men from Lytton had been working around the edges of the rockfall in the two machines for several hours. More rock continued to fall, making them nervous and extremely cautious. The regulations of the Worker’s Compensation Board required that a truck driver be out of the cab of his truck while it was being loaded. The driver at this site would back the little truck into position and then stand alongside it where he could watch and listen for more falling rock. He positioned himself so that he could signal the loader operator if it became necessary to move away.
At about midnight the truck driver was in position, watching the loader operator. The loader was turning away from the truck to go back to the rockfall when the truck driver heard a sound like a dynamite blast. The sound came from the mountainside directly above them. The driver gave a frantic signal to the loader operator to get away and he started to run up the highway away from the rockfall area. The loader operator was facing toward the slide with his machine; he slammed the machine into reverse and threw the throttle wide open. He had just started moving backwards when the first pieces of rock began to hit the machine. Both the truck driver and the machine operator knew they were about to die. A chunk of flying rock hit the bucket of the loader and shoved it sideways, almost causing the machine to roll onto its side. However, the operator was able to steer it enough to prevent a roll-over. The truck driver was able to run much faster than the loader could go in reverse gear, but he wished he had the winged feet of Mercury.
The truck driver was wearing a waist-length leather jacket, and running like he had never run before. He heard the rocks hitting the loader behind him and the overpowering roar of a tremendous force being released. The earth was trembling so hard that both the running man and the machine operator could feel it. The running driver was hit by a blast of wind that picked him off the ground and threw him several yards; he found himself on the ground with his leather jacket inverted over his head and arms as though it were a pullover sweater that he was in the process of taking off.
The explosive sound had been generated when a huge slab of the mountainside suddenly broke away and opened a crack. The air rushing into the vacuum in the crack created the explosion-like sound. The wind that hit and picked up the running driver was caused by the mass of falling rock displacing air between it and the highway surface; the air rushed out with an amazing force.
About the same time that the loader operator had regained control of his machine, he realized that he had escaped the rockfall and that he was still alive. He turned his machine to move it farther up the highway. In the lights of the machine, he saw the truck driver sitting on the road. The driver was struggling with his leather coat, which was turned inside out over his head and arms. The loader operator had to help him remove the garment.
The small dump truck had been twisted and flattened by the falling rock. It was lying on the highway surface at the edge of the rockfall as though it had been crushed and then tossed aside.
The scene was amazing in the light of the following morning. The place where we had stood around the pickup truck on the rock was now seventy to eighty feet below the top of the rockfall. All three lanes of the highway and a wide shoulder on the outside were under the rock pile. About half of the total rockfall had gone over the highway and down the mountainside toward the Fraser River and the Canadian Pacific Railway. Fortunately there was a bench of land a few hundred feet below the highway where the rock had come to rest without involving the rail line.
Had the two men and their machines been working at the preliminary rockfall from the downhill side, they would have had no chance of escape and no chance of survival. The largest part of the main rockfall landed on the highway just below where the first small one had hit. From the uphill side they escaped by moving fifty to one hundred feet. On the lower side, they would have had to move at least four hundred feet.
The bench land below the highway was privately owned. The Provincial Government negotiated with the owner and bought a ten-acre piece of the land. The newly acquired land was used as a disposal site for the rock. Three large bulldozers were then brought in to push the slide material over the edge of the highway. Much of the rock on the road surface was in such large pieces that it had to be drilled and broken with explosives before even the largest bulldozers could move it. Crews worked around the clock for the next seven days before traffic resumed on that section of the Trans-Canada Highway.
The next time you pass through the Fraser Canyon and are about midway between Boston Bar and Lytton, watch for the scar above the highway on the side of Jackass Mountain, and the pile of broken rock below. You will be amazed that people who were there at the time of the rockfall survived it.
Airplane in the Canyon Wind
On hot summer days in the Fraser Canyon, the wind pushes up the canyon with a tremendous force. Trees and rocky formations along the canyon walls do provide some sheltered areas on the ground, but in the open centre of the canyon there is no relief. The same trees and rocky formations that provide shelter on the ground create a frightening turbulence in the main channel.
A young man from Washington State had recently obtained his pilot’s license and was eager to try his new skills. After a lot of talking he convinced his young wife to join him on a flying trip into the interior of British Columbia. He obtained the use of a rental airplane for a few days of travel and made plans to fly into the Cariboo area for some sightseeing and fishing.
The little airplane had just enough power to fly with two people under fairly good conditions. The two travellers had packed some camping gear and a few groceries, which did not help the little plane in its struggle with gravity and air currents. In spite of the limitations of their flying machine the two set out enthusiastically—although I suspect there was more enthusiasm on the part of the pilot than the passenger.
The weather reports were excellent through the area where they planned to fly. They enjoyed clear skies and warm temperatures as they made their way from the Seattle area to their first stop at the airport near Abbotsford, British Columbia, where they made their required report to Canada Customs.
The next leg of their trip was to take them along the Trans-Canada Highway to Cache Creek, and then along Highway 97 to Clinton. Their flight plan was filed from Abbotsford, but no one made them aware of the extreme winds of the Fraser Canyon. By the time the little airplane reached Hope, at the lower end of the canyon, the pilot had noticed that he was being tossed around by wind. However, it did not seem serious at that time. They passed over the little town of Hope and turned into the canyon, using the highway as their route marker.
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