Page 6 April 1985 Cassiar Courier Adrian Jan van Heel’s last name means ‘‘of good cheer’’ and he was of good cheer when he sat at the Courier office recently and reminisced about the early days in Cassiar. ‘ Mr. van Heel is Number One on the Cassiar payroll — the employee holding the most seniority with the com- pany. He has lots of memories! When van Heel and his first wife Elsie Lynda moved to Cassiar in 1956 they were, he thinks, the seventh married couple in town. Most of the employees lived in bunkhouses and the town ended at either Zimmerman or Smith Street. Where the tailings pile is now there was a tent town just prior to van Heel’s arrival in town. The mine operated from mid-May until mid-Nov- ember or sometimes December. The company’s key men were kept on for the winter and put to work in the mill. van Heel had millwrighting papers from his time at a sawmill in Lower Post, so he stayed on in the mill. After a few years there he moved to the rock rejection plant up the hill (now the Primary Crushing Plant) and he’s stayed there as a millwright for the last 20 years. van Heel’s first son Frank Theodore was born before the family moved to Cassiar, but his second son, Adrian Jan Jr., was born at the Cassiar Hospital. The hospital building was about the same, he says, but there was only a doctor and a nurse on duty. ‘Quite a few children were born here then; it was the thing to do,”’ he adds. The town had a frontier spirit in the early days. But, he says, it was not a wild mining camp. For one thing, there was no liquor store. Liquor was brought in through the post. If a big dance was coming up the comp- any would order cases and these would be distributed. What is now the snack bar was the town meeting place. “‘We had shows there and our union meetings as well as other activities...lIn the early days the union was the social organizer — putting on dances and other events,’ he adds. Wages in the 50’s were low compared to now. The highest paid rate was about $1.95 per hour while lab- ourers earned about $1.25/hour. But it was a good wage then and people worked lots of overtime. “1 could give my wife $25 per week and she could go to the store, which was under the cafeteria then, buy We We, 0 gn te te te te te te te, Sg ig ig tg Mee Se Se ee Cassiar Country RR by Pat Lewis Beaton D Adrian van Heel groceries and still put $2 to $3 away for holidays... The cost of getting food in then must have been awfully high...” he says. The road (there was only the one road heading north) was different then. “‘Today,” he says, ‘I can go to Watson Lake in my high speed car in two hours. | would guess at that time in ideal conditions it would take four hours. And in the spring time it could take up to eight hours — with the glaciers, bog holes and frost heaves on the road!” van Heel was (and still is) a very community-minded person. He had a hand in organizing many of the facil- ities we all now take advantage of. He was president of the Mine/Mill workers union for 12 years. He’s proud of his record as union president. During his 12 years the wage rate at Cassiar rose from being 32nd out of 54 mines in the province to 9th out of 54. van Heel was a charter member of the Lions Club. The other charter members are Rupert McKenzie, Jack a a i We carry parts and accessories | y ; )6=—CtC