Unforgettable Port Essington
There were no roads since the community sat on a muskeg. I packed firewood – and everything else up 58 steps to my house, and in the Detachment Office a stump protruded through the floor.
by 1st Class Constable Balfour E. “Bal” Munkley
Re-produced from Off Patrol – Memories of B.C. Provincial Policemen by Cecil Clark
(Port Essington dates back to the early 1870s when frontier trader Robert Cunningham pre-empted land on the south bank of the Skeena River some 12 miles from its mouth. He established a trading post and around it grew Port Essington, for a time probably the largest community north of Vancouver. From it sternwheel steamers plied 180 miles of the turbulent Skeena River to Hazelton, and around it many salmon canneries were established, two right in the community. Population reached several hundred with buildings that included a town hall, the north’s first cold storage plant and, from time to time, four/newspapers. However, with the completion in 1914 of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway across Central B.C. to a new port called Prince Rupert, the community was bypassed. Today only rubble marks the site of the once flourishing coastal community.)
Port Essington Detachment was, to use a term more modern than the era of my story, “something else.” I don’t, know what I did to deserve being stationed there, but in 1940 I was instructed to proceed to the one-man post from Terrace where I had married a local girl. I found out later that marrying a local girl almost automatically guaranteed a transfer.
Dorothy, my wife, and I packed and crated our worldly belongings and shipped them by the CNR to Prince Rupert where they were loaded on a small scow owned by the Donaldson brothers. Bright and early the following morning we boarded Donaldson’s launch and, with our possessions in tow, arrived at our destination to find the house that was available to us. It was situated 56 steps up from the main boardwalk of the street. It wasn’t a bad house and formerly had been the property of a cannery manager. One aspect of it was very satisfactory – the $4 a month rent.
Our first night was spent in the Port Essington Hotel which I am sure must have been the original building in town. We had an old iron bed in our room with a straw-filled pallet as a mattress, from which the straw kept falling out. The room was unheated and damned cold, and had no lock on its door. The following day I contacted the local magistrate who was also the postmaster, got the keys to the police office and the house, and with the assistance of our neighbors packed our goods up the 58 steps to our new home.
I learned from the magistrate that the population of Port Essington was largely made up of Indians, with a few whites and a few Japanese, and a few of origin that would be hard to define. My main job consisted of policing all the canneries scattered around the mouth of the Skeena River, among which were Oceanic, North Pacific, Sunnyside, and Cassiar. Access to Prince Rupert was either by boat direct or by the local ferry to Haysport, the CNR station across the river.
Port Essington had no paved or gravelled streets as it was sited on either rock or muskeg, and all thoroughfares were wooden planked. A large proportion of the buildings were supported over the river by pilings and one had to be careful when walking on some of the wharves and in other areas as the planking was nearing the half-century mark and had become rotten in some spots. A heavy person like myself learned to walk over the location of stringers.
The Skeena River at Essington had a very strong current notwithstanding it was very wide at that point. We were also located on tidewater and with tides in excess, of 20 feet and with a flooding river it was no place for an amateur seaman. At low tide there was much exposure of stinking mud along the bank, and it certainly gave the community a distinctive air!
Our house had no electricity and was heated by wood-fueled fires. I found that the only way to obtain wood was to snag a log from the river and saw it. I was initially lucky as I was able to find a spruce log about two feet in diameter, and with a borrowed crosscut saw I bucked it into appropriate lengths on the river bank. Then I had to carry the blocks on a pack board up the 58 steps to the house. I counted those steps many times!
Although there was a store, we found it was much more satisfactory to order our groceries from Woodward’s in Vancouver. The service provided by that company was terrific. I don’t remember even an egg being broken. Each fragile item was wrapped and packed carefully at the same price of the goods in Vancouver. Our orders were shipped via Union Steamships and we paid the freight which was minimal. We figured we saved enough on our canned items alone to pay the transportation costs. Once a week I would be down at the dock meeting the Cardena with my hand cart to claim our provisions and carry the cartons up the 58 steps to where Dorothy and I would unpack them with the same eagerness as children opening Christmas presents.
There was not a great deal of crime for me to handle, although I had been warned that I should exercise caution at night. My predecessor had become involved in a brawl in the hours of darkness on the docks and had been pushed into the river. Fortunately, the tide was out and he was unhurt as he fell into the mud some 20 feet below. I discovered one night that the incident had created a lasting impression on my wife.
One evening about 10 o’clock, Dorothy and I were playing double patience (one of our million games) and I told her of my intention to make my usual patrol through the village to make sure all was secure. I said I wouldn’t be long and would be back soon to join her in a cup of coffee. It was raining heavily as it often does in Port Essington. I patrolled the hotel area where I usually stopped for a word with the proprietor. The hotel had a beer parlor and only sold quarts which were shipped in wooden barrels. At that time it was illegal for Indians to consume or possess intoxicants. I was advised by the hotel keeper that there was a native dance in progress and some unsavory characters in the area as a result, no doubt to make a few dollars peddling liquor. By the time I thought things were quiet enough for me to go home it was almost 1 a.m. The rain was coming down in sheets and the night was as black as ebony with absolutely no lights.
I started to trudge my weary way home when I sensed that someone was approaching me in the dark. I paused until I was sure whoever it was was near and then triggered my flashlight. I saw a bedraggled figure wearing one of my slickers. It was my wife coming to look for me. I put my arm around her and she was trembling like a leaf. Under the slicker I felt the solid lump of an automatic pistol I had taught her to use proficiently. She could put eight shots into the silhouette of a man at 20 paces. She sobbed with relief on seeing me. When I asked why she was out in the storm, she blurted, “Who the hell else would have come looking for you?” It was a very proud Constable who escorted his wife home that morning to a belated cup of coffee.
My office was a building that was part of the history of the community. It was situated about half a mile from our residence via boardwalks. The old record books were still there and I pored through them with interest. The structure was single-storey and consisted of a one-cell lockup and a small office. It had been built on piles over a swamp and they had settled, permitting a spruce stump to protrude into the middle of the office. No one in Port Essington seemed to think anything of a stump jutting through the floor, but visitors from “Outside” stared at it in amazement.
In the old days, a policeman was not given too much training before he was placed on duty. In my case, I had absolutely no training. The result was I learned by experience and listening to the advice of more knowledgeable persons. Therefore, it was often necessary for me to learn by trial and error as it were. I learned a lesson at Port Essington. Among other appointments I was ex-officio a Sanitary Inspector. There was a person employed by the Federal Government who insisted I do something about unsanitary conditions among many of the residents who did not have flush toilets. The category included most of the inhabitants. The complaint was that a number of outdoor toilets over the river bank were offensive. The fact that a good number of residents had no toilets at all at their homes and used those on the wharves, increased the complained-about conditions.
Accordingly, I armed myself with a quantity of Sanitary Inspection order forms and issued instructions to those householders who did not have toilets to remedy the situation “or else.” Then I submitted a report to District Headquarters at Prince Rupert covering my actions.
A short time later I received a communication from Corporal Con Oland, a 30-year veteran. He put me on the right track. In his dry, humorous way he pointed out that my prowess as a Sanitary Inspector had resulted in the Commissioner having had new shoulder flashes made especially for me, consisting of an outdoor toilet with crossed dung forks. Then he added a P.S.: “Did you ever try to dig an outdoor toilet in a swamp?”
I got the message and made the rounds picking up the orders I had issued, advising their recipients to ignore them. They had fully intended to anyway!
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