Gord Barney has lived and worked in British Columbia for over fifty years. Ranging from the more civilized parts of Vancouver Island to the rugged, rain-drenched reaches of the North coast and Queen Charlotte Islands. Some places only a short drive from town and others accessable only by float plane, the logger's life is unique to say the very least, making it a great place to find many very unique stories and ideas.
I was born in Vancouver in 1947. When my dad, who was also a logger, found a place for the family to settle in the Ladysmith area, on Vancouver Island in 1949 my mother, brother and I moved over from the Mainland.
Following in my Dad's footsteps, I became a logger at the age of 15, starting out as a whistle punk. Working at all the other rigging jobs in the forest I eventually moved up to becoming a machine operator and now run a Madill Yarder.
About 1968 or 1969 I began cartooning; drawing the characters that I saw every day in the woods. Later I began to collect the tales and stories that the men related and eventually I published a small booklet of these tales illustrated with some of the cartoons.
My first major publication was "Timberbeasts of the Great Bear Rain Forest" (1999) which follows the same pattern as the earlier booklets. Their titles are "For Loggers Only" (1982 - a cartoon book), More For Loggers Only" (1984 - also cartoons), "Rhymes for Loggers Only" (1989), "Riggin' Rhymes" (1991), plus a couple of Cartoon-illustrated calenders.
