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By John White
Our November Rig of the Month is Cal Carriere. This is his
story:
I was born in New Westminster, BC and lived in Coquitlam until I
was 16 years old. At that time my Mom and Dad sold our house,
packed up my brother and sister and me and moved to Langley. My
brother Cliff was two years older than me and my sister Sherrie was
one year older. When I was younger I did all the regular kid stuff;
I had a paper route and I rode my bicycle to and from baseball
games.
My Dad was a trucker all his life, so we were used to him being
gone during the week, and home on the weekends, at which time my
brother and I would help him do maintenance on the truck. I’m not
sure how much help I was but, looking back on it now, I value the
things that I learned. My dad’s brother, Hank, was also a truck
driver. When my dad came off the highway he hauled out of Interfor
Hammond Cedar Division to the Allwood mill in Langley. It was about
that time, 1971, that he and a buddy started their own company,
Lindquist Trucking Ltd.
When I left school I went to work at the Allwood mill. I worked
there for three years driving forklift, running the trim saw and
basically covering for anyone that didn’t show up for their shift.
I can’t say I was a good employee back then, I honestly tried to do
as little as possible. I was more into fast cars, girls, and
partying. My lack of focus caught up to me one afternoon shift
while I was running four by fours through the trim saw. That was a
tough lesson that cost me three and a half fingers.
Just about that time my Dad got sick and I left the mill to go
to work for Lindquist Trucking. My Dad passed away when I was 18,
from cancer, at which time my brother Cliff, myself and my Mom took
over the operations of the company.
Once I was old enough my brother Cliff taught me how to drive
truck. I was never really interested in driving when my dad was
alive. I guess at that time I just couldn’t be bothered. I often
think, “Boy, if he could only see me now…”
When I got my Class 1 learners, Cliff took me out empty a couple
of times and let me drive. Then one day a driver didn’t show up so
Cliff threw me a set of keys and told me to follow him in his
truck. That was the first time I drove alone. I followed him to the
mill and they loaded us both. That was also the first time I drove
a loaded truck.
I hauled lumber on my learners for about a month, figuring it
out as I went along, and then I went in to get my licence. When I
arrived for the test the inspector came out and asked where my
passenger was, I told him that I had dropped my brother off at the
coffee shop a couple blocks away. He gave me one of those looks
that told me it wasn’t the first time that he had heard that
one.
Once I got my Class 1 just jumped into my 1986 cab over
Freightliner and learned how to drive. Dad always had cab overs
because when you went to the Island on the ferry you had to pay by
the foot and he didn’t see any sense in paying for a long hood.
My first real route was hauling lumber from Langley to Williams
Lake and then Williams Lake to Vernon and I’d be home on the
weekends. I did that for a couple of years and then came off the
highway. For the next 8 years I hauled lumber and various building
materials both locally and over to the Island.
The first time that I took my future wife, Pam, along on a trip
was to Vernon. We had just come through Kamloops, with one of the
other drivers just behind us, and I was trying to get a run up
Monte Creek hill. As I turned the corner I looked in the mirror and
I could feel the trailers lifting off the ground. Man, all the
years of catechism must have paid off because my prayers were
answered when the tires touched back down on the ground. My wife
said she knew something was wrong when she saw the look on my face.
She has only been on one other trip since and that was to Quesnel.
That time I warned her that I was in a hurry and to go to the
bathroom before we left. She didn’t take me seriously and by the
time we got there she was in just as big a hurry as I was.
Lindquist grew up to about 28 trucks and we even had our own
beer league hockey team. The first time the hockey team met we just
had sticks and a puck but we soon learned that it hurt too much so
the second time we graduated to gloves and elbow pads and by the
third game, we were all decked out with full equipment.
I could skate, but never actually learned how to stop very well.
I remember having to get Cliff to lift me into my truck the morning
after my first hockey game because the muscles in my legs were so
sore that I couldn’t raise my foot high enough to get in by
myself.
My wife Pam and I were married in October of 1992 and our
beautiful little girl was born in June of 1995. Ashley is 12 now
and does very well in all that she does. I am very proud of her.
When I bribe her with a slurpee, I can even get her to come help me
clean the interior of my truck.
In 1992 I decided it was time to learn the other side of the
business so I took what I thought would be a short break from
driving and went into the office to dispatch. I put up with the
whining and complaining for ten years and then our world slowly
fell apart. My sister Sherrie passed away in 1997 and then my
brother Cliff passed away in 2002. With all of the turmoil in our
lives, my mom wanted to retire so we shut the doors at Lindquist
Trucking.
After much thought, soul searching, and all of our savings, I
took the plunge and started CAP Trucking Ltd. in October of
2002. CAP stands for Cal, Ashley and Pam.
We took a few of the drivers over from Lindquist and I cannot
thank them enough for having enough faith to come with me when I
started out on my own. The two drivers that I most admire and could
never thank enough are Gerry Larsen and Hank Legault. They are old
sticks who have a wealth of knowledge between them. They have both
retired now but they were always there for me and they were a
steadying force when CAP was just getting started. I knew I
could always bounce ideas off them and they always came back with
good input on the many different situations that came my way.
My nephew Travis, or P2 as we call him, used to drive forklift
in the Lindquist yard. When he was old enough I put him through
driver training and he got his Class 1. He has been with me
since we started in 2002. He is very clever when it comes to
wiring and repairs and he helps me a lot with the maintenance on
the trucks. I don’t know what I would do without him.
My father in law, Murray Brooks, is also a driver and he works
for Benson Tank Lines. I get huge support from him as well as
mother-in-law Shirley.
The first conventional that I drove was a Freightliner Classic
and then when I started CAP I drove a 379X Peterbilt. I now own a
2007, 379 Legacy. It is number 166 of only 1,000 units made in
North America.
When you’re on the highway there is always the chance you will
break down and Murphy’s Law says that it will be in the worst
possible place at the worst possible time. That law almost got me
on one trip back from picking up a load in Golden. I was going
through the Rogers Pass late in the afternoon, in the middle of my
first bad snow storm, when my fuel pump went. I pulled over to fix
it, not sure if I was going to get it going again or not, when a
Trimac driver named “Frosty” pulled over. I never did find out what
his real name was but after seeing the big white beard and white
hair it wasn’t hard to figure out where he got the nickname from.
It’s kind of ironic that I met him in a snowstorm. Frosty climbed
out of the truck in the middle of the storm and helped me fix my
truck enough to get me back home. I’m told that Frosty still works
for Trimac. I’ll never forget his kindness when I needed a helping
hand.
When I first got my licence, being a new truck driver, I was on
the Port Mann Bridge when the traffic stopped, I was in the left
lane and the right lane was moving, so when there was an opening
for me to get over I put on my signal and started to change lanes.
In the middle of changing lanes a woman whipped her car out from
behind and tried to pass me on the inside. By this time I was
already committed and had to keep going or run into the back of a
bunch of cars. I ended up with a bent bumper and she had scrapes
down both sides of her car.
Oops! How do I explain this one to my brother…
I got out of the truck to check on the lady to make sure that
she was okay. Luckily she was, so I said I would go get my licence
and insurance but as I turned around her husband blind sided me and
laid me out right on the Port Mann bridge.
On another trip Cliff and I were coming back from Salmon Arm in
separate trucks. I was following Cliff as we went through Chase
traveling on a stretch of two lane highway. Suddenly a car pulled
out to pass me but she didn’t pass by, she kept right beside me.
This went on for quite a while until a car carrier came the other
way and they had a head on collision. I pulled over and ran back to
the car to find the female driver was drunk, sitting in the back
seat with the engine of the car sitting in the front seat. Being
that loaded may have been what saved her because she was alive so I
went to check on the truck driver. He was okay too but when they
hit he ended up in the ditch. A couple of the cars had come off and
the rest were scratched and dented from when the trailer laid
over.
Currently, I have 5 trucks on the road, but due to the coastal
loggers strike we all have been back on the highway. I put the
trucks on with Mike Banichuk hauling and their dispatcher, Alex
Banichuk, has had us hauling hay, plastic pipe and insulation all
over BC with some trips to Calgary and Edmonton.
It’s kind of nice to be back on the highway even though
hopefully it will only be for a short time. You get to see
different country and some things you would never see in town. Last
week I left Penticton early in the morning heading south when, just
past Twin Lakes Golf Course, I saw a herd of deer. Some of them had
already crossed the highway but one little guy was in the middle of
the road, obviously confused, not sure which way to go. I slowed
right down and finally came to a stop and watched in amazement as a
larger deer pushed the smaller one off the roadway and then stood
in its path so it couldn’t come back on the road until I had
passed.
Normally we haul Cedar around the lower mainland for Interfor
and I go from Maple Ridge to Interfor’s new cedar mill in Sumas,
Washington up to 3 times a day. I have nothing but good things to
say about Canada Customs, US Customs, and the brokers that I deal
with on a daily basis. They treat me very well and I
appreciate their hard work as it makes my job much easier.
The only bad thing about local driving is the traffic. Nobody
wants to be behind the “big truck” and they cut you off, not
realizing that sometimes you just can’t stop when they pull in
front of you.
Looking back on my past 20 odd years as a trucker - life has
been good to me and my family. It sure has its ups and downs, but
as long as the ups are more frequent than the downs I’ll keep on
truckin’!
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