MAN WITH A THOUSAND HANDS

[Music] man has always been a builder seeking to conquer the waters and lands of his earth for the good of those who will follow him on its surface not all regions of the air to bow to his will to the north of Vancouver up the spill short south of the Yukon and west of the Fraser guarded from man by the Granite's and ice and winds of the coastal mountain lies such an unconquered region it is a region of great resources long yellow from use of treasures long locked away from productivity a region guarded by distances and shielded by storms a wilderness set off from the modern perimeter towns by its challenging terrain [Music] but now strange things are happening in the wilderness [Music] strange creatures of prowling the land Giants with muscles of metal and blood of diesel fuel who steel claws rip away the distances and tear of the terrain snorting defiance at the storms and chasms [Music] Giants are working in the land Giants and steals in used bows and strain that man and his children may live in greater comfort and safety and abundance Giants of metal of metal and power man's new race of slaves these giants labor in a region touched only lightly by the Iron Age the Bronze Age to move it at one step into the newest of the eras the age of the light metals of the metal aluminum aluminum was drawn from an inexhaustible source the clay bauxite bauxite reduced to alumina and smelted by power to a metal which is light and strong useful piece vital and wore a metal whose lightness releases energy to do things once thought impossible [Music] the alumina is reduced by power electric power power in quantities undreamed-of not many years ago power enough to light a city or run a railroad the power is best made of water falling water turns the wheels of turbines at four [Music] if aluminum is to be plentiful and cheap the power must be cheap men must search the world for a place for an inexhaustible supply of water Falls continuously from a great height here in north central British Columbia 400 miles north of Vancouver is such a place here in the shadow of the Yukon the eternal snows promised inexhaustible water for a million years the cycle of nature has replenished the water the snows come the rains fall the glaciers freeze and melts and the rivers flow out and the water falls again here is a model of the region the water is high in the mountains for power and near it to the west is an ocean channel where ships can bring the alumina to the power but the water is separated from the ocean by a mountain wall the Chain of Lakes like a vast broad tub drains to the east through the gorge of the nechako river here the men and the machines will plug the drain with a great dam and the lakes will begin to fill rising against the mountain wall which for a million years has barred any westward fall and here the men and their machines will tip the tub the other way they will drill a new river through the mountain wall a tunnel ten miles long and at the western end of the tunnel they will turn the water downward to drop 16 times the fall of Niagara - a great powerhouse which they will build inside the mountain from Camano the heaviest transmission line ever planned will carry the energy 50 miles to the northwest up over the eternal ice and winds of the kill dollar pass and down to the Delta of the Kitimat River here the only such place in many miles is level ground adjacent to the ocean channel which ships will bring the alumina - the power enough level brown for a city a city which will be called Khitomer but now man comes into the wilderness making a path not only for himself but for his new race of giants now he can challenge the Unconquered regions of the earth on even terms with his own two hands a man can do just so much to do more he must use his mind the hands of the mind are machines the man with a machine has a thousandaire [Music] to block the eastward flow over the chaco the men and their machines will drop a mountain into its gorge to move the mountain they must first take it apart and so they have undermined it with a network of tunnels hundreds of feet deep and in the tunnels they have piled dynamite dynamite in hold boxes 168 tons of it the roads have been blocked off since dawn the mountain is waiting [Applause] [Music] men work together and the machines work together each machine does what it can do best and together they make a team the men have taken the mountain apart now they must move it to the river and there is little time for the dam must be closed before winter stops the work or a year's water will be lost the trucks roll around trip every 12 minutes a loaded truck dumps every 45 seconds [Music] the machines have moved the mountain to the river now they must put the pieces back together in a shape of a dam the river itself helps build the dam which will block its course 3000 gallons of it every minute roar against the falling rock Sheldon settle the broken mountain into a compact mass that will hold back a hundred and fifty miles of lakes the river is dammed by rock and clay the body of the dam is rotted impervious core which seals off the water is played [Music] one machine makes ready for another the big red crawlers spread the wet clay for the scoops to pick up on the run as the summer fades and the cold months come closer a new load of clay rose to the river every 30 seconds genes work together scoops drop the clay the crawlers spreaded level and the sheepsfoot rollers compacted into a layer so firm that the cubic foot weighs almost as much as a man in a few years here near the dam the land will be covered as the deep storehouse of liquid power Rises toward the western wall beyond the storm shrouded mountains lies the valley of the command where the power will be made 10 miles west and half a mile down through these mountains the men and machines are drilling River [Music] the short ahead will soon be the bed of the lake except for the gatehouse which will control the flow into the tunnel there will be nothing above the waters to show that man has passed this way here it is that the hardrock man will dip the tub the other way driving a 10-mile tunnel which will carry the water from the lakes to come on [Music] this giant is a drilling rig called a jumbo on it's full level 16 villas push hardened steel into the rock 12 feet 13 feet 15 feet to a blast the hard rock men go where the work is one continent or another there is little difference under the ground the lights gleam yellow in the haze the water bits shining down the jagged walls and compressed air roars against the clang and hammer and scream of the drill drill load and shoot that's hard rock two hours to drill an hour to load the holes with dynamite [Applause] this machine is a mucker a dragon eating a hole through the mountain banging its jaws against the tunnel faces its hills multiples of shock brought back to its iron throat into the ore cars which will carry it away [Applause] half a mile above the valley floor a camp clings to the mountain below the aluminum buildings is the west entrance to the tunnel deep in which men are driving eastward to meet the men boring west a little oh shoot and mutton then go in and Murat comes up [Music] here the water must turn downward on its plunge to the turbine but even 12 inch armored steel penstocks would burst under this awful pressure and so the men are making their penstocks out of the rock itself they will plug the main tunnel a half-mile in from the face and drill slanting tunnels downward through the very heart of the mountain to make a fall 16 times the drop of Niagara [Music] this is where the water will plunge down inside the mountain come on Louis a central camp for the project here will be the power plant [Music] if the water falls inside the mountain how would it be brought outside to upon us like all great ideas the engineer's answer was a simple idea they would build their power house inside the mountain [Music] a quarter of a mile inside the mountain at the bottom of the penstock tunnels the machines muck out the power cabin two city blocks long ten stories high vast enough to enfold a cathedral in its rocky embrace drill and low shoot and muck the men start at the roof and blast their way down with shooting the floor and dozing the rock into holes to fall through the mountain to the shovels and trucks which work on the bottom level the men go in and the rock comes out out the same tunnel from which soon of filming Tomas will burst on its way from the turbines to the river and thence to the sea there to be picked up by the Sun and fall again as snow and rain into the high lakes [Music] here in a swift Northern Rivers the big red crawlers go fishing in business hours concrete to line the power cabin and the tunnels concrete to support the transmission line towers concrete must have gravel at his shop clean and a few yards from the tunnel portal nature washes barrel so bountifully that the crawlers need only to push it into the path of a tractor powered drag line [Music] on this project has gathered a concentration of heavy equipment probably greater than any outside of a war the job uses 52 of the huge te 24s alone [Applause] [Music] the same big red diesels that power the crawlers drive the gravel plant and concrete will line the stomach of a mountain here in the wilderness the men are building a shadow town but when the turbines start to sing Tom will vanish there will only be a few houses here but now the shadow is very much alive kept alive in the tradition of construction cams over the globe on pie for breakfast and steak for lunch but is two hands a man can do just so much soon this man may be doing it with one [Music] here where the power is made there is no level land for the smelter and so the power must go where the work is each tower is designed separately for its own load in position and the cables will be picked through as a man's arm swinging 3,000 feet in a single span over the red blue ice of a glacier [Music] the line starts there sea level here in the valley of the Camano and in a few miles it climbs to the clouds [Music] in the beginning there was no road and even though the road is steep and slow and so again the men call on their John Kahrs a road with its wings [Music] the light loads can go up the line by air but the men need steel with cement and cabled machines and so they are driving a road up to cliffs blasting a narrow shelf out of the sheer rock walls [Music] compresses for the drillers power units for the Highline and the heavy equipment goes up on timber skids which are little changed from the days of the lumber crews the rock falls in the snow slides and the road goes out and the men and the machines put it back and the road keeps climbing in the spring there was no Road here the men was stopped two miles below the pass and the tortured rock ahead was overlaid with half a hundred feet of snow on May 14th albear Sherman a french-canadian and a helper named bill Henry took a TD 24 crawl out onto the vast up sloping snow few bear late on May 17th they reached the bottom of the narrow shoot which pissed the final head wall a helicopter drop tool and the huge crawler began grinding its tracks of the almost vertical shoot from far below the men watched suddenly the snow gave way and the big red crawler began to slide and spin sledding four hundred feet back down the snow clip when miraculously it stacks piled up enough snow to stop the plunge the next day shower and Henry started up again on May 21st at 8 p.m. they leveled their tracks on the summit of the pass facia Creek Road was licked [Music] shoot and muck shoot the holes and muck out the shot rock the rock goes over the most beautiful dump in the world and the road goes down the hill down [Music] over the past and down the kill dollar the men and machines of God's two shells in the rock it looks so easy after it is done but it is not easy in the doing [Music] one gang works from the top down another gang works from the bottom up and when they meet there will be a shootin muck up in the rock dough's and still down in the rainforest so that clucksten haul supplies for the line the power can go from tomorrow to get him air [Music] man wants to go to Kinnaman man we'll go together [Music] 50 miles away the waterfalls inside a mountain when the power comes from Camano to get a man the way has been cleared to the forest the road for the Gerda's and semantic cable is coming down the kill dollar and soon the line will carry the power from the lakes to the smelter the land is level here the only level and in many miles and here it is an ocean channel for a new deepwater port to serve the broad and fertile hinterland the land is left the land is unstable here near the shore made of water and saturated sand and fallen trees a thousand generations of fallen trees which must be stripped to the rock and replaced with good hard gravel a mountain of gravel shovel by shovel rock by truck [Music] the hard gavel goes down to the rock now and the Foundation's will be solid and soon a smelter a mile and a half long and half a mile wide we provide a life force of a new city the city which will start its life with more than six thousand people and may grow to 50,000 but now the homes are yet to be built and so the work of clearing goes on [Music] and all the trees that men will clear for their city are fewer than all in these vast wallets in a single winter storm [Music] the ten times eel ball rolls the chain low on the trees and the chain pulled at each end by a plunging crawler does a year's work in a week [Music] to the nose of Vancouver guarded from man by the ice and granite of the coastal mountains lies a region which once was unconquered [Music] soon it will yield its treasures of energy and abundance but there are vast regions still unconquered still with their treasures locked behind nature's barriers barriers which now may be breached by man's new race of giants for a man's two hands can do just so much to free himself from drudgery he must use his mind [Music] a man's hands could do just so much to do more he has used his mind the hands of the mind are machines the man with the machine has a thousand hands and he and his children a better life [Music]