This issues Rig of the Month owner is Keith Roberts from Spillimacheen B.C. and this is his story:

I was born in Golden B.C. November 8, 1979. My parents Orval and Val Roberts raised my older brother Richard, my younger sister Farris and myself in Spillimacheen B.C. which is located just 45 minutes south of Golden. Today my wife Vicki, my son Dallas (6) and daughter Katelyn(2) and I still live there.

I am a fourth generation truck driver. Growing up I always knew that I wanted to follow in Dad’s footsteps and drive a truck. Dad drove truck while we were little and one of his rules was we had to be potty trained, (smart Dad), before we could go with him. Dad drove for Brisco Wood Preservers in the 70’s and early 80’s hauling logs and lumber and once I was trained I pretty much lived in the jump seat.

In 1988 he established his own business and bought his first truck from my great uncle. It was a 1972 Kenworth 5 axle self loader. He would work all day and, with help from my grandpa, fix the truck half the night. Then he would get a few hours sleep so he could start all over again.

I can remember more than once Dad phoning mom from the bush on an old radio phone that barely worked. He would give her a list of parts and tools that he needed to fix the truck and off we would go to wherever he was. I spent many hours with him working on the truck so I always knew where to find the things that he needed. Later Dad upgraded his truck to a 1978 LW Kenworth with a Barko loader. I can recall as a kid having to go inside the tower of the loader to help change the oil lines and coming out covered in grease and oil from head to toe.

At 17 I went to work for Mister Tire in Invermere B.C. where I learned how to properly change truck tires without using ether. The following summer I went to work for Brian Weir (BNW contracting) in Golden B.C where I worked in the shop wrenching. Brian had a lot of different trucks, logging, low beds, gravel, highway, concrete and chip trucks so it was a good learning experience working there. Brian then got into hauling laminated beams from Golden to Nevada.

When I turned 18 I went in and got my air ticket and class 3 learners. From then on, when I wasn’t working for Brian, I’d go with Dad as often as I could. Dad would let me drive his truck when empty but since I only had a class 3 I couldn’t pull a trailer. I soon found that shifting was harder than I thought it would be. It looked pretty easy when Dad did it but then he had twenty plus years under his belt. Dad had two trucks at the time so I would also ride with his driver, Gino Palumbo, as often as possible.

 Brian had an old LW Kenworth that we used to shuffle trailers around the yard. I would use it to haul 48 ft highboys over to Louisiana Pacific Mill. I would load laminated beams, weigh the load, get the paper work and then bring them back to our yard and tarp them. That way the highway drivers just had to drop their empty trailers, hook up to the loaded ones, and be on their way. I really enjoyed doing that as it got me out of the shop and in the driver’s seat even though I didn’t have my class 1 yet.

I would also drive cement truck around Golden for Brian who had bought a new Autocar with a Cat engine. It had an 18 speed transmission and air ride suspension and it seemed like a Cadillac compared to his other cement trucks. He also had an old Paystar International with a screaming Jimmy and a 13 speed transmission and an old Western Star with a 350 Cummins and a 15 speed without a Jake.

I was still working for Brian when I went for my class 1. He had a contract hauling trim end blocks in walking floor chip trailers from the local mills to the Interact Finger Joint Mill in Donald BC. Dave Bochman, one of trim end haulers, came in one morning and said they needed me to drop an empty trailer in Galloway, bring the loaded one back to Donald and then bobtail back to Golden.

So this was it, my first solo run. My first trip was in a mid 80’s cab-over Mack with a V8 Mack engine and a 12 speed transmission. Dave already had the trailer hooked up to the truck and I was both excited to hit the road and very nervous at the same time as it was snowing pretty good when I left. The trip down went really well and when I got to Galloway I switched trailers and headed back to town. By the time I got to Donald it was dark and really snowing hard. I had to back the trailer up onto the platform but the front wheels kept sliding in the wet snow. I had a hard time but I finally got it backed into position then I unhooked and bob tailed back to Golden in the snow.

In January I took a mid 80’s Pacific, five axle, logging truck to Fort Nelson. I stayed for a couple weeks then came back to the shop and worked till the end of the month when I got laid off.

A few days later Barry Palumbo phoned and asked me if I wanted to go to Sundre, Alberta to haul logs and I jumped at the chance. As a new driver you had to ride with one of the regular drivers for a few days to learn the ropes and then they asked you a few questions to make sure you knew the rules. If you passed you were on your own.

I soon found out what it was like to be an out of town driver. My first trip out was in an International with a Anser jeep and trailer. I made it out to the bush and got my load then made it part way to the highway before spinning out. I called on the radio to let the other drivers know that the road was blocked for a minute and I jumped out and threw on a set of chains. It wasn’t enough so I jumped back out to put a second set. One of the hooks was missing on one chain so I could only put half of that set on and that still wasn’t enough. By now I was getting the gears on the radio about being a green horn and being from out of town. Lucky for me there was a guy on a cat close by. He told everybody to cut the trash talk and he came and pulled me up the hill.

That wasn’t the end of the excitement though. I started down the other side of the hill and got about half way through the first switch back when I heard and felt a big bang. The jeep had come unlocked and the slid ahead. To this day I don’t know why I didn’t end up over the bank but in the end I managed to get the jeep slid back and locked, and I carried on to the mill in Sundre.

I hauled a few more days with that truck then I was given a 95 Western Star with a 500 Cummins and an 18 speed with five axle log rigging. The rest of the winter went really well with no incidents and then in the spring I came home to B.C.

That breakup I was given a brand new 2000 Western Star with all the bells and whistles but things were slow that summer so when I heard through a friend that Whiskey Jack Logging was looking for a driver I went to work for them. I was driving a mid 80’s Freightliner but that job didn’t last very long. On the second trip of the first day I found myself lying on my side after meeting a car on narrow stretch of bush road. I had no choice it was either hit the ditch or have a head on collision.

When things picked up for Barry I went back to work for him but things slowed down again that fall and I quit and went to work for Brisco Wood Preservers. I drove a 99 Western Star five axle self loader. I had never run a self loader before and on my first day when I unloaded the trailer I ripped the electrical and scale cord apart. I hauled power poles all over BC and Alberta

On a trip up north later that winter I found my self caught in a blizzard just south of Slave Lake. There was little to no visibility and I thought I saw something on the road ahead but figured it was just blowing snow - it wasn’t snow - it was a moose. The moose slipped on the icy road and fell right in front of me. I hit the brakes, the truck locked up, the car following me hit my trailer wheels and I hit the moose. I thought I was on top of the moose because I couldn’t steer and slid across the road, finally stopping on the other side. The truck had stalled so I restarted it and pulled over to the right side of the road before checking the damage. It turned out that I had got off lucky. When the moose fell he hit the grapple of the loader hanging on the front bumper so there was no damage to the truck. To add insult to injury the moose just got up and ran off into the bush.

I worked there for about a year until my Dad bought a truck with a position in Golden for Louisiana Pacific. That’s when I went to work for him. Talk about going backwards in trucks! He bought a 1986 Freightliner with a 400 Cummins and a 15 over transmission and 2 speed rears. We started off hauling mill yard to mill yard. This was a good job with three trips a day Golden to Radium. Later that summer Louisiana Pacific Golden brought in a helicopter for logging and I ended up hauling from the helicopter for the summer.

The following spring we sold the Freightliner and bought a 99 Peterbilt with a new 2001 profab hayrack and we went back hauling yard to yard again. We also hauled down to Idaho for a while. We kept this truck for a couple of years then traded it in on my current truck which we custom ordered. It is a 2004 Kenworth W900l with a 475 Cat, a Jake, a Retarder and an 18 speed with 390 gears. I continued to haul with the hayrack both in the yard and out of the bush and then we rigged the truck up with a peerless jeep and pole trailer and hauled out of the bush. When things started to slow down we also got into hauling power poles

For the past five years I’ve been hauling logs in the winter and poles in the summer. I spent most of last summer hauling poles to Salt Lake City, Utah. Some of them have been up to 100 feet long. This past October I bought the truck from my dad and I am continuing with the job. My truck will be six years old in May and I’ll have a little over one million kilometres on it.

 I hope things turn around in the logging industry as I enjoy hauling in the bush. I’ve always had a good group of guy’s to haul and work with. I’ve always taken pride in my trucks and I really enjoy going to the Big Rig Weekends. I take the whole family and we’ve met a lot of people there that we look forward to seeing each year. It’s almost like a trucking family reunion.

It’s a lot of work trying to keep things shiny, especially with the winter conditions that we put our trucks through, but we do our best. Our kids love the trucks and I’m sure that when Dallas gets bigger he will also be a driver. 

A note from Vicki:

Keith spends almost all of his time, when he is not driving, working on his truck. He’s always fixing, polishing, washing or just tinkering. He has always made sure that his truck is clean and shiny. Don’t get me wrong, I do get frustrated, but when it comes right down to it I am happy that he takes such pride in it. It makes it a lot easier when he goes out the door for a day or week at a time knowing that he enjoys what he does. I too am pretty sure that, like he followed in his dads foot steps, our son will probably do the same.

There are not too many kids like Dallas who, when he was two years old, could tell you from a distance what type of truck you were about to meet on the highway, and actually be right. Well except for Keith that is. Keith’s Mom said that he spent many hours when he was young playing trucks in the sand box. When Keith first went to school his teachers had a hard time getting him interested until one of them decided to give him some trucking books to read.

A few years back one of Keith’s friends gave him the nickname, Glitter Bug. Obviously the nickname was because of how particular he is with his truck and he does a lot of dusting and polishing to keep up his reputation.

Its not easy being a trucker’s wife, the hours are long and even when he gets home from a long trip or even a day trip there always seems to be something that needs to be fixed or tinkered with. I am happy that he loves what he does and has been able to pursue a dream that he has had for a very long time.

Keith we are all very proud of you and we will continue to support you as long as you keep on trucking. By the way Dallas wants to know if he can take your truck for a run around the yard…