Born: 7 Jan. 1893, Oslo, Norway
Died: 3 Dec. 1970, Acacia Lodge, Shawnigan Lake, B.C.
Herman Johansen’s life was typical of the many Scandinavian and other immigrants who worked in the ‘Glory Days’ of logging, falling and bucking by hand for little pay and no security, leaving behind not much more than a few relics and photographs and remembered only by a diminishing number of friends and acquaintances.
Herman came to Canada in 1913, probably having been a seaman, as he mentioned being in China. His half-brother, Pihl, lived on Vancouver Island and Herman worked on the farm of Dr. O.M. Jones in Metchosin for some years. After a period of road-building, he worked as a faller for the Shawnigan Lumber Co. and lived on the float camp on the West Side. Through to the 1930s he worked at falling, bucking and scaling for Munsie at Shawnigan, for Caterall and Sorensen at Renfrew and for Hemingson at Nitinat.
In his prime, Herman Johansen was a big man, 6 feet tall, 190 lbs., and was said to be able to fall 50, 000 board feet a day and take second place to no one on the one-handed bucking saw. He was a left-handed faller and in later years suffered from the twisted spine common among one-sided fallers. He never married and was known to be shy and even short with most women. He enjoyed drinking and talking with the Boys, but never lost his Norwegian accent. Not being much for frivolity, a small radio provided entertainment in the form of news broadcasts and a weekly Scandinavian music program. To near the end, Herman kept his saws and axes sharp and his tools in good condition, reserving Sundays, as loggers did, for that pleasure.
In the 1930s Herman, with his friend Andy Sundel, bought 7 acres of land between Ida Road and Butler Road and built a bunk-house style of cabin, where they lived for a number of years. After the death of Andy, Herman sold the property and for two years looked after P. Robertson’s place on Cliffside Road. In 1957, he built a cabin, woodshed and outhouse on Dave Flynn’s acreage on Ida Road and remained there until illness took him to hospital and a series of nursing homes, the last being Acacia Lodge.
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