"David and Bert" 70s NFB doc (16mm)

Heat. Heat. [music] [music] [music] >> [music] >> Heat. [music] Heat. [music] >> [music] >> This beach out beyond all highways on the farthest edge of Vancouver Island. The land of Mcquina. Here meet two men, Bert Clayton, prospector, and David Frank, singer, carver, and grandfather extraordinary. Sorry. Yeah. Holy crap, look what I did. [music] [music] >> [music] [music] >> Let's begin in the rain at the Indian village of a house. David [music] Frank at home. When I went to the doctor, >> well, he checked me up, looked at my heart, put something on my arm, start pumping away on it. Well, he looked at me. Well, Mr. Frank, he says, "You've got wonderful heart. You've got a heart of a man that's in his 30s." Well, that's fine, doctor. Well, you can live around 140. I says, "No, no, that's too old. That's there's something else, too. You have not just the heart. There's something in there, too. That's young. [laughter] If you happen to meet a bear animal >> when I was a youngster. >> Well, I was kind of a kicked around, you see, because I father died when I was only 5 years old and the mother died and I'd be here and there and I start to pick up things and I learned a lot from that. You see how to live and I watch the other people how they live. burn >> and I only had a grandmother there. You send and uncle. >> Oh yeah. Yes, I'm here. >> Now here you are boys. There's one. >> Thank you. >> Here you are. Here. Eat it. Eat it. Now see you do that fellas. Watch now. See you take it like that. See, seeing your mouth and start chewing eggs. >> Mhm. >> 200 years ago, the villages [music] of the west coast of Vancouver Island held a population close to 50,000 people. The arrival [music] of the white explorers almost obliterated the culture and lifestyle of the Indian [music] at a house. That style survives with pride, humor, and grace in people such as David Frank. When I asked him, what is an organ for in a church? I said, what is it good for? What is a violin good for in a church? Why is a guitar in a church? I asked him that. Well, he didn't give me the answer. An elderly woman give me the answer. And she says, "It's just for the accompaniment of the music." Well, I had this one. Here it is. The fairy thing I Well, I say that's what this is for. That's what this is for. I use this when I pray. And this is supposed to hand it down from the almighty God which has been handed down from generation to generation. That's the way I understand it. That's the way I start. Now folks, I say I took this thing. You see? See that bird there? See that bird there? Well, I shoot it around like that. It's God's bird. Nobody's dared to use the name of that bird. The bird has got a name Hayash. I don't see anybody. Nobody uses that name here on the coast all over up and down. The only time we use that word is when we pray to the Almighty God. Well, this fellow didn't give me no answers. But this lady answered my question. You see, well, I told him pretty soon you folks will be dancing in a church. >> James Adams, >> David's close friend since childhood. Together they go gentle into that good night, traveling, lecturing, storytelling with a fond escort of sons and daughters and a ready audience of grandchildren. of all of David's stories, but the run with James across the railway bridge is perhaps the most enjoyed >> preaching. It was a narrow one, you see, and there's two other girls ahead over there >> walking ahead over the what would happen folks if there's a train coming because I seen the stress loss way over. Well, in about 10 seconds and here comes all of here was a train coming and we couldn't go back. We had to keep running and we got off this way and the girls went the other way on the other side of the track. Well, he turned back say change. He says what? You better make a song about this drag here. He said he motioned the drag like it. I said, James, I says, we got a little song now. I say just listen. I say, all right. And I blew like a train in the first place. Woohoo. Then I use the Indian words. Oh oh oh oh. Let me run. Let me run on the railroad track with my pants in my arms. She come oh. [music] All that beautiful chick. Oh that beautiful chick running the other direction from me. All that beauty. All that beauty right there. >> The deserted village of Kelsmith where David Frank was born 78 years ago. For Indian and for white the years have brought changes. Speedboats, logging camps, mines, airplanes. But from Chief McQuinn's time to ours, this land of mists and mountains, stormy reefs, and grassy seas, remains an untouched paradise. >> [music] [music] [music] >> In a far inlet which he has all to himself, [music] lives Burke Plton, prospector at At 88, Bert stands like a figure out of history, but the old time picture is a real [music] time person. I got on this sailing ship. I went with the down on the waterfront and I contacted the mate, Mr. Daniels. And uh the sailing ship was a Willie R. Hume. He's on the bank somewhere in out of Portland now, I believe. Anyhow, I got on there as a cabin boy. Captain and his wife, Captain Wilson and his wife were the skipper on the ship. She was a fourmastered schooner. And that was when we took cargo of lumber to San Pedro, California. 850,000 feet of lumber. Los Angeles of those times, you know, was more or less a place for people to con convert it up. you know, and when I run away from sailing ships, I wound up in Camel Loops, you know, and uh I hiked up the road from Camel Loops, North Thompson River up as far as Lewis Creek. From then on, I didn't work for anybody. I made enough money panning to better than the wages I could get working. run around with a gold pan and a kai used to pack my stuff and the other one to ride. In fact, I like to get up early. You know, the earlier I get up, the better. If it's daylight, I'll get up and sometimes I don't wake up that that soon. that I have got up here at three o'clock in the morning because I worked, you know, quite a bit during the day and I'd rest a little bit when it was hot and then that makes it a better break for me. It doesn't get so hot. You can't get lonely because your mind is forever working on different things. You get different ideas, you see. And religiously, to me, it's a religion in itself. living. >> Yes. The very thought of living harmoniously amongst the animals in the woods and in the timber and the bush. Why that seems to give me a great sense of satisfaction. My work here, my way of thinking is to try to produce something. If I'm capable here producing a prospect that has the hopes of making a mine, okay, I'm doing something for other people that might make jobs for other people, might open up the country, might help things in many ways. I think it's a a sort of a feeling that creating something. You see that you're out here to try and develop something. Anything that I'd be doing that way would be something of trying to make something that other people might get some benefit of. I don't care what I get myself, but if I could create something that would say build a small community here or make something worthwhile to create employment, that's that's that's one of my big thoughts. [music] So often in our crowded cities, the old wait out their end in rented rooms or on park benches. Not Bert Fatton. >> The first thing is clean up and see the water supply and cut wood and then get out. [music] [music] [music] >> [music] [music] >> Where we got to go now will probably be about 1,200. 100 f feet. Well, I'll tell you, I can't climb as fast as I used to. I used to go up that top camp here inside of 3/4 of an hour right from the beach up 2400 ft. 2500 ft. Right from the beach here and 3/4 of an hour. I've come down to that tram line, the foot of the tram line in 20 minutes. And I can't do that anymore. All my legs are as sound as a bell. But I think I breathing is what bothered me. And I think what caused that is uh living in the woods and lighting a little fire and you're you're breathing a certain amount of smoke. But if I'm packing now, I take my time. My breathing doesn't bother me hardly. I took that drill up last year up the hill 2200 ft and uh good 56 lb. So I got up to where I was working and that didn't bother me. I can go up and down that hill and it don't bother me. But uh I don't like this bush especially when it gets soaking wet. >> [music] >> gone uphill southeast 12200t [music] elevation back tonight 4 p.m. Bert. This note perhaps the one slender [music] clue the world would ever have if Bert were not to come back from his mountain. Well, as soon as it got anyways [music] dark, I I'd make a little fire and heat a couple of rocks and put them at [music] my back. I never carried a sleeping bag. More tent that that's out. Too much too [music] much to pack. You got steel to pack. You got dynamite to pack. You got a little grub to pack. [music] That's enough. But I always used to wear these old dryback [music] pants and coats put out by pioneer people. They were good. And the night time I'd put on my big Indian sweater. And I was as warm as a bug in a rug. I never I [music] never seem to ever catch a cold. As long as I had a couple of rocks at my back, right about poke your kidneys. [music] Just make a little bit of a fire and beat the boulders. [music] If the fire went out, worry about it. Rocks was hot. They'd keep you warm all night. Where? Holy cow. She took took her apart, boys. >> I had it one time. Oh, I guess. And gold was only $18 an ounce then, you know. I've had as much as $300 or $400, you know, put away, kept, you know, in the Pope that I could pay my way everywhere I went. This is a mouse trap. And I'm going to put some bait on it. Raisins. Like that. Like that. Like that. Mr. Mousie comes along there. He eats the raisins. He jumps onto this wheel here. And the wheel spins. And down. Mousie goes into a water. The next mousey comes along, he don't see no raisins until he gets down here. He jumps on the wheel and down he goes. And the next mousy comes along, he does the same thing. And of course, they swim around and talk to one another, but there's no way out. I've got 24 this year so far. Among the burned out remains of a former home, Bert remembers his wife. >> I thought a terrible odd of Bunny, [music] my wife. We spent 28 years married life that I don't think there was a cross word [music] ever spoken. And it's taught me a whole lot. Harmony. Think harmoniously. [music] Think carefully what you say to others that would [music] hurt them. I don't crave uh you know I don't crave riches and all that kind of stuff. I love living. I love the wilderness above all. And I think when I got away from the sailing ships and got up into the interior, that's when that started to build up in me. I I love the wilderness. [music] I think that uh what I've done, it must have been all for the good or something because I don't think anybody could be more contented with his life than I have been. I'm very happy, happier than anyone knows in a way. And I I feel that if I had to do it all over again, I think I'd do the same thing. >> [music] >> Humor, curiosity, energy. These for David Frank, as for Bert Clayton, have made old age not a disaster, but a gentle victory. [music] >> Oh, Lord, [music] how come to you, Grandma? Just going to fish there. That's all. [music] [music] Well, this is your grandmother girls. I say she was a very very good woman. She gives a good example to lot of leaders. So that was in 1924 when I got together with her and says that she was an early bird. She would be up 5:00 start cooking 6:00 they went [music] on a table 7:00. And this is the kind of woman she was. And what every word do what be smoke and fish make and try fish together even in hunting [music] should be along with me would be out hunting together and would work together and everywhere [music] whatever we do but even help her with the cooking [music] too. for you see girl. And [music] we got 13 children. Now I got nine now. [music] There's four. Yeah. Four tight. I got nine children now. And 60 grandchildren. [music] Well, that's a sweet thing. I would say, you know, a person that is in his right sense know where he's going. Who is going to miss it? Not one of us. Not one of them in the whole world. >> Hello Dave. How are you? >> You don't need to be scared of that. It's >> nothing. >> Nothing. >> The last time we played. >> Oh, yeah. The last time you b your eyes, didn't we? >> We showed a lot of fun. >> You're looking very well. >> Sure. Yeah. Same with you. Heat. [music] [music] Heat. [music] >> [music] [music] >> Heat. Heat. 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