A Christmas Gift

This is a family story; it is a story of a Christmas gift; more than that it is a story of God’s love. It takes place December 1928 in a small logging camp perched on the steep, timbered slopes of BC’s beautiful coastal mountains where they plunge down into Greenway Sound just down the coast from Kingcome Inlet. Here a small logging company had taken out a contract to fall and deliver logs to one of the large forestry companies that operated on coastal British Columbia. Using simple hand tools the men felled and bucked first growth coastal timber and using a team of horses, skidded the logs out to a chute where they would be “shot” down to the saltchuck, boomed together and readied for later delivery to the sawmills. It wasn’t much of a “show” but it was work for several men and a cook.

Greenway Sound was a lonely land. It was isolated place - no roads; seldom visited by aircraft; serviced occasionally by small coastal ships. Among these was the beautiful Anglican Church mission ship, the MS Columbia. She plied these coastal waters on a regular basis, visiting families, settlers, loggers, lighthouse caretakers, and fisher folk along the way. She brought packages, medicines, pieces of needed equipment but most important of all she brought news, friendly faces, and the word of God. The Columbia wasn’t a large ship (just about 100 feet in length overall and a tad over 16 feet on the beam) but she carried a crew of four and unbounded love. On this trip the Columbia was skippered by John Godfrey ably assisted by Dr. Herschel Stringer (medical doctor), Cecil Fitzgerald (engineer) and Tony Katsumato (cook). It was mid-December and she was on her regular Christmas cruise - the Santa Run.

A nor’wester was whipping down Queen Charlotte Strait driving the steep walled waves into Coast Mountain fjords. As the Columbia came down from Kingcome Inlet and neared the entry to Greenway Sound Captain Godfrey’s mind was on a small boy who lived with his parents up the channel. He knew for certain that this youngster would be looking forward to a visit from Santa. The young lad might not have “visions of sugar plums” dancing in his head but for certain he would be expecting the Columbia and his visions were of Santa hailing him from her foredeck. With this thought foremost in mind Godfrey turned the bow of the Mission ship into Greenway Sound. Within a short time he spotted a lone man standing precariously in a small rowboat frantically waving a white object – clearly a signal for help. Captain Godfrey altered his course to close with the man’s craft and called the engineer for full speed. These simple actions, this Christian response, affected the lives of everyone in a family forever!

In the little logging camp up the mountain slope of Greenway Sound lived three men (the others of the crew had headed home for a Christmas holiday), a camp cook and her 19 month old son. The cook, wife of one of the loggers, was pregnant with a second child. They were preparing for a lonely Christmas. After breakfast on this fateful Sunday morning the cook’s husband told the others that he was going to harness up Belle and Star (the camp’s team of horses) and go up to the logging show to find some good, dry logs suitable for stove wood. He planned to buck up this firewood, haul it to camp where he could cut and split it at leisure. It would add comfort to a cold camp. The hours passed. The logger had not returned. With growing concern the cook asked the other two loggers to go up the skid road to see what was delaying her husband.

When they reached a spot along the road where a trestle bridge had been built to span a rushing mountain stream the bridge was gone! Peering into the chasm what they saw must have made them blanch. There, some 20 or 30 feet below, lay the remnants of the bridge, the sled, its logs, two heavy draught horses and the driver. The horses lay on their sides. One was still. Obviously dead – killed on impact. The other, still alive, was kicking and threshing in an effort to free itself. The man, semi-conscious and pinned by a heavy timber, tried vainly to dodge the steel shod hooves of the desperate and panicked horse. He had worked his jack knife out of his pocket and then tried to cut the harness traces in an effort to free the horse from the leather straps that fastened him in his terrible prison. He had met with little success. Together the man and the horse lay imprisoned.

Clambering down the steep slope the loggers worked frantically to free the injured man. His face was battered and bloody from the cuts received by the horses’ hooves. Clearly he suffered from numerous injuries. Try as they might they could not release him from the terrible tangle of timbers and traces. Needing to take another tack the young logger was sent back to camp. The cook, on seeing the panic in his eyes, realized that her husband had met with tragedy. He quickly explained the critical situation they had discovered and asked for the camp rifle. Frantically the cook bundled herself and her baby in warm clothes, and, with remarkable intuition, grabbed a bag of flour from the counter where she had been making donuts. Off they hurried to the site of the disaster. Remarkably this courageous woman was able to work her way down to her injured husband. There she applied flour to his massive, hemorrhaging head wounds. This simple act helped the clotting process. Doctors would later say her first aid actions may well have saved his life. With extraordinary tenacity the two freed the injured man and brought him to camp. Once back the young logger raced down to the shoreline, launched the camp’s small rowboat and headed down the coast toward the entry to Greenway Sound. There a small floating aid station had been established and was staffed by a caretaker named Joe Wright. He knew that the Columbia was somewhere along this rugged section of coastline but had no idea of her whereabouts. Despite rough seas that threatened to swamp him, the logger determined to go further out into the strait to see if he might spot her. Captain Godfrey had just altered course in order to bring Santa to the small boy further up the Sound. The logger spotted the ship, ripped off his shirt and waved it frantically overhead – and Captain Godfrey altered course.

With great difficulty the Columbia’s crew and the two loggers brought the injured man, lashed to a stretcher, down the logging chute to Captain Godfrey waiting below. The injured man’s wife and child were then helped down to the ship. Course was set for Alert Bay and the medical staff of the small hospital who would work feverishly to save the man’s life. They found he had broken 11 ribs, both legs, one arm (the other was seriously damaged), suffered a concussion, severe contusions on many parts of his body, plus lacerations of the head including a deep gash across the forehead. His left eye was nearly torn from the socket. He and his family spent Christmas of 1928 in the Alert Bay Hospital and as soon as he was well enough to travel he was moved to a Vancouver hospital where he remained for seven months.

How do I know these details and why should I title this story A Christmas Gift? Because the injured logger was my father, John Glassford; his wife my mother, Lois; the infant child my eldest brother, Don. My sister, Betty, was born in March, 1929. Subsequent to this terrible accident another daughter and three more sons were born to this courageous couple who faced possible death together. We are all profoundly grateful to the two loggers, Captain Godfrey and his crew, the medical staff at the Alert Bay Hospital, and to God for this Christmas gift of our father’s life. For God surely put Captain Godfrey on the course that took his Mission ship, the Columbia, to that forlorn place, that spot on a lonely, windswept sea, to that hidden bay, at the hour of our greatest need.