What’s a little dynamite between friends?
by Paul Johnston
From Ted Johnston -Memoirs compiled by Chris Harrison
1953-1954: Dad’s Tolerance Tested – Dad was probably more successful keeping his seven boys “out of trouble” than most fathers with a family half the size of the 16 he supported. But, the effectiveness of his approach to discipline using a firm hand combined with regular chores and hard work was on occasion sorely tested. Such was the case during the latter half of 1953 and the first half of 1954.
My brother David and I had served a very long 10 months at College Notre Dame de la Paix, in Falher, Alberta, completing Grade 8 in June 1953. We were sent to Notre Dame to be immersed in both the French language and the Roman Catholic religion. In my view, the Oblate Fathers, with few exceptions, ran the place like a reformatory school. It was neither a pleasant place nor a particularly stimulating experience socially and academically for me. However, I enjoyed the well-equipped college workshop.
During that spring in the workshop, a school friend, Etien Couturier, was making a rather crude handgun for hunting. As I recall, its firing mechanism was designed like that of a musket. But, he did not know how to make gunpowder. I told him my oldest brother, Pat, knew the recipe. So, sometime before the end of the school term, I wrote to my brother, Flying Officer Johnston, Patrick L., who, at the time, was stationed at McDonald Air Force Base, in Manitoba. In my letter, recounting that he and his friends had experimented with home-made black-powder and remembering that they had used a mixture of saltpetre, sulphur and charcoal, I had asked him for the proper proportions. Pat wrote back, enclosing a $2-bill, “for the ingredients”, with the recipe and an explicit warning about the hazards and risks of playing with black-powder.
However, in Falher, a small village in the Peace River Country of Alberta, we could not find all the ingredients. So, both the recipe and the gun went untested before David and I returned to Terrace in June 1953
Early that summer, I told my friend, Larry Larson, that I had the recipe for making black-powder. We decided to prepare a batch, then several more batches. During that summer, we developed different types of exploding devices in cans, bottles, drilled-out sections of two- to three-inch diameter Poplar trees and ultimately, discarded gas-iron fuel tanks that were ideal but rare. We experimented with various amounts of powder and different types of shrapnel. By late summer, we had opted for an eight-inch long, two-inch diameter section of Poplar tree. The one-inch diameter by seven-inch bore was filled with a bottom and top layer of sandy gravel, sandwiching about four inches of black-powder. The device was plugged with a nailed-in wooden cork with a small fuse-hole. Our first fuses were crude – being twisted paper with powder on the inside and rolled in wax.
We attempted to set them off underground, throwing them into water, on the ground or throwing them in the air. All these efforts, except those stationary on the ground, met with very limited success. Our crude homemade fuses limited the devices’ deployment but somehow we obtained a few yards of dynamite fuse-cord. By the time I started Grade 9 in September, we had a fairly reliable device that, with the new fuse, would go-off almost anywhere. Not wanting to attract too much attention we set most of them off in remote areas near the Ranch. We were looking forward to a noisy Halloween. Unfortunately, at the time, I did not see the need to discuss what I was doing with Dad. I probably figured he would disapprove.
In the early fall, just after my fifteenth birthday, Larry and I decided to go down to the Skeena River, below the East end of the highway bridge. We took three of our wooden firecrackers with us hoping to test their ability to stun some salmon. We lit the first device. But, because we threw it too far and the fuse was a bit short, it ineffectually exploded on the water’s surface. The bang, however, attracted the attention of my younger cousin, Chuck Kofoed, who was fishing with a friend, Billy Paquette, about 100 yards up the river. The next two devices, thrown into the river closer to the shoreline, sunk a little and exploded with a disappointing ‘whumpff ‘ with only the faintest, momentary, trace of a disturbance in the water. No stunned salmon surfaced.
At the end of our experiment, Chuck told us that we should have used real dynamite. Living near the river and spending lots of time fishing, he had seen some older guys stun salmon with dynamite before. And, he said he knew where we could get all the dynamite you could carry, as well as blasting-caps and rolls of fuse. Chuck told us there was an old shack in the bush not far from his house with boxes of dynamite. Being somewhat frustrated with our homemade efforts, Larry and I decided to get some dynamite. Billy went home, and the remaining three of us headed toward Skinner’s Corner. Within a quarter-hour, Chuck, Larry and I arrived at an old 2×4-framed, dilapidated, windowless shed, with the door permanently ajar. The walls were a single layer of vertical, 1 x 12-inch boards, most were loosely hanging and several had flopped outward onto the ground. From the outside you could plainly see the interior of the shed was partly filled with stacks of sturdy wooden boxes stamped “CIL EXPLOSIVES”.
After poking around, we decided on a roll of fuse, a box of blasting-caps and an opened, partially emptied, case of 60% dynamite. We reasoned that it would be stronger than the 20% dynamite that was also in the shed; besides, we had no tools to open any other boxes. On our way back to the river, the box was getting heavy and awkward to carry so we divided the contents. Each of us stuffed our pockets and jackets with a dozen or so sticks of dynamite, carrying them down to the banks of the Skeena River.
Having, in the past, watched several people use dynamite to blow tree-stumps, the preparation of the charges was not a mystery to me. We cut part of the roll of fuse into roughly 8-inch lengths. About a dozen of these short fuses were stuck into caps, and each capped fuse was embedded into the end of a stick of dynamite. We were ready for business. The underwater blasts, not only killed salmon but also caused the water to boil up in an angry, dirty, dome containing sand and rock debris. A shock wave from each explosion shook the large flat boulders beneath our feet, with a simultaneous loud thump. After we set-off the first few prepared dynamite charges, we all recognized their power and danger, but were well satisfied with the results. Halloween was going to be a blast!
Larry Larson and I took all the remaining sticks of dynamite with us. We stashed them, along with the caps and fuse, under the old log bridge spanning Spring Creek on the road to the Ranch.
During the next few weeks, my brother David, our school friends Earle and Dennis Mutschke and me, experimented with the explosives. There was, for example, an old, leaning, half-rotted bridge over Spring Creek along a grown-over roadway leading to a long-time abandoned homestead. We decided to blow the bridge up. Placing six sticks of 60% dynamite at intervals between the bridge’s sills and decking structure we thought the resulting blasts would make matchsticks out of the bridge. We lit the fuses as quickly as we could and started to run up the little hill on the east end of the bridge. The first charge went off with little effect. With each successive noisy blast, only a few of the deck-logs in the immediate vicinity of the exploding charge would rise up and fall back into place. It was disappointing, but we decided not to waste any more dynamite on that particular effort.
More effective and dramatic was using the blasting-caps without the dynamite. With a short length of fuse and a cap, we blasted a series of fencing-staples from barbed-wire fences. We would place 6 or 8 of these devices on successive fence-posts between the top strand of wire and its staple. Running from one post to the next, we lit the fuses. Bang! Bang! Bang! … The staples would whiz across the roadway into the bush and the strand of barbed wire would be left hanging loose.
The real danger of the blasting-caps struck me when my brother, David, placed a cap on a large rock and set it off by dropping another boulder on it. I was a few yards away and looking in the direction of his little experiment. A large yellowish-white flash simultaneous with a stinging sensation on one of my ankles shocked me. It was only a tiny piece of tin shrapnel that had barely pierced my skin but, that was enough to remind me never to repeat that experiment!
Halloween night, in a grand gesture, we tied three sticks of dynamite together and after lighting the fuse, we threw the bundle down an abandoned water-well on Doc Harrison’s vacant property near the corner of Halliwell Avenue and North Thomas Street. We were about 200 yards away when we heard the blast. In addition, we set a few single sticks off, here and there, on lonely stretches of road – but all we did was make a big bang, creating the beginnings of another pothole. Disappointingly, we subsequently heard nothing in the neighborhood to indicate anyone, except us, had heard or felt anything different that Halloween night.
Having used our last fuse and caps on Halloween, I decided to see if I could set-off the remainder of the dynamite by throwing it into the steep Spring Creek gully against trees that grew below. None went-off all of the remaining seventeen sticks disappeared, to my secret relief, beneath the thick, inhospitable, smelly Devils Club foliage in the gully bottom. That was the end of that – so I thought.
But, five months later, my life of crime was exposed to my Dad, my world and indeed myself. One afternoon in mid March of 1954, Constable Cunningham, a recent arrival at the Terrace RCMP detachment, came to the school. He strode into the school office, with my cousin Chuck Kofoed in tow, demanding to speak to the Principal.
The Principal’s loud voice came over the public address system, “Paul Johnston and Larry Larson, would you report to the Principal office, immediately!” As Larry and I made our way to the Office we were wondering what we had done to warrant a visit with the Principal. In the anteroom to the office waiting on a bench beside the Principal’s door sat a forlorn-looking Chuck Kofoed. We still didn’t have an inkling why we were there. I was the last to be called into the principal’s office. Upon entering I was somewhat surprised to see a policeman with the principal. In my ensuing interview, I was told that they had already talked to two members of “the gang”. Both had wisely admitted their guilt and had implicated me in stealing some explosives. At that moment I finally realized what it was all about! The Mountie somewhat arrogantly added, “It is all over, you may as well admit your guilt and tell us all about it. I have been investigating this crime since last fall, and I know all the facts.”
Without hesitation, I admitted my role in the affair, as truthfully as I could from the time we removed the dynamite from the shack to our Skeena riverside experiments. Chuck and Larry knew very little about my other dynamite experimenting, about the Halloween explosions or my other accomplices. And, because the Constable didn’t ask me, I didn’t volunteer those details. Anyway, his main concern was the stealing of the dynamite. However, I did inform Constable Cunningham that I threw the remainder of the dynamite into the Spring Creek gully. He told me that the next day, he and I would retrieve the dynamite from the gully. During the whole interview, I was wondering why, if it was such a big deal, he didn’t come to the school months earlier to ask about it – we definitely would have confessed.
Constable Cunningham, as a recently graduated young police officer with a misguided zeal for his new station in life, was very officious. About the same time school classes were dismissed that day, he marched the three of us out of the office, into the police car and drove us toward the police station. On the way to the station, as we passed groups of students, Constable Cunningham would sarcastically sneer, “You guys must feel real proud of yourselves, big tough guys, being driven by the Police to the Detachment to be charged. You, Johnston, are the ringleader. You could spend time in jail!” It must have been his first big case of crime solving, because only after consulting with the Corporal at the Station, did he tell us that he was going to lay charges.
I, and each one of us in turn, was told we were going to be charged with, “Breaking and Entering into a Provincial Powder House and the theft of a partial case of Explosives, a box of blasting-caps and a roll of fuse-cord; Pursuant to Sections 343 and 348 of the Criminal Code of Canada!” It was absolutely unbelievable and a shock to me, that a person could become a criminal without realizing it! Our parents were immediately notified and a trial date was set.
When Dad first heard about my involvement in the dynamite theft and my impending court appearance he was obviously very disappointed, but he did not react like I thought he would. After talking with the RCMP Corporal who was to be the Prosecutor, Dad organized a meeting with Uncle Charlie Kofoed and Mr. Larson. They decided to jointly hire the local lawyer, Harry Pedrini. I was sure Dad was going to disown me, but he was very supportive, telling me how disappointed he was with me. Sincerely believing that he had not raised a criminal, his reaction was a desperate mixture of demands, assertions and questions, reflecting his disappointment and concern for my future. In effect he said: “Tell me all about it You should have known better. You do not have enough work to keep you out of trouble. One more stunt like that and you’re on your own! This could result in a criminal record for you! Why did you do such a damnable foolish thing?”
During the trial, after the charges were read, our lawyer Mr. Pedrini ineptly addressed the magistrate in our defense. Uncle Charlie Kofoed asked the magistrate if he could speak when he realized that the Lawyer was fumbling and was not making some points that he, Dad and Mr. Larson thought should be raised. The magistrate, Mr. Norton, recognizing the incoherence of the poorly prepared lawyer, granted Uncle Charlie permission to address the court. In his typical loud booming voice, Charlie Kofoed started, essentially saying: “Your Honor: Entering a shed and theft of dynamite, caps and fuse – yes, definitely! But, breaking into what? The Province should have replaced that dilapidated old shack years ago with a proper Powder House built according to the specifications laid down by Law! The door doesn’t close and the boards are falling off the walls! We could just as easily be here for an inquest! The Provincial authorities have been damn irresponsible, in terms of making this Powder House secure!” Uncle Charlie’s forceful directness clearly impressed the magistrate because we were each given a ‘suspended sentence of three months, under your parents’ supervision’.
Within months, probably before our “sentences” had expired, the District of Terrace was enjoying the security of a new bunker-like Provincial Powder House!
I came away from this foolish and frightening episode in my life with an understanding of how easy it was, even without intent, to get into serious trouble with the law, and acquire a criminal record. As a result, I thought about this for years after the trial, carefully thinking about the consequences of all my actions and avoiding any situation that might have lead to trouble.
My resolve to avoid subsequent criminal behavior was reinforced with occasional reminders, such as, a couple years later, when my brother Jack was joining the Navy. Requiring a police clearance for his application, he went to the local Detachment. Jack told me that the RCMP Officer checking the files to see if he had a criminal record said something like: “Johnston … Johnston … Oh yah … You’re not also known as Paul Johnston, are you?.”
Most importantly, although I had always recognized Dad as a relatively tolerant father and a very fair disciplinarian, I had not realized the extent he would go to support me when I got myself into serious trouble. Because it was as painful for him as it was for me, after the trial Dad and I never again discussed my brief encounter with the Canadian criminal justice system.
I have often reflected on the irony of this memorable period in my life. It is frequently said, “Justice demands that if you do a crime you do the time.” Considering my College Notre Dame experience, I felt things just got mixed-up. I did my time, and then did the crime!
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