(1:01:15) I moved to Banff after my experiences in Yoho. Steve Kun was the Superintendent and when I went to do my interview, they asked “What are you going to do to organize centralization?” I told them, “The District Wardens in particular have responsibility, and authority with that responsibility, and about 90% (of the wardens) took great pride in their district. It wasn’t the Park’s district, it was their district and they really looked after it.” If I can remember my quote exactly I said, “When you make everybody responsible for everything, it means nobody is responsible for anything.” The only way we can do it is, they are not going to be responsible by area, so we will make them responsible for various aspects. Public safety, backcountry preservation, and protection etc.” But, I said, “What I need is all wardens to remain wardens, but they are assigned to an Assistant Chief Warden who is responsible for them and that way all of them that are working for him and feel they have responsibility as well, and we can rotate them.” Because for example when they get up in their forties they start thinking twice about going up there and climbing around the rocks and taking a risk. Even in the backcountry, the younger guys were capable of doing it, but it was a lot harder on them. At any rate, he (Steve Kun) agreed with me and that was the basis he hired me. When he hired me he said, “You set up your organization. If you think you need four Assistants, fine. If you need six, fine. You get it set up and organized.” I was just really, really fortunate to have Steve Kun. Steve Kun started as a warden. He certainly was not the best liked Superintendent, but he was probably the most competent.

(1:05:04) Then Headquarters for the wardens…I brought them all in and I gave them what had been the Department of Public Works kitchen and a bunkhouse down in the compound. The kitchen and the dining hall were given over as the warden’s headquarters. They had a piece of plywood laid on a cook stove that was one of the desks. They had the big tables for the dining area and they had chairs and that was pretty well it. They pushed the chairs together waiting for coffee time! Anyhow the morale system was about the same (in Banff), well, not as bad as it was in Yoho. So, anyhow I arranged to have Peter Whyte transfer in. Peter was very new on the Warden Service, but I had him as a warden in Yoho and Tim Auger the same thing. I said, “We have vacancies and they should transfer in.” And they agreed. It was a great help to get them. Keith (Everts) came in about that time too and his background in (avalanches work) was useful.

(1:06:59) I spent a month and a half in Glacier there when Walter died. They sent me over there to learn avalanche control . I had Freddy (Schleiss) and Peter Schaerer, and Willi Pfisterer (for teachers). Those three, boy they are the top!

(1:07:38) I can remember one funny one that Pfisterer came out with. We were out working on snow pits. Willi was over my shoulder checking everything. He said, “Freddy doesn’t look at this stuff for information, he looks at it for mistakes.” That whole relationship between Peter Schaerer, Freddy Schleiss and Willi out there was really something! Anyhow that teaching was really, really great. What I learned about the seat of the pants practical aspect from Walter, it was great too.

(1:08:27) I was able to get some good people in. Kutzer’s background was RCMP, so for law enforcement, he liked it and he was good at it. For the environmental aspect, a place where we were weak, Peter Whyte was the one who really filled in that. I had a heck of a lot of really good men. Then we got that system going and it worked. It worked quite well. They were my Lieutenants and, Dale Loewan in Lake Louise, and Billy Vroom in Banff were my Sergeants. That was basically to ensure that the guys learned the horse work. But also learned how to care for them and look after horses, as well as, just throwing a saddle on them and riding. Those two were both top horse people and good mountain travelers. That part worked quite well.

(1:10:08) That system was working and then I unfortunately had Tommy Ross as an Assistant Superintendent. He (Tommy Ross) came in after (Steve Kun) and he was not really warden oriented, to say the least. I never did find out what happened…Tommy Ross had a falling out with the Warden Service when he was in Waterton. He just basically had a hatred for the Warden Service. When I pointed out that this headquarters in Banff was not adequate, his thing was that all they needed was a place to write up their diaries. Send them out on patrols let them come back in and write up their diaries. I turned around and I drew up an elaborate plan using the kitchen building as the base, what I needed for partitions. It even had such things as a drafting room. They were pushing very strong at this time on getting this Park inventoried. I wanted the rescue equipment out of stores and into the hands of the wardens. I exaggerated it. I thought I am going to get cut back so I’ll lay this out just as the ideal that we could have. I had this all drawn out on a big huge piece of paper that I could hang up. They sent a couple of guys up from Region who were architect types who could look at the building and that. The building suited us. Tommy Ross was there and he didn’t see any reason for doing anything. We could move over to the Store’s Building and they had an extra office there and we could use that. I had my little pointer, pointing out to these guys what the areas were and what we needed them for. Steve Kun came and stood in the doorway and he must have caught some of it, what was going on, a little dissent on getting practically anything! At any rate, he came over and he took the pointer out of my hand, turned around to the guys from Region and he said, “I want this, I want this, I want this…” Then he just laid the pointer down and walked out. So that was it, we ended up with a pretty good space. Not as elaborate as we’ve got today, but it was certainly elaborate compared to what we had!