O Canada!

By Jim Thompson
HCP columnist

Pulp and paper mills, being continuous operations, sometimes have a shutdown at Christmas to give the operating staff a break. At that point, they tell us engineers, “You can work on the mill while we are gone.”  

Gee, thanks, that lets us, and our contractors work through the Christmas season. This practice was largely stopped about 1983, which I will explain in a future column.

For today, we’ll go back to Christmas 1974. My employer, Procter & Gamble, was building a new pulp mill in Grande Prairie, Alberta. The field construction management team was screaming for more help from Cincinnati Central Engineering. Straws were drawn, and I got the short one. Yippee! About the 20th of December, I was on a plane to Grande Prairie.

I had never been out of the United States. Additionally, at the time, there was some hostility being shown toward U.S. citizens working in Canada. P&G had had a couple of employees detained trying to come back through Toronto from our plant in Hamilton, Ontario.  

In Grande Prairie, some of our employees had had rocks chucked through their home windows. The company had come out with a guide, about 10 pages, on how to get through customs and behave in Canada to minimize trouble.

I flew from Cincinnati to Minneapolis and got on a plane to Edmonton. I was wet behind the ears and nervous. As I went through customs in Edmonton, the agent asked me what I had in my briefcase.  

My answer? “Nothing, sir, except my company’s instructions as to how to get through customs!”

That answer cost me a half hour of my life as they took me aside and asked me exactly what that meant.

I did make the plane to Grand Prairie, rented a car and found my hotel. It was about 25 below zero. I carefully plugged in my car’s block heater to keep it warm for the night.

Next morning, after breakfast, I started for the mill. It was pitch black and the road probably had 3 or 4 inches of packed snow on it. As I drove, I could see headlights coming toward me on both sides of the road. A very disturbing sight and I could not figure it out until they got closer. They were snowmobiles. The night shift had gotten off and was headed back into town. They were driving their snowmobiles in the ditches on either side of the road.

I got to the mill and found the plugin places for the cars. I got out of my car, engine running, and plugged it in. Great! Except I had inadvertently locked the car with the engine running! I went to the guard and with a coat hanger he helped me unlock the car and turn it off.

The place was bedlam. Inside it was about 90 degrees and outside it was at least 20 below. The items I was there to check on had portions inside and out.

In the end, I don’t think I was a bit of help to them at all.

But I came back with a head cold that lasted until about Jan. 15.

Jim Thompson, formerly of Marshall, is a graduate of Hillsboro High School and the University of Cincinnati. He resides in Duluth, Ga. and is a columnist for The Highland County Press.