Andy Anderson

(0:31:37) Because of my skiing and avalanche stuff, I was able to be in (Banff or Lake Louise) for most of the winters. I got married later. At that time I was in the Cyclone district, and we (Barb and Andy) were going together. She (Barb) was a Home Economist. She taught the natives up at Fort St. John. She had them throw out all the gas stoves and the refrigerators and all the rest of it, and she told the girls that she was teaching, “You are going to teach me how you cook, and how you use wood stoves, and how you keep things refrigerated.” Because it was stupid to be teaching them with all the modern equipment when they would be going back out to their homes (in the bush). That sort of gave her a very good preparation for the warden life! She just looked at it as a good challenge to be out there and to live the life her parents and grandparents lived. She really loved the backcountry! At that time too, like with the rules and that sort of thing, she would be there by herself for several days. Occasionally she traveled with me. But a lot of the times she was on her own.

(0:33:34) I had an interesting incident while I was out there at Cyclone. Climbers were injured and suspended on a sheer face. We had fortunately, just previous to that, got cable equipment for rescue work. Walter called me at Cyclone to come in. When he called me it was just about dark, and he wanted me to be in there for an early 5:00 am start. That rescue is well written up in Kathy’s book (Kathy Calvert and Dale Portman’s book, Guardians of the Peaks) At any rate, when I was (getting ready to go) the horses were all out in the pasture, (so I took) the (nearest) colt (which was the one) that bucked Barb off actually. He was sort of still a pet around the cabin, so I took him, saddled up and rode out. I rode out in the dark and it was one of those real pitch black nights, no stars, no moon, no nothing to light the way. I really should have got my good saddle horse because he had done a fair amount of riding in the dark. The colt was pretty nervous! We were just going up the trail between Baker Lake and Ptarmigan Lake, and in the pitch black we ran into a grizzly bear! It let out a woof and it sounded like it was maybe ten feet away. I never did see it of course, but it let out a woof, and if a person has never seen a bear, or heard a bear, or knew nothing about bears, they would know something big was out there! Anyhow the colt spooked and jumped to one side and down we went over the embankment. It was all scree and big jagged rocks. The only thing I could do was keep as good of a balance as I could keep, so the horse didn’t lose its balance. We got down to the bottom okay and then I had to ride out and come back up the trail again. When we got to that hill, I assumed the bear had just turned around and took off in the other direction. We got up into that area and that colt was pretty nervous, and I was a little nervous myself! We got through all right and got to the cabin and corral out at Temple. Then I could go on the rescue. Unfortunately, what I didn’t know was the horse had hurt his foot on some of the jagged rock. A week later, I had to take him to the ranch and the vet came to put him down. It was one of the times I left Barb behind…That was one of the adventures out there!

(0:38:15) Incidentally, (another adventure) was when we were out at Cyclone and we had to get Barb in after her fall. It turned out that she had a crushed vertebra and she couldn’t ride. For the rest of the summer she recuperated at the cabin at Temple. There was a little cabin at Temple, but the main cabin was at Cyclone, that was 12 miles in. What we would do was, we could get our supplies and I’d start packing up and she would take off hiking… That area was very prominent for grizzlies, not as much as the Cascade, but there were a lot of grizzlies in that area, good habitat. I always told her to make noise. Don’t sneak up on them. As long as they (the bears) know that you are coming they will get out of your way. So she used to be hiking up over the Ptarmigan Pass singing! I told everybody that all summer long, I’d follow her, it would take me about an hour to get packed and everything. As I rode all I’d ever seen was the tail ends of grizzlies! I’m not sure, but I think it was her singing! I never used to catch up to her, until she got to the other side. She hiked that back and forth so many times. It (hiking) was the best thing she could have been doing (to strengthen her back).

(0:40:35) Then I got transferred into Lake Minnewanka, as a District Warden. (Paul) Kutzer was my Assistant for quite a while there. It was quite a nice district. When they were doing our collective bargaining, I got this second hand of course, the person who was representing the park was an ex-superintendent … and he used Minnewanka as an example (of how good the wardens had it). “The wardens can drive into the grocery store, faster than I can in the city. They have nice homes. They got a stable of horses, if they want to go riding. They have a nice big boat on Lake Minnewanka if they want to go boating.” He used Minnewanka as an example, (because) Minnewanka was one of the better outlying districts!

(0:42:13) Ed Carleton, partly because of his military background, partly because he was a tall, good looking warden who always wore his uniform just impeccably, (was chosen to escort an East Indian Dignitary around Banff National Park). He was the picture of what all the wardens should look like…They came out to Minnewanka and I took them out on Peachy, which was a big 40 foot wooden boat. Actually, it was a big well built boat, but it was not very fast. We had a garage for it, a floating boathouse. It just fit nicely into it. There was a walkway all around (the boathouse). You had to go in fast (when you were parking the boat) because if you went in too pokey and slowly you lost it…as you approached it, (the boathouse) looked smaller and smaller…I was coming in just a little faster than I normally would…and it had a great big lever…that was the reverse lever. At any rate, when I would run in and just as the nose got inside the thing, I would reverse it and get it in there. I reversed it and the lever flopped over and all I could do was shut off the motor and wait, and we hit the end of that thing! The walkway was planks of two by eights. It was sturdy, but it only put a slight dent in the front of the boat…There was quite a stairway up to where the vehicle was and he (the East Indian dignitary) just went booming up! He got out of there in about 30 seconds! Ed was standing there, and Ed turned around to me and he said, “Young man, do you always dock that way?” At that point ,I thought there is no use in trying to make explanations!