G.. Fishing and Trapping Stories

Norman Hindes: [NORMAN] We never saw any big stuff till we got to Tillamook, and we got there before the burn.

Bob Zybach: Now, the products that the other mills around here were cutting were ties. Railroad ties.

Charles Hindes: [CHUCK] A lot of output was tie material.

Bob Zybach: But you said you were doing poles and piling individually and then for this mill here, what were they cutting?

Charles Hindes: Just long saw timber, and this went out to what they call Wellsdale, right in the middle of where Camp Adair is now, and they had a planer mill up there and so they planed and shipped out on the railroad.

Bob Zybach: Did you call it Wellsdale or Wells?

Charles Hindes: Wellsdale.

Bob Zybach: Okay. Did you ever hear it called Wells or Wells Station?

Charles Hindes: Wells Station. Yeah.

Norman Hindes: [NORMAN] Yeah, Wells Station.

Bob Zybach: Its another one of those places that's name kept changing through time.

Charles Hindes: [CHUCK] Yes. I remember when they first went from a four cylinder Chevrolet truck motor to the six cylinder. We thought that was a real powerhouse for hauling lumber out of here, believe it or not. We just stood back in awe when that thing belched and pulled out a load a lumber.

Bob Zybach: What year was that about? That'd have to be some of the first six cylinder GMC motors.

Charles Hindes: Probably '28.

Bob Zybach: Because on the Berry Creek side, about 1930 or '31, we're getting the first cat logging and first log trucks, so it was a little bit earlier.

Norman Hindes: [NORMAN] That was the year there wasn't a hell of lot doing. It was depression. When they got started again, about just after Roosevelt went in there with the NRA [National Recovery Act], in that area in there. Then they started getting these RD-7 and RD-6's and RD-4's.

Charles Hindes: [CHUCK] I first learned to run cat in the CC's [Edward Sekermestrovich: Monograph #4] and that was late 1934. It was a Caterpillar #60 rear mounted bulldozer. The operator had to look over his shoulder all the time when building road.

Bob Zybach: So, that had to be some of the first dozer work done anywhere. That's about what year we're getting over in Berry Creek, too.

Charles Hindes: That was 34 and '35. We built the road into Dean's Mountain, which is a primary fire lookout in the Elliot State Forest in SW Oregon near Reedsport. About 30 miles of road was built through virgin timber.

G. Fishing and Trapping Stories

Bob Zybach: At the store down here. . . What did they sell in that store?

Charles Hindes: Pretty much all staples for household and to a degree, if women wanted lace or yardage material they'd bring it over from the store in Kings Valley because that was a very complete store.

Bob Zybach: The Kings Valley store.

Charles Hindes: The big one. Yes.

Bob Zybach: So, that was like a general mercantile or something.

Charles Hindes: Right. They had everything. Sold horse harnesses and collars and everything over at that store.

Norman Hindes: [NORMAN] Everything.

Charles Hindes: [CHUCK] And so whatever this store needed over and above the grocery line, and very few vegetable products came from Kings Valley store.

Bob Zybach: Where would you go fishing around here?

Charles Hindes: Soap Creek.

Bob Zybach: Did you ever get down as far as the Glender's?

Charles Hindes: I don't think we fished that far. You didn't have to go that far. .

Norman Hindes: [NORMAN] No. We didn't need to. Hell, we'd get 'em close to home.

Charles Hindes: [CHUCK] We'd get 'em here, you know, within a couple of mile stretch of camp.

Bob Zybach: Can you remember what kind of trout they were?

Norman Hindes: [NORMAN] Brook trout.

Charles Hindes: [CHUCK] I think they probably were pretty much rainbow and maybe brook trout. Maybe even some brown's mixed in, but now species didn't mean anything to us then.

Norman Hindes: [NORMAN] Anything edible.

Bob Zybach: What Gene [Eugene Glender] says that about 1934 or '35 they started getting rainbows in here. Before that they call them brook trout but they were... He thought they were probably cutthroat [Eugene Glender: Monograph #9].

Charles Hindes: [CHUCK] Could be.

Norman Hindes: [NORMAN] Well, they could have been. Yes.

Bob Zybach: And that the local name for the cutthroat was brook trout.

Charles Hindes: [CHUCK] That could very well be.

Norman Hindes: [NORMAN] Yeah. That very easily could be.

Bob Zybach: Can you remember the biggest one you ever caught out of there?

Norman Hindes: Oh, about 14, 15 inches. A lot of that stuff was 14, 15. Hell, we'd come home with four or five a piece. We only used a string. We never used real fishing tackle.

Bob Zybach: Well, I asked three or four different people how big the fish got in the creeks here and 14 inches is what everybody says.

Charles Hindes: [CHUCK] Is that right?

Bob Zybach: Yeah. So...

Norman Hindes: [NORMAN] Well, twelve would be a good average.

Bob Zybach: So fishermen are supposed to exaggerate, but you're all the exaggerating the exact same number.

Charles Hindes: [CHUCK] I think one of the things that we did that probably upset the natives and our folks equally well was we'd ran trap lines, too, up and down the creek. In the fall we found a den of skunks in a hollow log, so we got forked sticks and ran in there and twisted and twisted until we'd get around the tail and then haul them back out and so we got, I think, four kits and maybe a female. And of course they saturated us good, and we threw those skunks over our back and walked right up that plank road and we had all the women in camp hollering at us and our folks made us take our clothes off and sleep outside.

Norman Hindes: [NORMAN] Dad met us down the bottom of the hill.

Bob Zybach: He could probably smell you from the bottom of the hill.

Charles Hindes: [CHUCK] We had to take our clothes off and I'm not sure we didn't have to sleep outside for awhile.