Andy Anderson

(0:21:49) Anyhow, getting back into my early days, being a bachelor by myself, I really got to learn how to pack and travel and do all the various things. Also coming in and working at the ski hill, I was working basically under Walter Perren. He taught me avalanche control work particularly. Not on a scientific bases. Your dad, (Keith Everts) was the one who learned it (the scientific end of avalanche forecasting and control from Peter Schaerer in Rogers Pass)….Walter lived in avalanches sort of a thing. He was brought up in it. Everything he learned was on a very practical basis. But I don’t think Walter ever dug a snow pit, checked out the snow layers or that. But he would come out when I was at Lake Louise. He would come out and say, “We better go over and take a look, at such and such a slope.” I quizzed Walter, “How could you know that particular slope?” And he had to stop and think. “Two days we got that snowfall and then we had that temperature change.” He was just absorbing things at all times. Even though he was in an office. Wind changes and various things. Out on the ground he taught me an awful lot about avalanches and avalanche control.

(0:24:02) Incidentally, at that time too we were pretty primitive in our (avalanche) control systems. One of the control systems was, we took cross cut saws out on to a cornice and (then we) roped in. A guy would be back holding you on a rope and we’d saw a hunk out of the cornice and jump on it until it broke away. We were pretty primitive! A lot of it was in the ski areas, in the ski outs. We would go up into the trigger zone and cut (out the cornices). In my short career in the army, I had seen them use a seismic cord, an explosive cord, and I had actually worked construction a bit. I worked as an Assistant to the person who did the blasting. I learnt a little bit. I knew, probably through Walter that in Switzerland they were blasting down avalanches and their system of doing it was putting ordinary TNT into a jam can, so that it was contained because snow is so much of a pillow effect. Normal explosives don’t have much effect on it. So, I thought seismic was very fast and that might work (for avalanche control). Anyhow, I persuaded Bob Hand to give me some money. He gave me $50.00. I took my car and went into Calgary, and I got a hold of the guy who was in charge of selling explosives. I took him out for lunch. Told him what my ideas were. He said, “Well, we’ve got the thing for that and you need a seismic cord.” So, what I ended up with was a parts spool of seismic cord, a box of seismic powder and some caps and a fuse. All of which I loaded into my car. No (safety) signs, no nothing! I took them back to Banff and Walter and I went out with it and went up into the Sunshine area. The first try, the first stick we threw, there was an avalanche! With that seismic powder, the fumes are deadly. Actually, I got my powder papers through the Workmen’s Compensation Board. That was the first use of explosives for avalanche control (in the National Parks) and it was the first one that I heard of. I couldn’t swear to it, but I don’t think anybody (had used explosives yet in North America).

(0:28:43) The other thing was I had a fear of heights, but I had to overcome that to climb. I never really did overcome it. I always had that fear of heights. I had to ignore it, because the thing about climbing a mountain, it doesn’t matter when you fall if its 50 feet or 5000! Chances are, you aren’t going to make it!

(0:29:35) The elk slaughter (in Banff National Park) was the other aspect that brought wardens in from their districts (during the winter) and it lasted a couple of months, normally into the Christmas period, which was nice. Some of the wardens spent the winter in the bush. One of the wardens from Saskatchewan River Crossing dropped by in the wintertime in the early 1950s. He (and his wife) had snowshoed out and visited. We had dinner with them and she would say, “Would you ask my husband to pass the salt?” He would say “Yes, tell her to go easy on it, she shouldn’t use too much salt!” This was a three way conversation; they obviously weren’t talking to each other! Life out there…and for the woman in particular was difficult, because the men could snowshoe into town. Campbell ‘s wife, (Bobby) was one who used to snowshoe with him. Thirty miles (from Windy) they had to snowshoe in. They spent a winter out there. Once a month they put on their backpacks. We used to tell Gerry that his wife came out with the bigger backpack! But at any rate, there were wardens who wintered out (in the districts).