Legendary Hayes Logging Trucks Set Industry Standard
Each Spring the B.C. Forest Discovery Centre hosts a Vintage Truck Show; this photo was taken in June 2020. -- Look again--this is a hand-crafted scaled-down model of a real Hayes logging truck. Incredible!
When Hayes Forest Services Ltd., an industry stalwart and one of the biggest contract logging companies on Vancouver Island, shut down in 2008, it ended the latest chapter in a forestry family tradition that went back three generations and left its hallmark on both logging and trucking.
Coincidentally, a showing of ‘antique’ logging trucks—not all of them really that old but most of them really, really big boys’ toys—at the Cowichan Exhibition grounds had included several Hayes logging trucks.
Built with practical purposes in mind, of course, they were all brawn, the penultimate image of macho motive power.
It all started in 1920 when the Hayes-Anderson Motor Co. Ltd. built its first logging truck. Over the years, and with several corporate reorganizations and changes of brand, logging trucks continued to be the ‘Hayes’ heavy-lifters that achieved fame for their durability and revolving bunk (log trailer) system.
Even the die-cast chrome-plated or bronze hood ornament of a bear was skookum like the truck it graced, weighing no less than five pounds.
By 1928, under the new banner Hayes Manufacturing Co., former parts dealer Douglas Hayes and partner W. Anderson had established a large assembly plant on Vancouver’s False Creek flats. They also built buses, moving vans, tractors and trailers, and would grow to having three plants and 600 employees. In 1969, a majority share of Hayes Manufacturing was bought by the American company that produced Mack Trucks; a result of this new order, two years later, was another name change, this time to a more streamlined Hayes Trucks. Six years later, Kenworth Paccar (manufacturers of both Kenworth and Peterbilt trucks) took over and in just a year closed the Hayes plants.
As early as 1956, Donald Hayes, son of Douglas, had extended the truck manufacturing company to logging. Fifty years later, with grandson Donald P. Hayes as president, Hayes Forest Services Ltd. was honoured as one of Canada’s 50 best managed private or public companies. Just two years later, the company fell victim to the infamous 2008 recession.
Previously, the company website had told the story of the Hayes truck on its website: How Doug Hayes evolved from selling parts to assembling trucks; how, over the next several decades, Hayes “broke new ground in West Coast truck logging, manufacturing heavy trucks for the tough coastal logging roads, and the Hayes truck became a regular feature of the coastal logging scene in B.C. From 1952 on, the company was known as Hayes Trucks until Mack Trucks bought it out in 1969.
“The last one was built in 1975, but the role the trucks played in the pioneering days of truck logging is a fascinating look at how far the industry has come and the hard work it took to get there. Hayes trucks were built to fill a void in the type of logging truck being used in the woods in the pioneering years of truck logging.
“These early trucks had a bunk and trailer system surprisingly similar to what you see today... The rotating bunk was an innovation at that time and is still the basis on which logging trucks operate. Such innovations were light years ahead of truck logging operations in the 1920s and 1930s, when three- and five-ton trucks were used in rugged coastal communities to haul logs...”
The first trucks required two operators, a driver and a brakeman who didn’t use peddles but a brake handle.
Each Spring the B.C. Forest Discovery Centre hosts a Vintage Truck Show; these photos were taken in June 2020.
This close-up shows the famous 'Hayes' emblem but not the five-pound bulldog.
Those were the “good old days” before air brakes when they drove without doors so they could bail out quickly. Mind you, trucks were smaller, lighter and less powerful in those days (just 65 horsepower, some of them) as opposed to today’s average truck power of 550-600 h.p.
Purchased by Macmillan Bloedel, HDX 45-115, the last Hayes truck, was still on the job in 2004 with Steve Drybrough of Port Alberni the “Angel’s Playmate’s” only driver over those 30 years.
Other Hayes trucks are still around and still working, some as far away from their native British Columbia as Spain. Almost incredibly, when you consider their size, some have become collectors’ items and restoration projects. In 2009 Truck News told the story of Al Williamson, a second generation log hauler who fell in love with the first Hayes logging truck he saw as a boy, in the 1960s.
This particular HDX, popularly known as “H07,” wasn’t an ordinary, plain-Jane off-road Hayes truck. She was the most extravagant Hayes logging truck of all time, complete with chromed accessories because she’d been displayed at the Montreal Expo 67. In Williamson’s eyes, she was “pretty spectacular looking”.
After Expo the “HO7” went to work in Copper Canyon for 30 years, the envy of many besides Al Williamson. Upon the announcement that she was for sale in 2002, he was quick to make a bid. He then stripped her for an extensive (and expensive) restoration. In 2009 he speculated that the rejuvenated truck, which had cost $51,000 new, would run half a million dollars at the current value of components, many of which were no longer being made.
The result, after several years of what he termed blood, sweat and tears, was a truck that looked like it was fresh from the factory.
Amazingly, the project hadn’t been anywhere near as challenging as one might expect, thanks to Hayes’ durability—some body work and fresh paint. At least, that’s the way Williamson casually put it in 2009, with the blood, sweat and tears already beginning to fade in his memory. He likened the project to working on a hot rod—just bigger!
The result was so spectacular that he was immediately approached by a prospective buyer then asked to participate in the opening of the Vancouver Trade and Convention Centre where HO7 was viewed by 65,000 viewers, many of whom remembered having seen her at Expo 67.
Showing off his pride and joy was what it was all about for Williamson who thought it was important for people to see this magnificent Hayes and, perhaps, recall some memories of truck logging of their own. In between parades and trucks shows HO7 was protected from the weather, a dramatic departure from her years of working in a rain forest.
As of September 2020, Island Finning Ltd. had five Hayes trucks on the block, ranging from a 1964 model at $39,900.00 CAD, to Al Williamson’s precious “H07.” “This Hayes is very special,” read the company website. “Built in Vancouver, B.C. then shipped by rail to the 1967 Montreal Expo.” Some of its key components, such as its transmission and front axle, had less than 1200 operating hours.
What were they asking for this baby? $125,000.00 CAD.
But HO7 isn’t the only Hayes that has found a loving home. Last year, Driving Magazine told the story of 1965 Hayes Clipper 100, owned and operated for half a century by long-haul trucker Arnie De Jong. Originally, he drove for the owner, Del Barton, hauling shakes to California and fresh produce on the return trip to Vancouver. He bought the Clipper, with just over half million miles on the odometer, for $32,000 in 1970, and drove it for 18 months before having to put any money into repairs. He then drove another million miles on the original engine. Over the years, the Clipper 100 has racked up almost two million miles across the North American continent.
Like the HO7, this Clipper is prettier than most of her workmates, with lots of chrome inside and out, including custom upholstery with the Hayes bear motif.
“Fancy” is the word De Jong uses to describe the 55-year-old Hayes Clipper which always attracts her share of attention at truck shows where it often parks alongside Bernd Dessau’s restored 1970 Hayes HD. His motivation for undertaking a $40,000 restoration of the former log hauler was as a tribute “to all past and present drivers and the drivers from all over Canada who loved Canadian trucks or helped build them”.
“It’s really important to keep our history going,” he said.
Not all Hayes trucks that have been saved from the wreckers’ yard have been as fortunate. Several of them on display at the British Columbia Forest Discovery Centre in Duncan are in deteriorating condition because of a lack of funding for their restoration. Worse, a storm in recent years brought down the roof of the shed protecting them from the weather and, again, the need of funding has left them exposed to the elements.
It’s just as well that Hayes trucks were built to withstand the outdoors.
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This postcard shows a Hayes logging truck at work in the days of giant, first growth trees.
Some of the greatest photos of all time of truck logging are of two Hayes logging trucks hauling a 70-metre Douglas fir intended for use as the tallest flag pole in the world in Kew Gardens, Eng. This was in 1958, the year of British Columbia’s Centennial.
The pole was so long that it took the two trucks working in tandem to transport the 300-year-old giant along the 35-km-long and winding Copper Canyon mainline—riding on top of their regular loads of logs so that the 200-footer cleared the trucks’ cabs and could swivel on the turns.
Not only did they have to navigate tight turns while working as a single unit, but also the famous tall, narrow and shaky—Wolf Creek trestle bridge.
It was fortunate, indeed, that Hayes off-road haulers could each handle up to 180 tonnes at a time.
A gift of the province to celebrate its centennial, the 371-year-old fir also was meant to mark the Royal Botanical Gardens’ 1959 by-centenary. Upon erection it stood 225 feet and was the tallest wooden flagpole in the world. After half a century of exposure to the weather—and woodpeckers—the flagstaff was retired in 2007.
This time its replacement, in recognition of the Kew Gardens’ conservation and preservation views, isn’t a first-growth Douglas fir.
For the full fascinating story of trucking the Kew Gardens flagpole through Copper Canyon in 1958.
The photos are little less than breathtaking and the teamwork demonstrated by the two Hayes truck drivers almost defies belief. Site host Eileen Christopher told me that her father, Harold James Smith (1920-1970), “operated one of the loaders that hoisted the log headed for Kew Gardens onto the trucks”.
Better yet, she offers a YouTube movie!
You can also learn more about this amazing chapter in B.C.’s logging history in the November 2016 issue of the B.C. Historical History Newsletter.
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