The Badger Riot

by J. A. Ricketts

  They were standing on a piece of land Tom’s father had given him years ago. Facing her was a bungalow painted yellow, with a peaked roof. It was built up high because of the floods, and they climbed the steps and went inside. Jennie breathed deeply at the smell of new lumber and paint and rushed from room to room. There were two bedrooms, a darling little kitchen with nice cupboards, a lovely front room and – Oh, wonders! – a bathroom with a big claw-footed bathtub. It was beautiful.

  Tom said, “Now Jennie, we’ll go down to Cohen’s in Windsor and you can pick out all the furniture yourself. I don’t care as long as you get me a nice comfy chair that I can sit in and listen to the news after supper.”

  Jennie ran into his arms and kissed him all over his face. “Oh Tom, I love you, I love you!”

  Tom moved her gently from him and she could see that a deep red colour had spread up his face; even the tops of his ears were pink. Clearing his throat self-consciously, he said, “Do you think we might discuss my Christmas gift now?”

  Without waiting for her to respond, he walked over to a cupboard and opened it to reveal a big quilt neatly folded on the shelves. He took it down and with Jennie by the hand led her into the bedroom.

  They were starved for each other, after a year. Tom spread the quilt on the floor and they made up for lost time. “We’re christening the house, Jennie,” Tom said. And then their stars came down . . . and nothing else mattered.

  Later, as they lay on the quilt, Tom said, “Well, Jennie girl, that’s the best Christmas present I ever had,” and he pulled her close. “Never again will I let anything come between us.”

  Jennie laughed and nestled into his chest. “Give me a chance to get me breath back and I’ll gladly discuss your Easter present too.”

  They didn’t move in until spring, but before that the house was christened many times. And finally they talked about what had driven them apart. Tom said that his mother had admitted to Mr. Albert that it wasn’t true what she’d said about Vern and Jennie or about Ralph and Jennie. Actually, she said she hadn’t lied, just that she’d made a mistake.

  Jennie left it at that. Mam used to say let sleeping dogs lie. But she was wary and mistrustful of her mother-in-law forever after, even though, for the sake of Tom and his father, they eventually became reconciled enough to sit down for an occasional family meal.

  Tom and Jennie settled down to their lives in the spring of 1953. By this time they both figured there would never be any children. Jennie never went to a doctor and neither did Tom. They were the kind of couple that the old women talked about over their knitting:

  “My dear, she never had any children, you know. Dey sez she got inward trouble.”

  Or: “My dear, dey sez that he had the mumps when he was young and dey went down on him.”

  None of that was true, but they didn’t care what people said anyway. Tom and Jennie had each other. “What odds,” Tom said.

  “Right, what odds,” Jennie agreed.

  That fall, a stray cat followed Tom home one evening and decided to stay. Tom always had a soft spot for the felines and called her Bucksaw. The cat followed him everywhere. That Christmas Tom brought home a little white crackie with brown spots. Jennie called the dog Freckles. The little family was healthy and happy in the house Tom had built.

  Part II

  THE LOGGERS’ STRIKE

  17

  In 1958, union organizers started coming into Rod Anderson’s camp to talk to the loggers, to tell them what their working life should be like.

  The first time was on a fine Sunday in late summer. The men were hove back for the day having a rest. A rest just meant that there was no cutting on Sunday. They used the time to file their saws and sharpen their axes. Some of them washed both their clothes and themselves in a nearby brook or lake. The cooks were working flat out. Besides having to feed the men their Sunday dinner, bigger than other days, they had to catch up as well with the usual making of bread, molasses buns and, perhaps, some pies.

  Into this scene walked two strangers. They introduced themselves as organizers from the International Woodworkers of America, the IWA.

  “We’re here, boys, to tell you about logging camps in British Columbia. Now, you might think that is pretty far away and has nothing to do with you fellas, but you’re wrong. It is far away, but Newfoundland is part of Canada now and has been for the past nine years. It’s time for Newfoundland loggers to be treated like other Canadian loggers. Do you know that camps on the mainland have showers, indoor toilets and central heating?”

  This got the men’s attention. Most of them didn’t even have those kinds of things in their homes. They were from small isolated outports still struggling to become part of the twentieth century.

  “Now, gentlemen, we propose to change all that. We propose to give you a new union that will improve your working life and give you a better wage to pass on to your families. We’re asking you right now to sign up with us. Membership dues are one dollar. If you haven’t got the fee right now, you can pay us later.”

  Rod listened to what the union organizers told the men. Perhaps they had a point. So he said they could have supper with the men and stay overnight. It being Sunday, the meal was boiled dinner: salt meat, pease pudding, doughboys, potatoes and turnip. Then the organizers bedded down in a spare bunk with the loggers.

  The recruiters’ hair and clothing became lousy that night, and in the morning their arms and legs were covered with red welts that the men told them were bites from bedbugs. This was part of the life of a logger. Rod had slept on the same bunks and eaten the same food when he worked for his father and he had accepted it.

  He mentioned, in passing, to other contractors that maybe they should see about building better bunkhouses, but they had laughed him into the ground. “My son,” they said, “if we was to improve anything, our profits are gone. The Company won’t give an inch on any upgrading, you know that. Besides, what do we care? It’s not our property; it belongs to the Company.”

  Sometime later, on a trip across the River to Badger, Rod was called into the A.N.D. Company manager’s office. Mr. Cole was long gone and had been replaced several times by managers brought in from England, St. John’s and mainland Canada.

  “Well, Rod. I hear you’re allowing union men to take over your camp.”

  For a moment Rod was too astonished to answer. Take over his camp? What was this all about? “Well, sir, I wouldn’t say they are taking over anyone’s camp,” he said. “They’re trying to organize a union. What’s wrong with that?”

  “The Company doesn’t want the IWA, that’s what’s wrong with that. We’ve been getting along fine here for fifty years. So, my advice to you is: no more being friendly with the union organizers. There are lots of contractors willing to take your place and you know it.”

  Rod passed along word to Bill, his foreman. “If the union fellas come back wanting to stay overnight or have a meal, just say you’re sorry, but we have no room. And say the Company has said they can’t be fed.”

  Other contractors did the same, some with more forcefulness than Rod. But it was too late. The IWA had made serious inroads into the camps. Every logger had signed up on the spot. They were all focused on the new union’s promise of better camp conditions, a shorter work week and a wage increase.

  The IWA began broadcasting a radio program called Green Gold, aimed at informing the loggers of the current happenings. In the camps at night, after supper, the men gathered around battery radios to listen to news of the union’s progress. Rod turned a blind eye to the activities of his men. If they signed up, he didn’t want to know about it. All he wanted from life was to do his job, look after his family, and live in peace.

  On the first of January, 1959, the loggers went on strike and Badger changed overnight. Most of the town, aside from Company employees and contractors, seemed to be pro-union. The IWA set up picket lines at every exit and entrance to the community. Other places were similarly affected: Millertown, Pete
rview, Terra Nova, Glenwood and Gambo; wherever the A.N.D. Company had a woods operation, IWA organizers were there.

  Rod Anderson’s camp emptied out. Bill Hatcher said he’d help him get his tractors down off Sandy for friendship’s sake, but then he was going to go. His cook and cookee left the camp as well and joined the picket lines.

  The Company manager called a meeting for all the contractors.Twenty-two of them from the Badger Woods Division gathered at the A.N.D. Company office.

  “Now, boys, we can’t have those camps lying idle. We have men who are willing to work and they aren’t signed up with the IWA. We’re going to fill up them camps, you know, by hook or by crook.”

  Some of the contractors protested, saying that it was a waste of time and money to have untrained loggers up on Sandy; they’d be a hazard to themselves and to others.

  But the Company manager wasn’t interested in hearing any of this. “My orders are from higher up, gentlemen. The camps will be filled. It will show the public that the IWA has no support. The public will see that there are lots of Newfoundland men willing to work for us without a union. The Company will send recruiters into the outports and snap up anyone willing to come into the woods.”

  Rod came out of the meeting knowing there was trouble ahead. As he walked up Church Road toward his home he met clusters of men on the street. They were loggers who had joined the union when the organizers had come through. When the strike began, they came out of the camps, went home to their communities to see their families, and then returned to stand on picket lines wherever the A.N.D. Company had a woods operation. Badger, a central location and the closest town to the paper mill, had four picket lines leading in and out of town. The IWA rented three deserted houses for the out-of-town strikers. The most popular one, owned by Mrs. Noel, was on Church Road, across from the Roman Catholic Church. Here strikers tended to congregate.

  The main picket line was at the River crossing, where the Company tried to take scabs across in broad daylight. The strikers stood firm, shoulder to shoulder. The only way to go through them would have been to mow them down with the Company Bombardier, but the A.N.D. Company, as anxious as it was to fill the camps, wouldn’t go that far.

  Undeterred, the Company went farther downriver, just off the Grand Falls Highway where the Exploits was shallow. Under the cover of night, scab labour was transported across and trucked into the camps. Within two weeks, Rod’s camp had forty men again. But loggers they weren’t; many had no idea how to cut and limb the timber, how to pile it, nothing. Some of them were sick and coughed all night long. Rod wondered about TB.

  Vern Crawford was a daredevil and had been all his life. He was willing to try anything. He seemed to have no conscience, no remorse. But for all that, there was one thing about Vern that made people who knew him think that he was a half-decent fellow who was just a little crazy. It was his little daughter, Melanie, born in 1950. She idolized her daddy. Vern doted on her. Whenever Vern came to the door, Melanie would run to him with her arms held out to be lifted up. When she’d learned to speak, she’d cry, “Daddy, Daddy.” Vern always had something to surprise and delight her. Some days he would bring her chocolate or candy, other days he might have a small toy or even a larger gift tucked away in the trunk of his car. It warmed Millie’s heart to see them together because, by the time Melanie was born, she knew that she had married a “devil-may-care” man.

  In the autumn of 1958, Vern heard about a union that was up in the camps trying to sign up loggers. The A.N.D. Company refused to recognize the IWA, even though their certification with the Newfoundland Department of Labour had given them legal right to bargain and to strike. It was no surprise to Vern or anyone else when the union did call a strike on New Year’s Eve.

  When he heard talk that the A.N.D. Company was bringing in non-unionized workers to put into the woods camps, Vern hoofed it on over to the manager’s house and knocked on his back door.

  “Good evening, sir,” he said when the manager answered the door.

  “Good evening, uh, Vern, isn’t it?” The manager stepped out onto the veranda and looked at the much shorter man standing before him. What he saw was a slight person with thinning, sandy hair, and small sharp eyes that darted around nervously as he worried his cap in his hands.

  “Yes sir. Vern. I drives taxi, sir.”

  “Yes. Yes, you do. What can I do for you?” He didn’t ask Vern to come indoors. Not a very friendly guy, Vern thought. He seemed full of himself, puffed-up, like, but that could be in part to the big round belly that protruded over his belt. The manager had a cigarette fitted into an ivory holder and took long draws from it. Jesus, what an uppity fucker, Vern thought.

  “I was thinking that you might need help transporting men into the camps,” Vern said. He didn’t dare use the word scab. In the A.N.D. Company manager’s mind the men were legitimate workers.

  “Yes, we do, as a matter of fact.” The manager reached back and closed the door. He only had on his white shirt and the sleeves were rolled up. Vern was shivering with the cold, but the manager didn’t seem to mind the dark January evening. As they spoke, their breaths made white puffs in the air. The manager sucked another long draw through his ivory holder.

  The A.N.D. Company manager was so tall and large that Vern had to look up at him. “How much will you be paying, sir?”

  “We’ll give you five dollars a man. More than you get arsin’ around in Windsor with groceries.”

  Vern knew they were desperate to get the scabs up in the camps. “It’s dangerous work, sir. Very dangerous. I’ll be going through picket lines wherever I go. Fifteen dollars per man.”

  The manager drew in the smoke again, all the while watching Vern with wary eyes.

  “Ten dollars,” he said.

  “Done, sir!”

  Vern held out his hand to shake with him, but the manager ignored him and went back into the house. Ignorant son-of-a-bitch, Vern thought. Perhaps he was cold, but what odds if his balls froze and dropped off on the steps. Vern was going to get ten dollars a head. Five men in the car was fifty dollars.

  He jumped aboard his taxi and spun the wheels as he raced up the street.

  It wasn’t that Vern was against the loggers. He understood their plight. Sure he did. Guaranteed, he thought. Hadn’t he worked as a logger from the time he left school? Hadn’t he suffered the hardships the same as any other logger?

  But, Vern reasoned, he had a right to make a living too. He had to keep his family fed and clothed, put gas in his taxi, and he needed money for upkeep as well. But there was more to it than that. Vern looked forward to the challenge and the excitement of what might be ahead.

  Alf Elliott and his Brownie Hawkeye were busy during the strike. He took pictures of strikers on winter mornings at the main picket line down on the bank of the Exploits River. They were bundled up against the cold, dressed almost identically in laced-up logans and wool socks, brigs, heavy coats and sweaters and stocking caps. Grim and unshaven, smoking hand-rolled cigarettes. Behind them was the frozen Exploits, the deep swift River that governed the life of the town.

  One night, Landon Ladd, the IWA president, held a packed meeting in the town hall. Ladd was a popular and powerful speaker. Alf, with the help of a couple of men, hitched his gammy leg up on a table at the back of the hall and shot a picture over everyone’s head. The photograph captured the backs of the heads of the audience, and on stage, an animated Landon Ladd delivering another inspiring speech.

  During February, the violence against the scab workers escalated when a car carrying non-unionized workers was overturned in the centre of town. Alf walked over on his dinner break and took a few shots. Taken against the snowy backdrop, the pictures captured a sorry sight: the car with its windows smashed, its four wheels facing the sky.

  In January 1959, Ralph turned thirty years old, as would Jennie, Tom and Vern, later in the year. As he sat with his family having a drink of rum that evening he thought about all the things that had happ
ened in the last decade.

  Last year, Grandfather had finally given himself up to the Great Spirit. The family estimated that he was one hundred years old, although he had no birth certificate. He’d outlived his son, Ralph’s father Louis, who was found the winter before, dead and frozen up on his trap lines. Missus Annie said she knew it was coming. For weeks she’d heard him complaining of chest pains. The morning he had left to go check his traps she had told him to stay home, but he wouldn’t listen. Although Ralph knew she grieved quietly and deeply, she never shed a tear. His death was the way her husband would have wanted to go.

  All Ralph’s brothers and sisters got married and his ma had grandchildren everywhere. In the past few years he had had a few girlfriends, but could never get himself interested enough in a woman to ask her to marry. Sometimes Ralph felt ashamed to be carrying a secret torch for Jennie all these years, since she was devoted to Tom and would be shocked if she knew. It would destroy their friendship and Ralph wanted to hold onto that.

  Two years ago Jennie told Ralph she was going to run for community council and became the first woman ever to sit as a council member. Ralph admired his Beothuk Wonder Woman. He chuckled to himself as he went to refill his glass. He still liked to think of her as that.

  Back in 1958, rumblings had started about a union wanting to organize the loggers. The men were all for it, and when the ballot boxes went around, Ralph was among them as they cast their votes.

  Ralph had seen Jennie down at the postal office and was delighted when she remembered it was his birthday. They got to talking about the union. Jennie told Ralph how disgusted she was with the way negotiations were being handled.

  “What’s wrong with men? And how foolish is that A.N.D. Company, dilly-dallying back and forth over whether to bargain with the IWA or not? My jumpin’s, I would’ve cut right through all that, and said, ‘Listen here: we are loggers; we are the ones getting the pulpwood for that mill; we want better conditions, more pay and a shorter work week. If we don’t get it, we don’t cut any more wood.’”