This year was pretty tame in North Bay Joey, but last year, we could have used your talents at plowing between the trees on our logging operation. We actually had to hire two small dozers to bullcook trails so the skidders could get to the trees in the 4 feet of snow that accumulated. The feller/bunchers, as heavy as they are, were having trouble, and the skidders could not even follow on the F/B tracks. Lots of broken axles, lots of broken chokers, and lots of frustrated operators. Grapple skidders had drier operators, but they had no way to release their load to walk the machines to less troublesome snow, so their operators spun and spun, backed up, moved over, spun some more, and were more prone to short fuses.
I grew up just outside of North Bay, at Jocko Point, and I remember trying to cobble a sleigh together with some foundling freighting skis that were abandoned and rotting across the road from the house. We put it together as good as 8 and 10 year olds could, and then were very disappointed that Jimmy-Jean, our hero of the period just up the road, would not pull them with his gas-powered JD bulldozer. He was just a wee bit crusty when it came to kids. Those things were super heavy. They are probably still there, 30 years later, as the lot is still undeveloped. I think the skis were parts of sleighs used in the 50's when the uranium mine on Newman Island, Lake Nipissing was being developed. Lots of material was moved across the ice. The head frame of that mine collapsed only two years ago. It was a feature on Lake Nipissing.
Anyway - I'm rambling - nice pictures.
Regards
John
