LABRADOR RETRIEVER

Thomas F. Pado

Presented November 25, 1991 at the Chicago Literary Club.

LABRADOR RETRIEVER

The rugged coast extends farther east than any point on the North American mainland. The mountains are the highest east of the Rockies. It is a land that has forbidding landscapes, glaciers, beautiful forests, crystalline lakes, rivers and fjords. This is Labrador, the mainland section of the province of Newfoundland, and a part of the world that is not very well known. Called the "Coast of Labrador" or the "Labrador Peninsula”, it is situated east of Quebec and north of the island of Newfoundland. The ownership of Labrador is still being disputed between the Canadian provinces of Quebec and Newfoundland.

This was a shore that Europeans probably discovered 500 years before Columbus, and where some areas still remain unexplored. Although, on the same latitude as Scotland, the icy Artic Ocean waters flow south along the coast to become the Labrador Current. This current contributes to the harsh climate, leaving the coast icebound from October through May. Ferocious storms help keep the ground covered with snow most of the months, up to 170 inches a year. Temperatures that fall as low as 50 degrees below zero, along with an almost inaccessible terrain, has kept the population sparse and many of its resources still untapped. The original inhabitants were the Inuit (commonly called Eskimos) and the Naskapi-Montagnais Indians who now are a minority. The Portuguese and Basques followed the Vikings and were fishing off the coast in the 16th Century. Control of the coast subsequently was contested by the British and the French. It eventually became part of the British Empire as a result of the Treaty of Paris in 1763. Coastal fishing remained the major resource until a military base was established by the U.S. and Britain at Goose Bay during World War II. Then vast iron ore deposits were discovered and made available in the 1950's when a railroad was pushed through the wilderness to the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Additional resources were tapped when the Churchill Falls Hydroelectric plant was put into operation in the 1970's distributing much of its power to the U.S. The great timber reserves of the southern areas still remain uncut mostly do to their inaccessible locations. Presently there are only about 25,000 people living on about 100,000 square miles of land. In the 1950's the population was only about 10,000.

I came to this place 33 years ago as a young officer assigned to the Strategic Air Command (SAC) of the United States Air Force. This is a retrieval of memories of the 18 months I spent at Goose Bay Air Force Base in Labrador.

Goose Bay is located on the western shore of Lake Melville, 150 miles from the coast. It is situated on top of a large plateau of sand dunes 600 feet above the Hamilton Inlet basin. The surrounding area is quite beautiful, with deep green forests of black spruce and balsam fir along with majestic, white birch stands. The tops of the mountains are covered with snow the year round. In the winter it reminded one of illustrations found on Christmas cards. This was often highlighted by the Northern Lights that painted the night sky with an eerie green fire.

The facilities were mostly typical "wood building military", but due to many civilian enterprises, the whole melded into more of a feeling of a small town. There were chapels, a hospital, living quarters, stores, hotels and other structures that would be found in a typical village. The air facilities, of course, dominated one end of the town, with the hangers, runways and aircraft parking areas. In the winter, steam rising from the stacks of the main power plant was a kind of focal point, identifiable from miles away.

The base was totally isolated except for two places nearby: the Canadian air base, which was about 3 miles away and the village of Happy Valley, about 2 miles away. Happy Valley was the living area for the Eskimos and included a Christian church and a Hudson Bay store. The village provided a glimpse of what the early native culture of Labrador might have been. The dog sled was, at that time, still a much used form of transportation during the winter. The Eskimos still fished and hunted for food and skins. They were the only people in the province permitted to hunt big game such as elk, moose and deer. They made their own parkas and sleds and created marvelous small stone sculptures and fanciful paintings - mostly of the wildlife. It has always been my deep regret that I did not acquire more of these inspired pieces of folk art. The majority of the Eskimos worked for the military doing menial tasks for very little pay. They lived in wood sheds and tents with only a wood burning stove for warmth. It was hard to imagine how the families kept from freezing during the very harsh and long winters.

The airbase was established during World War II as a staging point for aircraft flying to Europe. It also was a base for planes surveying the coast for German submarines. After the war it maintained its importance, again because of its location. Goose Bay would be familiar to travelers going to Europe in the 1950's as this was a refueling stop for military aircraft and commercial airliners, prior to the long range jet service of today. During this time it was the second busiest airport in the World.

Goose Bay was also a vital link for our bomber forces heading for the Soviet Union. Bombers (B-47's and B-52's) were refueled over the area on the way to their targets. The refueling aircraft (KC 135's and KC 97's) flew to Goose Bay ahead of the bombers, landed, filled up their tanks, refueled the bombers in the air and repeated the process as often as required. The bombers and refueling planes came from SAC bases scattered across the U.S. and, because of the enormous amount of fuel the bombers needed for take-off, they required additional fuel en route in order to get to their long range targets with the heavy bomb loads they carried. Those bombs were, of course, nuclear. We were also there to maintain these aircraft in case they had mechanical problems. They had to be repaired and back into action as quickly as possible. So there we were, a large gas station that stores parts with a "mechanic-on-duty" 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Except during the alerts or practice exercises that simulated actual bomb runs toward the Soviet territory, we actually had no planes of our own.

These were the Eisenhower years, some of the more anxious times of the Cold War. The U.S. and Soviets were eyeing each other across the North Pole, each with doomsday nuclear arsenals capable of destroying the earth many times over. This was the era preceding the ICBM's and the space age. It was the Strategic Air Command and their bomber force that constituted the entire U.S. nuclear deterrent -we were keeping America safe. These were the "Dr. Strangelove” years. The military attitude of the time was exemplified in a quote by one of my bosses, General Curtis E. LeMay who said, "If I see that the Russians are massing their planes for an attack, I'm going to knock the shit out of them before they take off the ground". SAC consumed 50% of the entire U.S. military budget at that time. SAC commanders held awesome responsibility and wielded enormous authority. We could get anything we wanted.

This was the atmosphere when I went to Labrador. I was a young, eager 1st lieutenant full of trepidation about being sent into the middle of what seemed to be nowhere. During flight school I was given a choice of remaining a pilot or practicing my profession of architecture during the rest of my duty contract (there were more pilots than needed at that time). I chose the latter.

All military bases have a support group that is responsible for the buildings and infrastructure. Architects and engineers did the planning and building of new facilities and directed the repair remodeling and maintenance of existing buildings. The staffs consisted of professionals as well as tradesmen and most were civilian. Soon after my arrival I was made Acting Chief Engineer for the base; the civilian who held that position was "transferred" to a healthier climate to cure his penchant for booze. To add to this, I was also appointed Snow Removal Officer. The snow removal operation at Goose Bay was the largest in the world.

Fortunately, this operation was headed by a civilian named Ray who had run the operation for years. Ray lived on the base the year round except for a month each summer when he traveled to large cities in Canada to recruit the civilian "army" that was needed to operate the heavy equipment. The gang that he assembled was generally a tough group. Ray was the toughest of them all. They lived in their own compound where the machinery was stored and maintained. The operation began in September, getting the equipment up and running, and ended in May when the equipment was prepared for storage before the next winter assault. This was an army of about 200 men operating more than 100 vehicles.

The machinery was awesome as was the task before them. There were snow blowers with powerful diesels, which exceeded the power of a railroad locomotive, with the capability of throwing snow hundreds of feet. Other equipment included high speed plows, large open trucks and small snow blowers that acted as snow loaders. Clearing the narrow runways and taxiways was relatively easy, snow could be thrown that far. The problem was our vast aircraft parking lots. The snow had to be put into windrows, or continuous mounds. These were then devoured by the snow loaders and put into cavernous trucks which discharged their loads onto a snow dump. An actual mountain of snow was created every winter which seldom melted even though summer temperatures climbed into the 80's.

As soon as the snow accumulated to 3 inches on the parking areas, a snow alert was put into effect. The snow could never exceed 3 inches for safe operation of taxiing aircraft. So here was this rag-tag civilian army toiling away, sometimes for 3 days non-stop, moving tons of snow in anticipation of military aircraft that seldom came; aircraft were present only during practice alerts that took place about once a year. These surprise alerts were usually held during the winter in order to test our ability to respond in a worse-case scenario. "White-outs" where the snow was so thick you could only see a few feet in front of you, were our biggest fear. These storms strained the capabilities of man and machine. Breakdown of equipment was always a problem - some due to the extreme cold which effected everything, even steel. It was a grueling and dangerous task; often resulting is serious injuries and even death. During the two winters I spent there, three men lost their lives in snow removal accidents.

During these operations I had little to do except "be there" day and night in case a specific military order had to be carried out. I never made a serious move without first consulting Ray. Most of my time was spent at the Snow Command Center or in my jeep doing what amounted to "on-the-job-training. The jeep was a typical canvas sided type with minimal protection from the cold which was offset by a gasoline burning heater inside the jeep that was capable of creating both noxious fumes and a sauna-like atmosphere.

Whenever I learned that a B-52 was on base during an alert, I tried to get as close to the runway as permitted where these great, slacked-winged monsters would lift off with a thrilling earth shaking sound. It is a tribute to their builders that after almost 40 years in service these great bombers are still being used today.

In the meantime, I was attempting to practice architecture, such as it was in this remote location. My most interesting project was the design and building of two war rooms on base. One was a mini "red-telephone" war room, the other a maintenance operations room. They performed well and were quickly made a prototype for the entire command. Right after the successful alert in which they were first used, I was awakened by my identical twin brother, who had a similar job as mine at an air force base in Newfoundland. He had been sent to my base and told that he had to build similar rooms at his base ASAP. I had not seen or talked to him in months, and there he was in the wee hours of the morning saying, “I want to see those damn war rooms."

What about the society of a place like this? To say the least it was adventurous, spirited and colorful. The common mission of this uncommon group was of the highest order - "to keep the world from being destroyed".

As in any small town, you knew just about everybody and made many friends. Because it was remote you created your own diversions to augment the sometimes limited facilities. There were the usual movies, bowling and the like, but there was no doubt that drinking the very inexpensive booze was the most popular form of recreation. We had the NCO and Officers clubs which were always active, but there were more colorful and popular places available. A favorite spot was the infamous Polaris Hotel, where visiting families or en route airline passengers stayed. Every night the bar and restaurant was a smoky scene from a classic 1940's Foreign Legion film. Heavy equipment workers, bush pilots, single women (some "working girls"), Eskimos and other crusty types imbibed there. Television was new and a small station transmitted a few programs a day. For many it was a curiosity and they filled the television room when programs came on. I will always remember when a very drunk French speaking Canadian became irate at what he saw and to vent his anger he went up to the TV screaming, dropped his pants, urinated on the screen and left - relieved in more ways than one. A bar to be avoided unless you liked to watch, or inadvertently be involved in a drunken brawl, was the bar in the snow removal compound. The M.P.s were there almost every night settling disputes. Another bar, located in Happy Valley, was almost as rough but that did not stop us when we were seeking variety.

We occasionally did other things besides drinking for entertainment, I remember one Christmas a group of us cut down a fir tree, dragged it from the woods, planted it in the snow outside and decorated it with lights. The tree was then misted with water which froze into icicles through which the lights glowed, creating a magical effect. These were some of the last non-commercial Christmases I remember.

In the summer there was a little more opportunity to breath the fresh air, there were even tennis courts. The base was kept livable in the summer by spraying DDT every evening over the base to control the voracious flies and mosquitoes that spawned there. If you went off base, jungle type mufti was a prerequisite for survival. In a country dotted with thousand of lakes Labrador is a fisherman's paradise. Even today, as difficult as it is to gain access to these isolated lakes, sport fishing remains the only tourist attraction. I did not have a great interest in fishing but would enjoy an occasional float plane trip into the very remote fishing camps. Sometimes you threw your line right from the plane after landing. Occasionally the lucky angler would get their limit within minutes (yes, there was a limit). These beautiful fresh fish were cleaned, breaded, sprinkled with salt and pepper then fried in bacon fat and butter - that is all. Not many fish is my memory tasted as good.

What about the people that made up this society? The military, of course, was obliged to come here and spend the 18 months or so required of them. The civilians, which made up half of the population were here by their own choice. What brought them here? The pay generally was good and living not expensive. Single men and women came here to save money, or because they could not find jobs elsewhere, or because they wanted adventure. Some had businesses that provided the necessary services of the town and usually profited greatly by it. For many it was an escape from something - getting far away from somewhere. Some were lonely, some were castaways.

An interesting cross-section of this society could be found in the people working with me. For instance, there was my assistant Josef, a very able civil engineer and architect. He was a Luftwaffe bomber pilot in World War II and had been shot down twice over Belgium. He escaped his first internment, but was brought to a Canadian POW camp after his second misfortune. After the war he stayed on and managed to find work in Goose Bay, subsequently bringing over his surviving family. He grew up in Bavaria and had a passion for skiing. When I arrived on base I expressed interest in that sport and he immediately recruited me to assist him in finishing his "ski resort". With very little help, he had built a ski-lift on the side of the bluffs near the base. He had crafted a mini-chalet that contained the engine for the rope tow and a room with a wood stove that housed the ski equipment. It even had the traditional Alpine wood scrollwork detailing and only needed some final touches. The skis were World War II, white painted, wood troop skis with bear trap bindings. The boots were heavy leather, the pools bamboo. No one could explain how these got to Labrador.

Josef could not fathom that, of the thousands of people here, no one seemed to be interested in skiing. I was now his man, despite the fact that I had never skied before. The materials and equipment used to build the little chalet were not "officially funded". In those days this activity was referred to as "Midnight Requisitions".

Winter was fast approaching and there was work to be done. A major problem was finding a proper rope for the tow. It had to be found on base - we did not have the resources to order or buy one, so we continued our midnight scrounging and finally found some 1 3/4 inch thick manila rope that seemed to suit our purposes. The engine was gasoline and the usual truck wheels on telephone posts carried the rope in a continuous loop.

Josef and I became very excited when at last the snow started to fall. There was a problem however - although we were knee deep in snow on the base, it was lacking on our particular area of the bluff. Driven by mysterious winds, the snow accumulated everywhere except on our ski resort.

Finally we had enough to ski on. Word got around but interest in skiing continued to be nonexistent. So it was just the two of us. Everything was set, and with great anticipation we cranked up the engine and found we had other problems. Josef was familiar with the tension requirements for these devices, but it seemed that the assembly was not adequate to keep the rope off the snow as it dragged skier upward. The thick rope became laden with moisture and probably doubled in weight. Holding the rope while being carried up the slope was almost impossible - it was easier to abandon the rope and climb back up the hill.

So, snow permitting, Josef and I were skiing on weekends. He taught me the basics of skiing and I was gaining confidence as the winter progressed. Josef was in his fifties, had graying hair, a tall, ramrod straight body and a serious disposition. Despite the crude ski equipment, Josef managed the slopes skillfully and was an inspiration.

Then came a Christmas day I will never forget. It was a bright windless and very cold (-10 degrees) day and we were enjoying the sport. Josef was beautifully negotiating a slalom course he had set up when suddenly he took a bad fall near the bottom of the hill. I offered assistance but he grumbled a refusal. He then said it was getting late and we should head home to the Christmas dinner his wife was preparing. At this time of year the sun headed for the horizon by 3:00 in the afternoon. We climbed the slop and headed home. During the winter the roads were plowed and graded and this provided a nice surface to ski on. We skied the mile to his home, and Josef complained that his ankle was bothering him a bit. After dinner he soaked his foot while we drank schnapps and he reminisced about skiing in the Bavarian mountains and about some of his war experiences. Josef did not show up at the office the next day - he was in the hospital with a broken ankle - which he insisted he did not have, even after being shown the x-rays. When he did return to the office a few days later, with cast and crutches, he proclaimed that he would be back on the slopes this winter before the snow retreated. However, the break was a bad one and the damage done was compounded by his refusal to accept help and his insistence on skiing that last mile home. No high-tech sports medicine was available in those days to make things right for Josef - from that day forward he had a limp and never skied again.

Now for Raymond - Raymond was my chief mechanical engineer; a man in his fifties with deep grooves in his forehead and hardly a hair on his head. He also had a very serious disposition. Originally from Belgium, he lived alone on the base and never discussed his family or other details of his life. Raymond and Josef worked together but did not get along. There were often loud arguments between them and at times I had to intervene. It is hard to believe, but Josef was convinced that Raymond, a former antiaircraft gunner during the war, was the person who shot him down - twice. And probably Raymond secretly wished he had.

There was no lack of other interesting civilian characters in the office. There was a young English engineer with straight greasy black hair, who never removed his goulashes or his hat, despite the sometimes stifling heat pumped into the building. Henri, a Belgium/Polish emigrant, who very generously sacrificed many of his lunch periods helping me learn French. To make these lessons more palatable (so to speak) he often brought lunch that his French wife prepared for us. Despite the limited resources on the base, she managed to prepare savory French dishes, which she assured would help me absorb the language more quickly.

Our office janitor was an Eskimo who liked to take me hunting for partridge during the winter. I was not much of a hunter, but shooting partridge required little skill. He made snowshoes and sold them to military and civilians on the base and I could not resist a pair of my own. When the snow was deep and soft they were a necessity on our long treks in the forests. During our hunts he would also check his fur traps, which offered another source of income. He was a little, brown man in his 70's who always had a broad, toothless smile for everyone. Even during the extreme cold weather he would cut some pine boughs to sit on, build a fire and make lunch. Usually it consisted of pan fried bread and venison sausage which we washed down with a little whiskey. I know that I should not have given away those beautifully crafted snow shoes when I left Labrador, they were works of art.

Karl was a German-Jew and a civil engineer. He lived most of his life in Africa growing up in a prosperous family that owned large holdings in diamond mines. Somewhere along the way he experienced misfortunes which he never fully revealed. I only knew that his wife had died before he found his way to Canada many years ago. He was a very short, frail man, in his 60's, with few friends. He lived alone in one room with a shared bath in the bachelor's barracks. I would occasionally be invited to his room for a drink and a chat. He was very intelligent and reading was his only true pleasure. He was not interested in eating out but managed to prepare meager meals on his electric hot plate. He spoke proudly and lovingly about his two daughters now living in Germany. He always looked for a Christmas card from them, but none ever came. He admitted to me that he had not heard from them in three years and when they had written it was to ask for money. I can still see his very small figure bent over his drafting board, cigarette smoke curling from his ashtray, looking very alone.

Then there was Charles, a young draftsman from Montreal with only a high school education. There was something different about him that seemed to set him apart from the other staff. Harsh yet sensitive, crude yet elegant, he took on the character and appearance of his personal hero Balzac. We became good friends and drinking companions and were habitués of the infamous Polaris Hotel bar where he stood out among all the other characters that frequented the place.

As we got to know each other he was shocked to learn that I, who had a college degree, knew so little about French culture. He immediately took it upon himself to educate me to wonders of the French language, French literature, and music. As part of this educational process it was agreed that we would meet in Paris. Neither of us had been there before; he was to precede me by a few weeks and scope things out before I arrived.

It was the sunny September of 1959 and the city still had all its beauty and charm. No TV antennas or god-awful high rises or modern architecture had invaded the city yet. I stayed in an old left bank hotel, which was very nice, for $2.50 a night, including breakfast. Charles met me there and invited me to his place across the Seine. His apartment building was very old and his shabby room was located on the fourth floor. Charles had his priorities, and the last thing he wanted to do was waste money on a fancy hotel.

His most important criterion for living in Paris was location. He resided on the Rue St. Denis - where most of the Parisian prostitutes plied their trade - and this was where a lot of his money seemed to go. He made a few friends in this neighborhood and was anxious for me to meet them. He was also, unfortunately, running out of money. Would I lend him some? Of course I would, it was the least I could do for his efforts in educating me in the nuances of French culture. Although his friends made fun of Charles⁷ Montreal patois and my beginning French, we managed to have a raucous three days. Charles also introduced me to a beautiful young Parisian girl who was a clerk in a left bank rare book shop. He had fallen in love with her and with a beautiful leather bound set of the complete works of Balzac. My cultural life was expanding. I left Paris and returned there a week later. Charles was really glad to see me - for now he was truly broke - having spent almost his last franc on those beautiful volumes. I was returning to Labrador via New York and was pretty low on cash myself - but managed to lend him a little more. We calculated that if he stuck to modest restaurants for the next week of his stay and kept away from the temptations downstairs, he could survive. I returned to Labrador about 10 days later hoping to see Charles in the office - but he was not there. He had persuaded his girlfriend, who lived in the Polaris Hotel, to wire him more money - allowing him to partake of the pleasures of Paris for yet another week.

Charles has become a collector of rare books and antiques. His original volumes of Balzac may not be the most valuable in his collection, but I believe one of his most cherished.

A number of years ago I was awakened in the early morning hours by a phone call. It was Charles, he was in Chicago and desperate for, guess what, a quick loan. He was calling from a police station and had just been "jack-rolled" by a Rush Street lady-of-the-night. It was somehow comforting to know that the true character of this preeminent collector of books had not changed after all these years.

Recently I took the great circle route to the U.S. from Europe. It was a clear winter day, I knew that I was near and I scanned the horizon for Goose Bay. Suddenly, there it was. The winds were light and the smoke from the central power plant was clearly visible, rising many hundreds of feet in the air. Looking at this scene brought back memories. I had been there during an interesting, exciting time in history and it turned out to be a very special time for me. I consider myself lucky - I had stumbled into a romantic adventure and hardly knew it at the time. The experiences I had and the wonderful people I met added fabric to my life and are as much a part of me today as they were then.

In September of 1991, President Bush announced a relaxing of the U.S.'s nuclear strike potential. The U.S. was going to take a portion of its nuclear arsenal off 24 hour alert. For the first time in 34 years the Strategic Air Command's B-l and B-52 bombers will not be poised to strike the Soviet Union.