Winter Barge

The boxes kept coming and coming down the long line of people. Each person handing off the heavy bundle then turning to grab the next. Cases of pinapple, then peaches, then tomatotes which then turned into hundreds of sacks of flour and sugar. I was unsure if I could do this heavy work for 2 hours.

Holden depends upon boats and barges on Lake Chelan to get products, food, suppiles and guest up to the village. When winter comes the boat company switches to a smaller passenger boat and the weekly barge no longer runs. This means that Holden must order enough supplies, food, detergent and many other items on one last barge run to last us till spring.

When this huge order arrived. Holden sent two big moving trucks down to meet the barge. A crane on the barge loads the pallets onto the trucks and then they head up to the mountain to the village where we were waiting to unload the trucks. Everyone in the village was asked to come out and unload these trucks. About 60 of us came out and formed a line from the loading dock to 3 huge walk-in lockers which hold many tons of food. When the trucks arrived, we passed each box down the line and into its appropriate locker for storage.

While there were plenty of cases of Cheerios and Raisin Bran to pass down, the bulk of the order was hundreds of 50 pound boxes, cases and bags of food. I was exhausted by the end but I now know that I can easily handle 50lbs of anything. The entire village got free ice cream after dinner as a thank-you for the hard work.