Shortly after the interview I took a passenger train from Saskatoon to The Pas, (Yes, we still had passenger trains back then.) known as the gateway to Northern Manitoba. There, I met up with two other INCO hires and we found a hotel room at...what else...the Gateway Hotel. It was an older well known watering hole for locals, and a popular stopover for miners heading out of Thompson on R&R. It was SO popular that many miners never made it any farther...blowing their savings in the hotel before returning to work until the next "vacation" at the Gateway. As an aside...I heard the Gateway burned down a few years ago. The fire took a lot of history with it.
We stopped in the Gateway bar for a late afternoon beer. I ordered two glasses of draft. They arrived and I was impressed by how dark the beer was. I took a drink out of one glass and the darkness was still there, and that's when I realized it was on the outside of the glass and not in the beer itself. All of us quickly switched to bottles!
As we sat there sipping our beer a woman came rushing into the bar. She was cursing and swearing, saying "Where is he? Where is he? You tell that co**sucker if I catch him I'm going to cut his balls off!" The bartender quickly poured a glass and took it and her into the back. We never found out who the unfortunate guy was.
After a quiet dinner and a walk around town we retired to our hotel rooms for an early bedtime. Our rooms were on an upper floor facing the back alley, where we had a superb view of all the drunken fist fights after the bar closed. The next morning when we awoke there were still several bodies laying in the alley amidst the mud and the blood, but no one seemed to be concerned about this. After breakfast the three of us headed to a medical clinic where we received our pre-employment medicals along with a chit for a room in Thompson and were told to report to HR at the main office the following morning for orientation. One of my new friends had a vehicle, a 1959 Ford and offered a ride to Thompson, which was gratefully accepted. After buying a case of beer from the hotel off sale we headed out on the highway to Thompson, about 250 miles distant.
The road to Thompson was mainly muddy gravel, except for the final 40 or so miles, which were paved, and which were also built over frost filled muskeg. These miles were constantly being rebuilt and repaved as they slowly sank into the watery soup upon which they were built, making for a great roller coaster ride for the final bit of travelling. When we finally arrived at our destination we went looking for our room at one of the Polaris bunkhouses. These were two or three story residences with single rooms for $33 per week and doubles for $28 per week. For this princely sum you got a hot breakfast, sack lunch and hot supper each day, along with maid service to keep the rooms clean and beds made.
The following morning we trekked to INCO's main office. It was Saturday, but they were open and ready to accept 26 new employees. (I wondered how many they would have hired if it had been a weekday.) While waiting for my job assignment I noticed a seniority list posted on a wall. Top seniority was about 10 years, and of course I would join the list at the bottom. When I left Thompson some eight months later I was already about two thirds of the way up the list thanks to the extremely high turnover.
INCO had several mines in operation, including T1, T3, Birchtree and Pipe open pit. There were additional development projects at Soab North and Soab South, but in 1969 neither were in production and neither had any company employees. I was assigned to T3, and told to report there the following Monday.
T3 employed several hundred miners working three shifts, five days per week. Day and afternoon shifts were production shifts. Graveyard shift had a skeleton crew to to move materials from surface and replenish level supplies. There were five active levels, 600, 800, 1,000, 1,200 and 1,400. 1,400 level was strictly a tramming level, where an electric trolley carried T3 ore over to T1 for hoisting to surface. The lowest and newest production level was 1,200, where Wayne Lapierre was one of two production supervisors. I was assigned to his crew and was taken underground on a four hour orientation that ended with lunch, where I was handed a shovel and shown a ditch to clean.
After a quiet dinner and a walk around town we retired to our hotel rooms for an early bedtime. Our rooms were on an upper floor facing the back alley, where we had a superb view of all the drunken fist fights after the bar closed. The next morning when we awoke there were still several bodies laying in the alley amidst the mud and the blood, but no one seemed to be concerned about this. After breakfast the three of us headed to a medical clinic where we received our pre-employment medicals along with a chit for a room in Thompson and were told to report to HR at the main office the following morning for orientation. One of my new friends had a vehicle, a 1959 Ford and offered a ride to Thompson, which was gratefully accepted. After buying a case of beer from the hotel off sale we headed out on the highway to Thompson, about 250 miles distant.
The road to Thompson was mainly muddy gravel, except for the final 40 or so miles, which were paved, and which were also built over frost filled muskeg. These miles were constantly being rebuilt and repaved as they slowly sank into the watery soup upon which they were built, making for a great roller coaster ride for the final bit of travelling. When we finally arrived at our destination we went looking for our room at one of the Polaris bunkhouses. These were two or three story residences with single rooms for $33 per week and doubles for $28 per week. For this princely sum you got a hot breakfast, sack lunch and hot supper each day, along with maid service to keep the rooms clean and beds made.
The following morning we trekked to INCO's main office. It was Saturday, but they were open and ready to accept 26 new employees. (I wondered how many they would have hired if it had been a weekday.) While waiting for my job assignment I noticed a seniority list posted on a wall. Top seniority was about 10 years, and of course I would join the list at the bottom. When I left Thompson some eight months later I was already about two thirds of the way up the list thanks to the extremely high turnover.
INCO had several mines in operation, including T1, T3, Birchtree and Pipe open pit. There were additional development projects at Soab North and Soab South, but in 1969 neither were in production and neither had any company employees. I was assigned to T3, and told to report there the following Monday.
T3 employed several hundred miners working three shifts, five days per week. Day and afternoon shifts were production shifts. Graveyard shift had a skeleton crew to to move materials from surface and replenish level supplies. There were five active levels, 600, 800, 1,000, 1,200 and 1,400. 1,400 level was strictly a tramming level, where an electric trolley carried T3 ore over to T1 for hoisting to surface. The lowest and newest production level was 1,200, where Wayne Lapierre was one of two production supervisors. I was assigned to his crew and was taken underground on a four hour orientation that ended with lunch, where I was handed a shovel and shown a ditch to clean.
Our crew consisted of two stope leaders, a half dozen miners, a half dozen timbermen, a tram crew and several labourers, including me. My wage was $2.97 per hour, which seemed like a fortune to me back then compared to my previous jobs. Miners earned $3.23 per hour and leaders were $3.45. The rules said anyone who worked in a job for five consecutive shifts would automatically go to the rate for that job. After a week or so of cleaning ditches I was assigned to the tram crew, where my rate increased to $3.23 per hour. I was in financial heaven!
Part 2 to come.
