I arrived in Prudhoe Bay at the Dead Horse Alaska airport in the early evening, we taxied up to this small building and they put the stairs to the side of the plain. As we was walking down the steps forklifts were lifting up boxes to the luggage door and the guys inside started unloading our baggage. Inside the building I saw a man with a sign that read ACI. I went up to him and said I had a work referral for the carpenter's and I was to go to GC 1 (gathering center 1). Since I was the only one on this flight both of us stood in line till the baggage arrived. Then we piled into a big stretch van and he took me to a man camp called CCI (construction camp 1 pictured below) it was a 2 story orange trailer type portable building. The driver was our camp expeditor and his name was Ruben and he also used to live in Arizona and from the same town I was from. We hit it off pretty good, on future trips I would bring him a case of Coors beer, and he would take me to the camp I wanted. That first night I was assigned to a room on the 2ed floor and I had to share the room with another guy who was working at the same site. His name was Steve and he was a pipefitter who had just been there for 5 days. We became friends and he helped me get to know my way around and showed me the things to do in camp. He showed me the mess hall, game room, showers, and laundry room. Then when I got my things put up we went and watched a movie. The camp had a big game room with Ping-Pong tables and pool tables. There were also 2 TV's with some reading chairs on the one end. The TV was ok except the news and the programs that was playing by tape broadcast, was usually 2 to 3 weeks old. That was a big advantage on gambling on football games when you just got back from R&R or a fresh newspaper. If you ever wanted to play someone in a game of Ping-Pong or pool you never had to look far. There was also a weight room for anyone who wished to work out.

      Early the next morning, I woke up and went to the mess hall to have my first meal at camp. They had everything you could want eggs, omelets, bacon, ham, pancakes, frenchtoast, all made fresh to our order. This was something I could get used to, as it tasted really good. For evening meals we had steak 3 times a week, prime rib on Sundays, crab, lobster, frog legs, ham, roast, chicken every week. We also had everything else to go with it. This top-notch food was cooked individually to your order. WOW we were sure lucky we didn't have to pay for it. Plates full of lobster and crab legs. For special occasions we had hamburgers and hotdogs cooked over open bar-b-que grills. It sure is funny how the simple things tasted so good after having all the good life food every day. We even had cake, ice cream, popcorn for the movies, and cookies of every kind. The only thing we needed to buy was our personal items like tooth past, shavers, magazines, books, and things like that. We had to pack our own lunches but there was anything we wanted for lunch too, some men used to get extra steaks and wrap them in foil and take to work and warm them up in little ovens. After breakfast I went back and got dressed, grabbed my toolbox and headed to the bus that was scheduled to go to the job site. Each job site had their own busses and the drivers took us to the main lunchroom at the job site. All the busses would leave in convoy style (like the picture to the side) and they all got to camp at the same time. In the dead of winter when the weather was real bad they would drive really close together so no one would get lost and if there was a problem they could all help out. Then once I finally got to the job site I went into the lunchroom and I met my boss who then took me to the carpenter shack. Once I got to the shop I put away my tools and filled out more paper work and learned what time everything began and who my partner would be. I was introduced to the others all 5 of them. The General Foreman explained the rules for the site and the do's and don'ts. Seems that they were just getting ready to build the gathering center and they just had a skeleton crew so far. There were 3 of us who were the hired journeymen, Joe the union steward, Al, and myself. The foreman's name was Ross, and Paul was our general foreman. The job superintendent Jim L. came in and introduced himself and then he went over what was going to happen to this site and what our jobs would be in the making of this gathering center. It seemed he just got back from Anchorage at the main office, he had just picked up the newest plans and was given our schedule as what was to happen and when. I was partnered with a big man from Idaho who was a bit older than what I was, and his best friend was the foreman for the project. Big Al was his name and he owned the AT connector ranch in Idaho, where he raised Appaloosa horses. He lived in a small town called Peck outside of Lewiston Idaho. Al and I became pretty good friends and he showed me how to do rigging as I had never done any of that before, and he was an expert. Al used to work dams in Washington and Oregon so he did a lot of rigging. One of the other journeymen was Joe the union steward that had been there for just 3 days. It seems they all came up from anchorage to start this phase of the project. The rest of everyone was to be hired from Fairbanks as that was the hiring hall for this part of the pipeline, I think they called it north of the 64th parallel. Below that point everyone was hired out of the Anchorage hall. Alaska used to be a sub hall from Seattle but since it was growing so fast they got there own charter. Fairbanks Union Hall was Carpenters local #1243.