About The Author:
Karl Olafson was born in Sioux Lookout, Ontario, in 1930, the son of Swedish immigrants. His father had come to Canada for employment with the Canadian National Railways, and Karl spent his early years as one of the “railway children” who lived along the line. As a youngster, he had to leave home to obtain his early schooling in railway school cars, and then schools in Winnipeg and Sioux Lookout.
Karl Olafson was born in Sioux Lookout, Ontario, in 1930, the son of Swedish immigrants. His father had come to Canada for employment with the Canadian National Railways, and Karl spent his early years as one of the “railway children” who lived along the line. As a youngster, he had to leave home to obtain his early schooling in railway school cars, and then schools in Winnipeg and Sioux Lookout.
Following bouts of illness which delayed his schooling, Karl had only achieved a grade seven education by age 16 when he was forced to quit after his father became ill. Karl himself contracted tuberculosis at age seventeen, and spent months in the Fort William Sanatorium and later at the King Edward Memorial Hospital in Winnipeg.
He recounts his experiences growing up at isolated whistle stops during the steam era, and provides details of track and roadway maintenance in the wilds of northwestern Ontario. Never deterred by disappointments and rejections due to handicaps and his medical history, it took Karl eight years to achieve his goal of employment with the CN Railway, which was accomplished only by bypassing the mandatory company medical examination.
The author relates his encounters with violence and crime as a taxi driver in Winnipeg, his experiences as a Forest Ranger in northwestern Ontario, as a drapery installer, and then as a railway extra gang timekeeper. His career with the CNR spanned thirty years, where he worked without missing one day due to the medical condition for which he had originally been turned down.
