HARD WORK IS JOB # 1 FOR BAY & BEYOND TRADES ROADIES WHO GO UNDERGROUND — BECAUSE ‘POOP HAPPENS’

Photos and story Mark Clairmont | MuskokaTODAY.com

GRAVENHURST — Labour Day is done and gone. But like workers, the hardest jobs are never done.

In Canada Labour Day has its roots in an 1872 printers’ strike in Toronto. Fighting for a nine-hour work day, the strikers’ victory was a major milestone in the changing relations between workers and their government.

The same can be said every day of employees worldwide who dig down deep and come up with jobs done, gone or ongoing.

Work is Job #1 for them.

Work begins around midnight for this Trisan worker when the water was temporarily shut off to homes on Bay Street Monday in to Tuesday as the water line main is shut off, sliced and quickly repaired to connect to a manhole. Photos Mark Clairmont

Years ago we ran a Labour Day feature called “Love of Labour.”

That couldn’t be more true this summer, as I’ve witnessed on our newspaper’s Bay Street bureau doorstep.

Take Bay & Beyond, a “shitty job” at the best of times — especially this week as they lay sanitary sewers (poop pipes) up and down from Lake Muskoka.

A dirty, gritty, back-breaking job that is manual labour no matter how you look at AI, excavators, front-end loaders, tamping, back fill and shovels in the ground.

Pipe layers are not unlike steel, brick and block layers — too often they don’t get the respect they deserve.

Trisan Contracting’s hard-ass workers have been tasked with turning intricate blueprints in to potable water sandwiched between flushable and storm runoffs down the centre right-hand of the temporarily closed highway roadway. The deepest being three metres closest to the curb heading downhill.

All this as tree leaves begin to turn colour.

Who knew fire hydrants gush potable water? And why wouldn’t they? They provide the H20 lifeblood we survive on and with which we dispose of our waste not want not.

District waterworks staff keep an eye on the progression as workers drop a line down with a saw it.

This follows a summer of a similar asphalt assault from North Muldrew Lake Road east to Cherokee Lane at the Muskoka Wharf.

On track and on time — with ideal weather helping this week — the workflow has been steady. The progress impressive.

It’s meant long days from 7 a.m. — often to 10 p.m. at times. And then with only a few hours off to drive home to Innisfil for some and return to the job site eight hours later to continue the climb up Bay that will take three years when finished.

They get to do it twice more for water and storm water pipes.

On Monday night it went overnight as a water main at Bay and Greavette streets was cut and spliced down a ladder length underground.

And finished in relatively fast fashion as taps and toilets were briefly out of commission for a shorter time than the six hours homeowners allotted by the District of Muskoka and town in a “hold and flush” memo.

The morning after all looks good and in place and most importantly the water is running. Next up yesterday the sanitary sewer line.

Safety first!

“Trench boxes,” which protect workers from cave-ins while deep in ditches have been dragged up and down Bay like Lego blocks. The blue and grey “Rent-Alls” a mindful comforting reminder and security blankets of steel protection for workers when laying the turquoise PVC and adjoining couplings, gadgets and sealing rings that keep them from leaking the sanitary contents.

A symphony of orange-vested, blue-helmeted labourers race around, jump in and out of holes in the ground all the while performing circus-like manual manoeuvres with dexterity, sheer will and unrelenting work ethic. They go hand-in-hand with deft-handed mechanized machinery drivers and operators. All orchestrated by supervisor “Joe” with his trusty tape measure and the other guys often on the sidelines in white hard hats  — but cleaner hands and shirts.

Add in the high wire acts of orange-helmeted Elexicon workers — who securely and patiently held up their end of the hydro poles so as they didn’t topple into the trenches and it’s been a true team effort.

District water department workers, too, have been efficient, friendly and helpful to neighbours, pedestrians and detouring traffickers.

Elexicon workers performed their high wire act ensuring the poles didn’t topple into the trench during digging Monday.

Together it all works. All unite in hard harmony to provide us with what’s necessary and necessarily unseen beneath the wheels of pickups, transports and motor vehicles.
And confidently gives us what goes in and out of our houses and businesses works.

So that when the rubber hits the road the aptly named manholes (oddly there are no women on this job) don’t become traffic hazards at least for the first few years until they become pothole depressions to be reported on “worst roads in Ontario websites.

But none of that is the blame of these front-line workers.

Down in the ditches it’s manual labour at its finest as these two work hand-and-hand to fit the pipes together with couplings, gadgets and sealing rings.

Tirelessly they drive up and down the dirty worksite streets — constantly sweeping up after themselves all day (thumbs up smoothly letting us in and out of our driveways) — and throw themselves into their work.

A labour of love by these guys for sure. And a phase that will last to November when work is complete and road is due to open for the winter.

In hindsight we should have called our September long weekend holiday feature a “Love of the Trades.” Even if me thinks they’re not flush with cash at the end of the day.

Surely they deserve it when it feels like 30 degrees for 12-hour days.

No wonder they go underground where it’s cooler and we can all thank them for that.

Poop happens!

Think of them when you flush or fill your water bottle.

I do. So should you.

Bottoms up boys.

As fall begins it has to be a labour of love for these hard-working Trisan road warriors who wield pipes and weave blueprints into underground works of art.
Temporary water lines in place last week paved the way for sanitary, water and storm water lines in that order north to south.
Then it’s out with the old unsanitary rusty steel pipes to be replaced by new turquoise PVC pipes.
The dirty bits of pipe show the age, which according to our file phots indicated they were installed at least in the 1970s if not more than a decade before if these are original then.
A motorized skateboarder passes by workman as he traverses up Bay Street to the bemusement of some workers.
Polite pedestrians who sought permission to pass through the construction area are escorted downhill while seeing the workers up close doing their everyday jobs.
Support means more than team work, as this Elexicon truck arm shows holding on to the hydro pole, which was also connected by a chain at the base as well.
Enzo is the one with the deft hands who manipulates John Deere’s largest excavator with such precision that workers feel very safe having him at the controls.
Underground or on the surface there’s always an opportunity or need t cut pipe day or night.
You have to have confidence when the longest arm of the construction site is all overhead of you.
In the trenches it’s all hands on deck above and below ground as everyone has a hand in what’s going on to ensure safety and success.
Because deep down your only friends can be above ground in tight quarters like this.
Delicately remove the trench box and you’re close to being done for the day.
Fill in the hole and get ready to do it all over again tomorrow after a job well done.
A job well done for this truck driver who is always amazed at what he and his teammates do for a living.

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