Trails, Plank Roads, and What Dad Taught Me

We follow the old corduroy road into the bush, already knowing that it ends in a cutblock. It’s the prettiest one I’ve seen so far, with little huckleberry bushes sprouting up between the slats. Lying off-trail are relics of days gone by: part of an old shoe, part of a horse-drawn cart, and the metal outer rim of a wagon wheel.

Before my dad started building trails on the mountain, he first had to figure out where to put them. That was when he discovered the old plank roads crisscrossing the forest. Following them led him all over the hill, some of them cut by logging roads and cutblocks. Alongside them he sometimes found square depressions in the earth, the last trace of cabins that had once been there.

Dad would take me up the hill and show me all of the neat places he’d discovered. He knew the place like the back of his hand. Following along behind him, I began to learn the landscape, too. Sometimes he’d tell me to lead the way out, seeing if I could figure it out, and I learned how to landmark, spot game trails, and pick out the traces of the past that were left there.

The Footprints Place

One of the first places Dad took me up the mountain was what he called the Footprints Place, at the junction of two of his trails. He figured one of the trails was where they hauled the logs down the hill, because there was already a faint pathway worn in there, and trailbuilding was little more than clearing some debris and riding it. Near the bottom sat piles of cut logs, neatly stacked and rotting away.

At first glance, one could pass by and think it was another patch of forest, but Dad could pick out all the features of the landscape and the traces of the past marked there. It was how the trees were a little thinner, and how the old corduroy roads leading away from the place had different trees growing on them, or none at all.

One of the roads led down to the site of an old sawmill, and along it was a big barrel that still sits there today, a marker along our route. I always knew exactly where I was when I saw it.

Dad taught me to read the land, including spotting where cabins had once stood. Whenever we’d find one, we’d stomp around the area until we heard the telltale crunch of rusting cans. Then we’d fetch my sister and dig up the old bottles and other relics from the dump site. It was both treasure-hunting and preserving history that would otherwise be lost in a working forest.

Part of the sawmill road eventually became a cutblock, but Dad and I resolved to clear it out again. We went up there with saws and spent a few hours doing backbreaking work, making little progress. It was eventually cleared out by the district at Dad’s request, but that was my first taste of trailwork, and Dad had a lot to share about that, too.

Hikes, Stories, and Trailwork

Whenever I went on a hike with Dad, he always got philosophical. He’d talk about manifesting the things you wanted in life, and I’d always cheekily retort that I’d been manifesting a house in the woods and a million dollars with no luck. He’d also tell stories about his trails: building them, naming them, and riding them. In many ways, those hikes were a transfer of knowledge.

I’d be walking along behind him at a careful distance because he’d just let a branch go and have it whack me in the face if I was too close. As he went, he’d kick rocks and sticks off the trail and pause to pull off the occasional branch. And so I incorporated it into my hikes, too. I learned to be a trail fairy, removing debris, picking up garbage, and whatever else I could do.

Whenever there was a big storm or a lot of deadfall on one of Dad’s trails, we’d go out with the chainsaw and clear things out. Dad cut; I chucked, because he never let me use his chainsaw, even though he liked to tell me the different techniques for cutting things properly.

One time, we were out on the yew road, which ran through a dark, swampy area and has a large yew tree growing along it. Dad had a route through that followed the road, deviated around where it went through a tangled salmonberry swamp, and eventually ended at the logging road.

There was a big burl on a fallen tree in there that I had my eye on for a project, so Dad and I went in with his chainsaw, and he cut it off. He carried the burl out, while I carried his chainsaw in a backpack. At one point Dad fell, and I turned around to see him flailing around in a puddle, which I thought was pretty funny until he popped up and said he’d nearly drowned with the heavy burl on top of him.

He ended up with stitches, and I learned to carry a first aid kit.

The Passing of Knowledge

Dad and I explored all kinds of places together. We found old cabin sites, vintage logging trucks up the lake, an old grave, old mines, strange lookouts in the bush, and other things. Every place we found was another mark on a map in my head, one transferred to me bit by bit. We had names for many of the places we found, some of which are gone now. One day, it will only be me who knows their names.

Dad was always very deliberate with his ventures off-trail, though he was prone to wandering without telling anyone where he was going. Even so, you could drop him anywhere on the mountain, and he’d know exactly where he was.

Some of the places we went are no longer deep in the woods, but unnoticed alongside trails. The sawmill road is a forest again, just a little-used trail running through. You wouldn’t even know it was once a road. Bit by bit, time has worn new pathways on the land, but the terrain itself stays the same.

Like Dad with his backpack full of tools, sometimes I head up with my hand snips and brush out the trail, passing by the old barrel that’s so easy to get to now. Once in a while, I’ll venture down the yew road and have a look at the tree, or poke around the sawmill and try to find the things that time has hidden in the undergrowth.

People often joke to Dad that he knows shit, because he’s full of knowledge about trails and secret places, and this year, for the first time, someone told me the same thing. All those trips into the bush with my dad were the quiet passing of a map and history from one mind to another. These days, I mostly venture out alone, walking trails old and new, kicking off rocks and branches, like he’d do when I followed behind him, trying not to let his branches slap me in the face.