LLoyd Dodding
(Q)

(L)
(Q)

(L)

Page one

Where wer you born?
I was born in ;errit

June 10

.G. on the ?lst of iovember, 1923.

And when did you first come to lfazelton?
came to Hazelton in 1946.

Where did you live when you first came to ~:azelton.
(1) I first of all staved with my Granofather at the hospital,
we had a little cabin at the hospital.
(Q)

-;I'hat
cccupat i on did you do? 'Nhat job aid you have?
(L) First o~ all I worked for the department of highways, for the
last part. 0-1" the summer. Then I worked fDr ,r. alverson for •••
no, let's see now, first of all J worked for...
i1_:dt' e highways,
they laid all the men off except for the grater man and what LJt
for the winter, so t1-),en
I went to work for the Elliots, looking
er.l.erthe f'arm, up until January, then I ent to work for rJr.Halverson
un t i 1 spr-i ng , then I got a .io: at Pie ospi tal, ma i ntenance. I
worked t1-),ere
for two years.
(Q)

(Q)
.'/hat\--0 nd of things d i d you have to do?
or maintenance?
(L) Oh, at the 'ospital? Oh, ah, keep the furnace going, and look
after tee diesel engines, an general maintenance;
(Q)
vhic~ doctor WeS there? Was doctor '.Thi
ting there?
he.r-f i r-at. one
(t) 1..-11, no, doc t or- ••• there were several doctors.
was Dr.,~urphy, then Dr.Kraus came , then Dr.Creen. I guess
Dr. Green and Dr .Yraus were there at t'l.P.
same t i.me, and then ther-e
was Dr.Lim, t.nenDr.Lee. Dr.-IT! i i.i ng wasn't there when I was
working t ere. Dr.Lee was, r~r.Simon was the Acministrator.
(Q)
.lasthere a doctor in 'razelton, where the uiLd ing beside
B.C. Cafe is? It'p, being renovB.te.aright now. There was a doctor
that nobody liked. He had a private of Pice there.
(L) Oh, I don't know, 1: don't remember any doctor that ••• Or.,I
know who you're thinking or. That was Dr.Young. It w~sn't that
nobod liked hi~, he was a pretty good doctor in lots o~ respects.
Lathnerchuck had that of~ice to begin with, the two Lathnerchucks.
Dr~ oung, he got in dutch with the B.C. iled., he billed a lot of
us ~ellow up at Silver Standard through B.C~ Med for a lot of
calls we didn't make.
e used to come up to Silver Standard
once a week, and so he sent our names in, and I never saw him once
all the times he came up Silver Standard. He billed B.C. ~ed for
quite a few visi~t that
never ma~e at all. Eventuall it all
caugot up to him.

He wa in dutch with 3.C. Ked., so he took o-f and went back
to Edmonton. But it wasn't that people didn't like him, he did
a verv good job. I lost a f" r -er w'ri Le working un there, tle did
a very good job 0 sewing it up, very_neat job. Can't say that
iGn't a neat job, eh? He's stOll ~a~k in Edmonton. I guess he's
retired now, getting pret~r well on in years.
(Q)

(I)

That was the reason you moved here?
~o, I came here looking ~or D ~arm.

.'Iasit for work?

;t'ora I'ar-m, .: as there a lot of Land around.
Oh yes. Land W3S verv easv to 6et 1n those days.

Lloyd Dodding - page two
wanted to narm up here in those days. Not very many. So I found
myself a very nice farm.
he one that Ernie Eergman has right now.
How m~
years_did yo~ have that farm?
(~) Oh, pretty near thirty years, something like thet.

(Q)

\fuat did you :arm there? Did you just hay?
(L) Well, I did potatoes, and carrots, and I had a number of
Apple trees. Quite a few apple trees to start with, but nobody
wanted to pay any kino of a price for apples. They expected
you to sell them for less than half of what they'd pay in the
stores for them. It wasn't worth my while to even'bother and pick
the~. So eventually I tore the apple trees out ~ld jUEt planted
hay where the apple trees were.
(Q)

Did you hav2 'ny animals?
(L) Just a team of horses/ A beautiful teem of Belgians, black
Belgians. Eventually I s01d those to Jo~ Smith.
(Q)

Did you notice any changes in the farming techniqees over
the years when y6u had your farm?
(L) Oh, yes, oh, yes. Definitely changes, always changes. Whether
they're for the better or not is another thing. ~he tractor is
a great thing to have on the farm, but the tractor can cause the
farmer an awful lot of problems too. Nowadays,
the price of
tractors is so high that when a ~armer buys a tractor, he has to
mortgage his life away to ~uy it. Then he owes the bank money for
years. And if he's = ot yery careful, the bank can take his farm
avay. That's what is happening rig~t now to a lot of farmers,
e pecially the prarie ~armers. They have such huge tractors,
and they cost ebout $200 000. a piece. And fuel is so expensive.
(Q)

What businesses were here when y-u came?
(L) Well,_not an awful of lot difference to what it is no •
There was lliyros& Smith. Y~.rlyros had a store over the building
that's being renovated and converted into an office building right
now. Then there wac Sargents store~ Sargent's stor used 0 where
the bank is now. Eventual~they built a new store and hotel, anj
tore the old building down. T~en also there was the Bay.
Of course the old store still standing there, '''0 then t.hey
built the new store. Of course we had a few cafes that we haven't
got now. Jim Ham's cafe was a very colorful place you might say.
It was the choice of most folk around. ~o~ 0f us fol~s from the
I ospital lisen to go there at t i rae s, Old Joe was quite a colorful
character.
issed old Joe when he left.
(Q)

What was your first impression of Hazel ton when you got here?
(L
Oh, I liked Hazelton when I first got here. Mich more than
I do now. It's a very beautiful sP'Jt. YOll can't help but like it.
The weather's nice, but it rains so much I'm getting tired of it.
But my first two summers here were real wet one s too. V'ell it was
quite nice when I came in Auguse. About the first of August, something
Li ke that. And '.vehad quite nice weather that summer. But the
next summer was really wet. kId the next one after that was wet
again.
(Q)

t

Lloyd Dodding - page three
Do you recall the summer- of '58?
(L) I came the summer of '46 and then the summer of '47 and '48
were pretty wet.
(Q)

(Q)

(L)

I hear the su.mrrier
of '58 was rather w~rm.
J:emight have had one warm summer.

How many people were here when you came?
(L) How many pe)ple? Oh, I haven't got any idea, but there sure
weren't as many as ther ~~~enow. I knew everybody here at the time.
Well there was the odd one that I missed, but ~ot very many.
l~ke, I never new John ••• an old fellow who died last fa11. ~he
old fel ow who used to go around on an electric wheelchair. He
lived in South Town. Evidently he was her~ all the time, and I
never knew him. He used to come up all the way from South own to
New Town in that electric wheel chair.
(Q)

(Q)
Did you have elecricity when you :irst came here?
(L) Eo, 61d Hazel ton had elecrici.ty, and the .~ospital, and that's
all. ,e didn't have elec~ricity in Two-mile.

So when did you get it?
(L) Oh, '50, yes I think it was '50. '50 or '51. I know were
living in the house where Gloria Benson is living, in'49, and Alan
had his own little plant, that~s all he had. Then the next year,
hydro came in.
(Q)

Did you go to New Town very often?
(L) Not too o"ten, I did-most business In Old Hazelton at that
time.
(Q)

(Q)
Do you r-emetibe r the ,-1
d post of ice and the store that used
to be in ew Town? '.ThereWillans 21. ve now?
(L) on, yeah.
(Q)
They had a laundromat in New Town I believe.
(L) I don't remember that. ~he first laundromat that I can
remember was the one the Kornelson' s put in. ~Vhen Gor-d i s took it
over, he DUt in quite a few more machines. They started of in
a house, the basement of their o~fice, and what not. They put
up F\ bunch of cabins, and they started the Laundr-omat nor their
customers. Then they found that there was quite a bit of time that
was open, so they let other people come in and do their laundry.
So they just had one machine to start with, one washer and two
cryers, or something like that. Or vica versa, I'm not sure L10W.

()

SO the ReMP was in Old Town, by where the pizza place is.
'es t.hat e right.

(Q)
(T)

John Field School ~~sn't there, was it?
No, nei ther was the high school;

(Q)

t

(Q)
'/herewas the echo o'L?
(L) It was right nhere the liquor store is now. No, beaind the
liquor store. I don't know whet~er there's a building there or not.
Then they had so many children that they couldn't accomedate in the
school, so they had to use the Pentecostal church for the school,
and the Anglican hall. They also used the church army hall for
th~ native children. It was quite a conjestive set up when they
bUIlt the school that they have now.

Lloyd Dodding - page four
(Q)
So t~ere was no Liquor store?
(L) No, no liquor store.
(Q)

(L)
(Q)

(L)

They had to go to Sm~thers?
I suppose.
The roads «ere pretty bad I assume.
Oh, yeah. Pretty rougt at times.

(Q)
Did you oV\na car Jhen you got here?
(L) Oh yes, but we didn't go to Sm5_thers any more than we had to.
Cr;)cked, dusty roads. l:.ndchuckholes. Washboard and chuckholes.

(Q) Were you into ~ishir.g, or hunting , or tra~pin, or anything
whild you live here?
(L)
Oh no, I've never trapped. I've done a little hunting, but
no great amolmt. I've never shot a moose yet.
(Q)
lias there any specific regulations?
Like did you have to have
a licence, or could you just •••
(L)
Oh yes, licence and tags_ too. Big game licences were <11-5,
then they were raised to .•..
7, now they're $13.

Did you take part in the Mayday, on the 24th of May, at the
otem park?
(L) No, I didn't.

(Q)

(Q)
That was quit a comrr.uni
ty aff'air wasn t t it?
(L) Oh, I don't know, I'm sure.

(Q) For your very ~irst job in Hazelton, do you remember how much
you were paid?
(L)
75¢ an hour.
That'we.s at the Hospital.
(Q)
~ow was your salary divided up? Bills and stuff?
(L) I was buying my farm. That is, I saved m,y money to buy my
farm. I paid for it in ~ she I had my mother to keep, and what
not.

Have you ever moved away ~rom Hazelton at 81]?
(L) Well not a great deal since I've lived here. I lived in
Vancover. I worked for Boeing aircra:t before I came up here.
(Q)

(Q)

'Naat ,?ort of things did you do for r-ec
r-ea!ion?

(L)

Oh, hikir.g, a littJe bit of hunting, fishing~

'ere you here when the bridge at Hagwilget was built?
(L) TO, that was before my time. That was builtin '36 as far
as
know.
en years before I came.
(Q)

(Q)
That wus 9f'ter the flood, t.henthey built t.hebridge. Because
th~ old bridge Nas washed out.
(L) No, they had both b"ridges at the same time. I don't know when
that bridge went out down town, but it was the ice that weighed that
bridge down, the Old Town briClge. It rained and froze an~ rained
and froze. T~ere was a tremendous weight of ice on the bridge.
T~en, I guess the river came up pretty high an8 the combination
took Dart of it out. But it was only one span as :ar as I know.

Lloyd Dodding - page five.
They moved the rest of it to Smithers.
(Q)
How much did you have to Day for our farm when you were
buying it?
(L) Oh, I can't rememoer. It was a long time ago.
(Q)
Did you l~now many people in the area? Did you know people like
Seth Dav'd, or some of the •••
(L) tIell, I knew pretty near everybody here at the time. lIIhen
you're working at the hospital you get to know a lot of'people.

Did any dentists come to the hospital,
L) Not very often. Dr.Murphy used to pull quite a "!:ewteeth.
Generally it WbS le~t ur to the doctors to do the tooth pUlling.
Dr.~.~cPhe3rsonused to come in a couple of times a year from
errace.
(Q)

(Q)
Would they freeze your mouth at aJl, or would they just pull
it out?
(L) O· ve s , yes.
r.l.JcPhearson,he useo to take a Li.ttle fortification
"hen he was pulLing tee.th. I guess he reItit as much as t~e patient
did.
hac two teeth pulled, and he was prpttv high. Te broke
them both off, and he had one awful tirregetting the roots out.
Three great l)igroots on each one of them, I guess. They all
had to be drilled and teked out with a skewer, you know.

Vvh.'1t
ki nd of anesthetic would they use, LTust a needle?
(L) Yes, just a needle. 'Cocaine I guess. Or ~~ovacaine.

(Q)

Who ,brought the mail ihto Ole Town1
Oh , let's see now. It came bv train in +hoae days. And
I t~ir:k the ~"arshalls used to pick it up. As far as I know.
~ard ~arshall~anc ••• they had a one-ton truck.
(Q)
(1)

(Q)
Did they just »i ck up the mail, or d;·-jthey pick up groceries
and all the supplies?
(L) Yeah, anything i ke that, t.hat came on the train. They'd
take it over.
(Q)
I guess it was important to have a couple of cows on the farm,
wouldn't it be'! ecause you couldn't get fresh milk in the store.
(L) Sendens had a dairy. He had the dairy when I came here. He
supplied the whole area. -yell the Gilmores had a dairy there too.
But you co. dn't buy milk at the store, it was all delivered right
to your door.

'Nhat about fresh '7egetables,
(L~ Oh, fresh vegetables were no problem. l\~ostof'the farmers
grew a cartain amount o~ fresh vegetables to sell. The Loves
use .to grow quit a f'ewvegetables.
(Q)

But they wouldn't sell them in the stores?
(L
~'eLl any vegetables that you got in the stores 'here locally
grown in those days. 'I'heywOllldn't ship any veget9bles in.
(Q)

Lloyd Dodding - Dage six
(Q)
Do you remember any wedd i ng ceremonies or anythi.ngthat »ee
really different from what they are now?
(L) No, J don't tltin- so. They didn't get into any spectacular
wed ings. Like jumping from an airplane and parachuting dovm.
(Q)
',Vhatpeople had a majcr- influence on the cOIlliD.unity
before
Hazelton was incorporated?
(L)
Vo one to E' great extent. Dr.Wrinch was quite an outs+anding
per-sor , But of course he was before my time. He lift s~ortly
bef'or-s I came up hez-e ,
(Q)
So Hazelton was incorporated shortly after you CaLleup here
w,~sn'tit?
(L) Yo, it w=e quite a long time nfter. I don't know just when
it was incorpotated.
(Q)

(L)

#ho as the :'irstmayor?
Polly Sargent.

(Q)

Did you piliayany sports, li~e baseball, or on any teams?

(L)

No , I wes too busy wi th my farm.

(Q)
Do you have any interesting stories that woul~ be usef~l
to us?
(L) Vvell thei"'ir:stsw:nmer J was here in the fall after th.i highways
laid everYbody off. Mr.Benson asked me if I'd like to go to
Fort Babine for Labor day. Tony 'Nesthad to go there to keep law
and order, 1-ecause they didn't want anyone to get hur-t or killed
on ~abor day. ~e di~n't like the idea of having to go into
Fort Babine, but just the aam he 118d to go there because that was
his orders. So he got Allan Benson to take him in there. It's
a long distance to go wi~h just one hors you know, so we ~ad to
take some supplips. Allan asked me if I'd like to go along, and
he h[j another fellow helDing him, Percy Foster, and then Tony
of'course. So Allan sur-p Li.ed a pack horse, a horse for himself
and a horse for Percy. Of course J rented a horse through f..r.
Halverson. It took us thpee:jdays to get to Fort Babine over the
trail.

The first day we were there, we got talkinG to the "ish
warden there. "Te offered to take us to the coun t i ng gate which
was seven or eight miles down the river. So just before we got
to the coun t i.nggate, we saw three native t'el Lows , They had just
caught a huge spring sal:non. It was over ",ix~eet long. I have
never ever aeen e -I"i sh any where near that size, since of before.
In order to get that Dish'in their dugout canoe, they had to all
get out into t1€ river 5n orSer to get it into the canoe. The
sad thing about it was the fish warden never asked thes~ fellows
to come in and weigh it. It would go all of 180 pounds. It
W2S a tremendous sjze.
I was t.a'l
vi ng to a biologi.st afterwards, and he said that
for a spring salmon to get to that sizet it would have to a male.

Lloyd

Dodding - page seven

And it would have to go back to the ocean three times, or twice
at least, ~or it to get that size. See, a male salmon will sometimes
survive if they are spawned close to the ocean and they get washed
back again. This was his third trip in, and they'll survive. Salt
water brings them back again. This was his third trip in and he
might have survived again i:' they hadn't caught him, because he
showed no signs of deter-iora ion. It was just like a steelhead.
That was the sad thing about it though, that it wasntt weighed, so
we didn't know how heavy it was. But J would estimate i"t at about
ldO pounds. So we went down to the counting gate then, 3~d they
showed us how they count the salmon. Then we wen't back to Fort
Babine, I guess we were there for only a day, I'm not just sure
now. Then we headed back.
It rained all the 'Nayhome. So we were like C' bunch of c'l enched
rats. Iv-e
got to Pete Ober's cabin, that's only six mie out, but
it was 12:00 at night when we got there, and we were just soaked
to the skin, so we decided to stay at Pete's cabin for the night,
put on a ~ire and dried out. ~hen we came in the rest of the way
i.nthe morni.ng. That was quite an experience for me.
(Q)

(L)

Did you have any relatives come and visit you?
',/hatdo you mean?

Like from a bigger city, that have never been up Torth.
(1.) Oh yes, most of'my relatives.
.y Grandfat.her was the only one
of my relati ves, that was, Li,ving here when I came up. r\~ybrother
then came up 'irst in 1948, I thi..nk.o
.Then my Mother carr:eshortly
after, and my sister. Of course they all stayed here. I..•
~ost ~
the relat.ives have been up to visit at times.
(Q)

What did they t.hi nk of ilaze ltor?
(L) On, they like it as ~ar as scenery goes, but they thin~ it's
a little out in the sticks.
(Q)

(Q)

Did you go to any of the dances that were in the halls?

(L)

No, I never bothered to dance myae Lf',

(Q)
§o do you like the way Hazelton has changed over the years?
Or did you like it the way it was?
(L) I guess its for the etter. I guess it's an improvement.

\~en did you first get sewer?
(L) Oh, I don't know what year it was. ~ew Hazelton had it first.
';iellyou must remember, you were here at the time. You were just
about this high, when it came in. You remember lawrence Dubnick
don't vou? He didn't stay here much after they got the sewer.
Maybe a couple of vears &t the most. So it ~rsn't been here that
long.
(Q)

(Q)
\'8S mining going well in the fifties?
(L) Oh yes, Silver Standard was operating in the '50's, and
the Red nose part of the time, and there was a lot of exploration
going on.
But a lot of mining came and went before I got here.
I don't know what ears the Silver cup was operating, and the Bed
Rose operated before too. Then there was the Roche de Boule mine
op~rating too.

LLoyd Dodding - page eig~t.
(Q) ',/hostarted the logging after mining petered out?
(L) ,'el1when I came up here, there were quite a few Li ttle
mills in the bush. Sm3l1 operation. The f'irstlarge mill was
when Siglett moved In.
(Q)

(L)

';!herewas that one?
Over in South Town same place as Rim is now.

( ) Did you know or a ~ill out in Glenvowell?
(L) NOt that was before
time. That was run by ••• I think
Mr.Toml~nson started that , but that was just for local use. They
didn't ship lumber out at all. Just for local use. That's where
all the old houses in Glenvmvell came from, they cut their own XB
lumber right there. That oNasa water powered saw mill.
~T

(Q) Is it still there nooN? Or was it torn down?
(L) Well there's nothing much le~~t of it I guess. rlaybe the
turbine are there s~""ewhere, I don't know. They cut the lumber
there for the town of Kitsegas. The people of Kitsegas hauled it
up the ice on the Skeena in the wi~ter time.
(Q)
V.'ouldn'
tit have been easier to just pu+ j t in the water during
the summer?
(L) ,ell, It's no very navitagable, I dontt think. The river is
a pretty rushing river up there.
(Q)
I~ you can remember anything which we've left out, that
would be helpful.
(L) Vie11 , I don't remember what year it was, I went up the Kispiox
wi th the Hagen boys. -•.jayup
.
as "'aras Sweetin. 'I'her-e was no road
in those days. Only to the Janze farm. The boys had never seen
the upper Kispiox, neither had I, so we decided to take a trip up
there.
hey su~plied the hDrses and I supplied the grub. So
we took off and went up as far as Sweetin, but the river was too
high, so we couldn't ford the Swe~in (riyer), so that's as far
s we went. That took us three days to get to Sweetin.

~hen we came back, we camped for the night at~Corral Creek.
Before we camped for the night, we went up ::!orralCreek,aways to
see what it was like up the creek. We saw a grixxly track eighteen
inches long. V!e d i dn f t feel too secure i th him around. 'fIe had
a drink in the creek, Henry dropped his cigarettes, and dien't
reali.ze hetd lost them whp.n he was bending down to have a drink
from the ~reek. So when we got to where we were poing to camp for
the night, he wanted to have a smoke, and didn't have any cigarettes.
So the boys went back up. TvlO 0:' us stayed wi, th the horses, end
they walked back un to retreive the cigarettes. ~hey had to ta'e
both of our rifles, so the two of us left di.dn't feel very secure
with no ri~le~. Anyhow, they got back, cigarettes, rifles and all.
w

Then we spent the night there and carried on the next day.
Nc got do,vn as far as Janze's farm the next day, but as it generally
does, it was raining, so we were pretty miserahle be~ore ~e got
home. Soaked to the hid •
Nowadays it onlT takes 90 minutes to drive to Sweetin.
(1) (0 minutes? Yeah, I guess so, but tha~'s pushing it pretty
hard. That's with ante, of these logging t rnck drivers.
(Q)