Those Were The Days Carpenter George Tindall submitted this recollection of his involvement with Camp Wainwright in its earlier years of transition. (June 1989) In 1941 I got a job with Bennet and White building Camp Wainwright. We moved to town for the winter and I rented a house for 10 dollars per month. My first job was as labourer at 55 cents per hour. The first building we started was Building 59 Drill Hall. We dug the hole eight feet deep for the foundation. It was in the fall and it soon froze up but we still dug by hand all winter. My next job was moving the hot points on the gravel pile to keep the gravel thawed out so that it could be shovelled into the cement mixer. My next job was in the carpenter shop where we built trusses for the huts. All the huts were 24 feet wide so one truss fit all. That was a cold winter. Christmas week it was 62 below. We went to work but were sent home and told to come back when it warmed up to 35 below. We had built about half the old area that winter. The church with Protestants at one end and Catholics at the other end, a bakery, cemetery, telphone exchange, fire hall, headquarters building, two men’s messes, two sergeants’ messes, and one officers’ mess. This area is all torn down now. The only place left the last time I was over there was the old sergeants’ mess. This Camp was also a storage place for GP (General Purpose) huts. A Building was erected and four more were stored inside. There were hundreds of them. The same with the Butler Buildings. There were a lot of them too. I only stayed with Bennet and White until spring, and went home to put the crop in. I came back to Camp in ’51 to work for Wells Construction who had the contract to build the second part of Camp Wainwright. Wages wer $1.75 per hour for carpenters. I worked for Wells until the job was finished then I got a job with the Engineers until I retired in 1975. Wages didn’t change a lot from ’41 to ’51. In ’41 carpenter wages were $1.05. In ’51 they were $1.75. When I retired in ’75 my wage as carpenter foreman was $7.00 per hour. Now they are about $11. So much for inflation. I was made carpenter foreman in the early 50’s and joined the Sergeants’ Mess. I had many happy hours there. One thing that I remember about the messes, are the times that they were rebuilt inside. It seemed that every time they got a new president they reorganized the mess. One thing I can say for the Camp maintenance is it was very good. I was in Camp Borden and Shilo PMQ and Camp Wainwright was a lot better. In 1966 our name was changed from the Royal Canadian Engineers to Construction Engineers. Ordnance was changed to Supply, and Services was changed to Transport. REME was also changed but I think about the only thing they did there was to omit the word Royal. Every year we had an influx of troops from all over Canada. This was a busy time for the CE. We got work orders to build targets, portable toilets, etc. One year we built Texas gates on 12 by 12 treated lumber and were strong enough for a tank to cross. One year we got a work order to modify a van for the Brigade. It had to have running water, a fridge, a bar, and a bed.