Big Yellow Trucks



Somewhere between Prince George and Burns Lake.

We just attended a friend's birthday last weekend and he had an interesting item from our childhoods on display. It was a yellow Tonka dump truck. We both had one as kids and apparently his Mom kept his and gave it to him recently, used as a prop for a plant. I'm not sure if this gift occurred for this recent birthday or not, but that would certainly make sense. Like I said, I had one too. I asked my Mom about mine and, sure enough she said she's kept mine all these years as well.

"Tonka Tough"

I think we were probably about 4 years old when we got these trucks and we'd lean on the dump bins of the trucks, crouched over, and run behind them. I'm surprised we didn't wear out the plastic tires. I guess there's some truth to "Tonka Tough".

Interestingly enough I traveled to Prince George this past week and drove to Burns Lake to review a building. Somewhere along the way (I've forgotten the name of the small town I passed through and can't seem to find it on Google Maps Street View) I came across a real-life Tonka dump truck. Not really made by Tonka of course, but it's pretty cool to stand beside to get a sense of how big one of these things really is. And this isn't even as big as they get. The bottom of the dump box on this truck was higher than I could see into. I think the tires were each about 5 feet high, and the truck's certainly too wide to navigate a standard width traffic lane. I'm not overly familiar with the Prince George/Burns Lake region in general, but I would think this truck was used in the mining industry, although all the large trucks I saw while I was there were involved with the logging industry.