Talking to my dad about the old bucket dredges made me miss the feel of it

Honestly, I was over at my dad's place last weekend and he was looking at some old photos from when he ran a bucket line dredge up in Alaska. He pointed at one and said, 'You know, we could hear every link in that chain, feel every rock in the bucket. You knew the river by sound.' Tbh, it hit me hard because I've been on a modern suction dredge for five years now. I sit in a climate-controlled cab watching screens. It's efficient, sure, and we move way more material. But I don't feel the mud or hear the machine working anymore. It's just numbers and gauges. Made me wonder if we lost something by getting so far from the actual grind. Has anyone else who started on the old gear ever feel a bit disconnected now?

2 comments

2 Comments

thomas.mark22d ago

That line about knowing the river by sound really gets it. I ran a clamshell for twenty years before they put me in a glass box with a joystick. The fix for me was simple. I started leaving the cab for ten minutes every couple hours to walk the line, feel the vibration in the deck plates, and just listen. It doesn't bring the old feel back, but it keeps you from floating totally adrift.

casey_barnes21d agoMost Upvoted

Notice this happening everywhere, @thomas.mark. My dad was a printer and they took his press away for a computer screen. He started going out back to hand-feed the old folder just to keep the paper smell on his hands. It's the same move, finding a small, real thing to hold onto when the job gets too clean and quiet.