailed Trena some
wild flower seeds last spring and
she planted those on the roof.
They bloomed, but in the long,
hot summer the clay baked hard
and only the hardiest blooms
lasted.

Why sod? people ask. Why not
aluminum? Why not Duroid? If
you want to save money, why not
rolled roofing?

Think of your labor costs with
this roof, people say. Even though
it was your own labor, it's cost.

There are three answers to ail
those questions: 1. A sod roof is
an insulator. 2. A soddie is a pret-
ty cabin and always was. Like the
logs of the house it is a part of
the country on which it stands,
not a structure imposed on it but
rather one that seems to grow out
of it.

Finally, answer #3. The Plum-

Paul
St. Pierre

PAULITICS & PERSPECTIVES

mers really don’t give a tinker’s
damn whether people think
they’re a hundred years out of
date or not.

After all, ranching is a bit out
of date too. They like the bumper
sticker that says CRIME DOES
NOT PAY / NEITHER DOES
RANCHING.

You cannot see the house from
the Nemiah Road. There is a
standard ranch gate, new enough
that it still swings easily, and a
carved sign above which says:

WAYNE & TRENA
PLUMMER

Beyond the Balm of Gilead
grove sits the log cabin on a knoll,
surrounded by the new realities of
ranching — tractor, big truck,
small pickup, anything that burns
diesel or gas and costs a fot.

An interesting reminder of the
prosperous wage economy for
Trena. She worked in a General
Motors plant in Ontario when a
girl. At that time she had fled
Chilcotin and its ranches, con-
vinced there were easier ways to
make a living, as she found to be
true.

But, such being the unpredic-
tability of human nature, she
came back and married a school
sweetheart and they began work-
ing toward the founding of a
ranch. They worked for other
ranchers and bought a meadow

HUMBERSTON EDWARDS fexe ant

Presents

AN EXHIBITION AND SALE OF RECENT PAINTINGS
NOVEMBER 24-DECEMBER 2, 1990

OPENING RECEPTION SATURDAY NOVEMBER 24
10:30 A.M. TO 5:00 PM.
ARTIST IN ATTENDANCE OPENING DAY

1360 Marine Drive, West Vancouver, B.C. V7T 1B6
Tel: (604) 922-7934 ® Fax: (604) 922-0183
HOURS: TUESDAY-SATURDAY 10:30 TO 5:00 PM, SUNDAY 12 TO 4 PM

here, another there, out of sav-
ings.

ft took 20 years and now, final-
ly starting out with their own
place, they are already grand-
parents.

They must still subsidize their
ranch. Trena frequently works at
a forestry fire lookout. Last fall
she operaied a bulldozer for
wages. Wayne operates heavy ma-
chinery at a logging camp.

Both of them yearn for a day
when they will earn all their living
by raising beef, as people did a
century ago. But the company
now is much different.

““We were playing cards at
Alexis Creek a while ago and out
of five people at our table, four
worked for the government,”’ says
Trena. ‘‘How long can so few of
us support so many of them?”’

Neither has Lady Luck been
pressing or persistent in her atten-
tion to the Plummers this year. A
Ducks Unlimited dam broke and
they fost much of their precious
hay. Almost 10 per cent of their
calves have been killed ranging on
the now-busy Nemiah road where
the big logging trucks roll. Their
plan to enlarge the house by
building a T on one end must
wail.

But the little house was warm
last winter and the roof did not
leak in the record rains of last
spring. Indoors, the varnished
pine logs are canary yellow by day
and warm orange by night in the
glow of kerosene lamps.

It’s like the Christmas cards
advertised in Western Horseman
magazine. It’s like the old song:
**Some place that’s known
To God alone:

Just a spot
To call our own."”

Come to think of it, that song

is about a century old now.

ae Sa

ALL
DIAMOND

*
of

So eb, ot

tc:

Rassias Tonia Neashety

JEWELLERY .
SAVE| | SAVE

ui
CAPILANO MALL
NORTH VANCOUVER
984-2040

Friday. November 23. 1990 - North Shore News - 9

V trustee
calis it quits
after 31 years

AFTER THREE decades of
making decisions on North
Vancouver education issues,
veteran incumbent North
Vancouver District 44
School (NVSB) Trustee
Dorothy Lynas has decided
to take a much-deserved
break.

By Surj Rattan
News Reporter

Lynas, 79, who served a total
of 31 years as a North Vancouver
school trustee, the last 30 of them
consecutively, decided against
seeking another term in last
week's civic elections.

While she surely would have
been returned to office had she
decided to run again, Lynas said
she stepped down because she did
not want to wear out her wel-
come.

“fT think 31 years is enough
time,” said Lynas adding that it
was time to let others look after
North Vancouver education issues.
“I think the proper thing to do is
to back down. But I shall always
take an iaterest in North Van-
couver education issues.’’

Lynas, the mother of one son
and grandmother to three children
and great grandmother to two
others, has always had a keen in-
terest in education.

Born on a farm in Moose Jaw,
Saskatchewan, Lynas remembers
the hard times she, her husband
and her son went through during
the Second World War.

“When the war broke out we
moved to the coast. My husband

he mB, 2

Dorothy Lynas ... doesn’t want
to wear out her welcome.

came out here first to look for
work, and I stayed behind with
my son. We had disposed of all of
our possessions and $10 was all it
cost us to come out here, but it
was hard to gather $10 back in
1940,’” Lynas said.

Times were tough for Lynas
and her family when they first
came to B.C. But she and her
family were determined to stay

‘We just stuck it out until ihe
shipyards got moving,’’ she said.
‘*My husband and the others who
worked in the shipyards worked
for 50 cents an hour.”’

Lynas became involved in
education in North Vancouver
almost from the first moment she
arrived in B.C. She joined the
local Parent Teachers’ Association
(PTA).

“I had some very definite ideas
on the school system. I just had
an interest in education and
teachers,’’ said Lynas. ‘‘As soon

See Lynas page 11

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