Well, I can’t believe it yet! It hardly seems possible, but I am assured that it is so! A few weeks ago my wife, Vicki and I were at a coffee shop and Brad Rogers came in and walked over to say hello. Then, out of a clear blue sky he proclaims, “Well, Jack, we’ve done it; we’ve sold the resort!” Well you could have knocked me over with a feather! That was about the last thing that I thought I would be hearing! That really got the old grey matter spinning backwards!
It seems that Roger’s Resort or the Ten Mile Lake Resort had always been there and it was the Rogers family that ran it! Sam and Ellen – Rogers Resort – the names and titles were synonymous! So it was on Sunday afternoon, Jan. 26, my wife suggested we go for a drive which took us around Ten Mile Lake and stopped in at Roger’s Resort, as if it had been preordained.
It was a beautiful winter day, nice and sunny. Lots of people out on the lake fishing and when I turned around to look at the cabins it was like stepping back more than 60 years and the 1950’s were being relived! Talk about nostalgia! This visit certainly evoked a lot of memories, because as I said, it has always been there, it has always been Rogers and now – well it is their place and they can do what they want with it and I wouldn’t begrudge them their selling of it – but come on, it has always been there, Quesnel and Rogers Resort, they just go together!
A memory of my first visit flashed into my mind………
It was 62 years ago that we moved to Quesnel. Dad, Mom, my brothers Tom, Ron, Stan and Ray, my sisters Laura and Linda, and myself, all had moved to Quesnel in September 1951. We moved to a small lake where dad had applied to homestead, 11 miles out on the Quesnel River Road. It was located under the shadow of Dragon Mountain.
It had snowed for about a week when we arrived, and temperatures dropped pretty low, too, that year, -60F with the wind blowing! The final half of that year here was cold and snowy and all that goes with it! Cold enough for you?
Along with the cold we had more than 48 inches of snow, – every day we had to get out and get the darned, blankety-blank wood for cooking and heating! So did everyone else, but we didn’t know or care about this.
We actually worked out quite a system. We would all get together, along with an old sled and we managed to get quite a few logs and stumps together. We were out in that snow and pushed over dead poplars and birches……. mostly poplars. We even brought some huge spruce and fir stumps in. First, we had to cut the logs into lengths to fit the kitchen range. As the range supplied the heat for the cabin, it was always ready to go for cooking. The logs would have to be about 15 inches in length. Then we would have to split them up into stove sizes. With a couple of small kids sitting on the logs to hold them on the sawhorse, the older of us boys would cut up the logs. When the two sitting on the logs were tired of that (tough union we had you know), two others would be recruited to take their place.
While the older of us boys would cut up the logs, two or three others would carry them into the cabin. Stan was sort of head of that detail, along with Ray and Linda. Stan would make up such huge armfuls, I remember when one collapsed on him as he was taking it into the house and they had to be put into another pile and kept for an emergency.
As soon as Mom figured that she had enough wood to get us through the night she would call out, “uncle, uncle. You had better get busy on some kindling.” We were never short of something to do!
That winter lasted from mid-September, just after we arrived, into April. In fact, we came into town (Quesnel) for the Victoria Day holiday and parade (May 24) and it snowed down the western end of Dragon Lake!
Later that year (1952), in July, my Uncle Slim and Aunt Betty and my cousins Syd, Mary, Jim and Ken came from Kamloops to visit us, so we had lots of people to get in trouble with. As it was a first trip north for all of them, (and us) they were all quite interested in anyone that they met and any places they got to see and to visit. As it turned out, it was the week end of the Western Plywood picnic for all of their employees, held at Rogers’ Resort.
Western Plywood is where my father worked. It had opened that spring, first with the sawmill and later that year the plywood plant was completed.
As Dad had counted on going to this picnic, he invited them to come along. They all agreed and, as I said before, none of them had been north of Kamloops before, so were game to try just about anything.
The folks had decided we would all go in my uncle’s truck, us kids riding in the back, of course! My dad and uncle had rigged up a tarp over the box to protect us somewhat from the sun and dust.
Since most of the roads around Quesnel were gravel, with a lot of pot holes, this made for a kind of bouncy ride! On our drive out to Ten Mile Lake, we hit a large pot hole and the pipe that held the tarp over our heads came down and landed right on my head. My four-month-old baby sister Louise was lying right where the support pole would have landed, so I guess it was just as well that it hit me!
Everyone enjoyed the hot dogs and free drinks, boating and swimming and races for the kids.
I had a headache all that day, but not wanting to miss out on any of the activities, I didn’t tell anyone.
The announcement of the resort sale also brought back memories of the times we went up there with Sam Ketcham and all of the gang from Quesnel’s West Fraser Mills for our annual picnic. One of my most favourite stories is from one of those picnics, in fact from West Fraser’s very first picnic. We call it the “Onje Jack, more Onje Jack! Onje” picnic. And…I guess it is my favourite because the kid was so darned cute. Here is the story, so see if you don’t agree. There was a small kid about three years old who must have been told that he could have all the drinks he wanted. It seemed like every time I turned around there he was with his plastic drinking glass aimed my way saying, “more onje, Jack, more onje!” I actually couldn’t see how he could get rid of so much orange juice so fast, but he did! So the joke has always been that when anyone mentions picnics, this anecdote comes to mind, “more Onje Jack, more Onje!”
Then there was the time at another West Fraser picnic, when all the employees and their families were enjoying their day, when suddenly a loud thumping and yelling could be heard. It turned out to be one of the picnickers who, while he was ensconced in the outhouse, the ground beneath him gave way and the outhouse sank into the ground another foot or so, trapping him inside. There was no way he could open the door. We had to dig around the front outside of the building until the door was released and we finally freed the occupant, but not without a lot of joking and humorous asides on his behalf and of his captivity!
My family and I made numerous other visits to Rogers Resort for fishing, swimming and boating and I’m sure many of Quesnel’s older residents can say the same thing. I hope you will be reminded of your own good times, like mine, that were spent enjoying this fabulous place known as, of course, Rogers Resort or was it Ten Mile Lake Resort?
– submitted by Jack Nelson
