Shayne - Sorry about the coloured slide. I followed Geoff's posting instructions under "Forum Readme" and while the browser picks up the slide on my hard drive, when I select "Open" it doesn't upload. It just vanishes. Don't know what the problem is as the file size is under the limit.
Yes "Cry Lake Jade" was the name of the outfit but they didn't operate from Cry Lake itself. That part of Northern BC has the world's largest and finest deposits of nephrite jade and there are a dozen or more sites connected by hundreds of miles of cat trails, with varying degrees of accessibility by 4x4. Your C8 probably negotiated a good proportion of them as I see the slide was actually taken at Wolverine strip, which is about ten air miles from Kutcho strip and is on the west branch of the creek that flows out of Letain Lake.
Re title, what we heard, rightly or wrongly, was that the hunters were friends of the gent who held the jade concession in 2006 and as the truck was abandoned on property over which he had jurisdiction, he was able to legally give it to them.
On the way back from Kutcho in 2006 Bruce and I flew over an ex RCAF C60 at the old Boulder gold mine site (about 25 air miles northwest), which I flew in on floats (there's no strip there) to photograph this last summer and managed to play a part in getting it donated to the Comox Air Force Museum, who retrieved it from Dease last month.
It's an ex Comox wartime vehicle, one of the REL radar trucks, and is being restored by them at the present moment. Oddly enough it was also missing the driver's door and doghouse, but the roof hatch is in excellent shape if you need a model, per Phil's email.
I've left it to Rob Roy, the bloke who runs the Museum's ground vehicle restoration team, to report on this project to the Forum as I knew I'd have trouble posting pictures and also he knows a lot more about it at this stage. They have it mostly dismantled already. The tires on that vehicle still have RCAF branded into them. That country is so cold and dry that deterioration is much retarded. Unfortunately Rob is an incredibly busy guy and it may be awhile before he has time to put together a posting.
Rob told me about the Nanaimo Heavy Utilities and I'll try to get down to have a look at them this week as it's only sixty miles away, though Lord knows I don't need any more projects in my life.
Thanks for the comments, Brian - yes that's the same vehicle and we were afraid it would end up butchered. When I first heard about it in the seventies, I knew nothing about CMP's and only heard it referred to as "the old army ambulance". People marvelled at how it could be abandoned winter after winter and still go back into action the next spring with a newly charged battery.
Dave H.
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