Sigurd Brekhus

“…the PFRA was building the Cypress Lake Dam at that time, to dam up the water to store it and they were paying for stones to riprap it – to line the inside of the grade with. So I went to work and started piling stone, there was a lotta stones on everybody’s land. PFRA would only pay you for rocks piled up in one place. I made square piles and I got enough money outa piling stones that I went to Vancouver and we (Ethel and I) got married and come back again.”

“Yes they built the dam at the east end of Cypress Lake. They used horse power to move the dirt. They had dump wagons and horses. I had three horses of my own there and got a job with the dump wagon. You’d drive down to where they’d fill your wagon…then you’d drive up on the grade for the dam, dump it and go back down again. I worked there about a week and one of my horses died so then I drove Louis Backman’s mules for a day, but I didn’t like driving mules. So I took the other two horses home and went back and worked, just using my hands. I worked at kinda the same job, but instead of driving the horses on the scraper I was holding the handle and filling the scraper…”