I was able to take part in a number of training schools with wardens in Glacier NP. One was a climbing school with Willi (Pfisterer) and the gang there. BJ (Al Bjorn) was working there at the time and others. It was a multi-day school. After a couple of days of rock climbing we got to train on heli-slinging. I’d done this training in Jasper and the thrill of flying at the end of a long line under a helicopter is indescribable. In one rescue scenario Al Bjorn – BJ – is slung onto a ledge on a rock face on Mt. Rodgers where he puts in protection and clips in his harness. I sling up next and the pilot swings me in close enough that I can get on the ledge with BJ. I clip into the protection and unclip from the long line. BJ and I get ready and the helicopter returns. He lowers us the hook on the long line. We clip into the hook and unclip from the protection and the pilot lifts both of us off the ledge and soaring past the Swiss Glacier and looking down at Rogers Pass far below. That’s when we hear in our headsets from the pilot “Don’t ask any questions. I have to put you guys down in the meadow right below us. As soon as you hit the ground unclip from the hook and run away from the machine. Stay away from the rear rotor. My cockpit is filling with smoke!” As he’s saying this we are rapidly descending. We hit the ground, unclip and run like hell away from the machine. The pilot sets down the machine. He hops out releasing a cloud of smoke from the cockpit. He has a fire extinguisher and runs to the front of the machine and flips the small hood panel. Small flames appear and he quickly douses them with extinguisher. Disaster averted. Turns out the helicopter has a dual battery system. One battery somehow caught fire but the other seems ok. After a bit the pilot decides to give it a go. He lifts up, we clip onto the long line hook and once more we are airborne and descend quickly to the helipad at Rogers Pass.
SH: Okay, I want to finish that question, how many different parks did you work in, how do they compare and do you have a favourite? So you worked with me in Glacier and there’s Pacific Rim in there so ….. (Section 1 Tape 17:03)
Bob: So Pacific Rim was the other. After that summer in Revelstoke, I lucked into a winter job at Rogers Pass so I went right from working the summer and into a winter job up at Rogers Pass.
There is a bit of a story on how I lucked into the winter position. It was good luck for me after bad luck for BJ. BJ was extended to work the winter at Rogers Pass but just before that position began there was the Jasper Rodeo. BJ and I both had some time off and had friends in Jasper. We headed off to the rodeo in September.
SH: In Jasper?
Bob: Yes, in Jasper. BJ entered in the saddle bronc riding event and he asked me to be in his bronc chute. He said, “You just need to tighten the cinches before they open the gate”. So I did that, and they blew the horn. And BJ went out of the gate, and that horse took two giant hops, and BJ went flying, and landed on his head and shoulder. I remember Tom Davidson was first aid. He went running out and obviously BJ was hurt. He grabbed BJ and they ran off and BJ went straight to the hospital. Hi shoulder was badly dislocated. The doctor put a giant pin in BJ’s shoulder and hooked him up morphine. That was the unfortunate end of the Jasper Rodeo for BJ and he couldn’t go back to work. I lucked into the winter extension at Rogers Pass to fill in for BJ. That was the first of my five winters in Rogers Pass. The next winter it became a winter seasonal. I started learning how to ski in the famous powder of Mt. Fidelity on 223cm Rossignol Allie Major skis with cable bindings and red leather Hanwag boots. I can’t say I really skied that much that first winter – I more fell down the slopes for most of the winter. By the spring though I could link a few turns. I became hooked on ski touring. My skills progressed each winter and I was in the place to learn about snow science, avalanches, and ski mountaineering with the tight knit group that worked at the Pass each winter. Bruce Mackinnon, ACPW, the legendary Gord Peyto and his dog Max, Glen Peers, Reg Bunyan, Alan Polster, Rick Holmes, the whole Snow Research and Avalanche Warning crew and the Schleiss Brothers and Paul Anhorn, Brent Benham and Terry Willis with NRC Snow Research section, you Sue and the Dispatch crew and all the people that lived the winters in Roger Pass. The Pass was often an intense place to work in the winter – huge storm cycles, back to back avalanche control shoots, vehicle accidents and occasionally even vehicle fires. The Warden Service roles included being the ambulance service, structural and vehicle fire department and law enforcers. We attended many vehicle accidents each winter. There were multi-car pileups during blizzards. I was called out once to a situation on Heather Hill during a blizzard and arrived to find 35 cars, trucks and semis spun out and tangled together like some surreal puzzle.
The next spring, 1981, I was offered a summer seasonal position at Pacific Rim National Park Reserve. I headed westward past Mt Revelstoke to another park that was completely unknown to me. Like Mt Revelstoke, I came to appreciate just how great a turn of events that was. For 3 years I had the best of 2 incredible worlds – winters and powder at Rogers pass. In the Spring I could do a last powder day, pack up and then the next day arrive at Pacific Rim and head out for a surf. 1981-1983 I was the Bamfield Warden working the West Coast Trail on foot and by zodiac. Days off were filled with hitting the surf and scuba diving. At work there was so much to learn about living, working and being safe in a completely new incredible environment. Rick Holmes and I both started at Pac Rim in 1981 and were both from the mountains. Rick worked the other end of the West Coast Trail at Port Renfrew. There were just the 2 of us for the West Coast Trail. We each had a 13.5 ft MKII zodiac for patrolling the coastline of the Graveyard of the Pacific always on the lookout for injured West Coast Trail hikers waving at us to get assistance. We learned how to surf land our zodiac to get ashore and we’d sometimes have to evacuate people by zodiac. It wasn’t that easy to just see someone and go directly to them. There were only some places you might surf land and each spot could only safely be used at the certain tides and below certain swell heights. It took many years to learn the skills to work the coastline to some degree of safety. There were quite a number of close calls that provided unforgettable lessons. Rick and I would only see each other occasionally on the water and sometimes for land patrols. We each had a parks radio that we could only use to communicate with if we had an unobstructed line of sight within 15 miles or so. There were no repeaters for the West Coast Trail area.
There was some time each season at the Long Beach Unit of the park when we’d get to work or train with the other wardens like – Scott Ward, Dan Vedova, Glen Peers, Randy Chisholm, Bill Smith, Pat Sheehan, Gordon Bonwick, Evan Manners and our main mentor Gord McClain. Mac Elder was Chief Park Warden and the Superintendent was former Park Warden George Camp. Mac Elder would often say to us” You young guys don’t know what a day of work is – you’re just busy pursuing your hobbies!” which at times seemed true. We were getting paid to work the incredible West Coast Trail and Broken Group Islands, taught how to surf by the park Surfguards so we could do surf rescues, trained in operating various kinds of boats in all conditions, scuba diving and on and on. It was at the Rim that we came up with the idea of Decadent Tours and the Fun Hawgs t-shirt that some will know. The combination of working and playing in Rogers Pass in the winter and the Rim in the summer was incredible.
SH: Do you have a favourite? They were quite different Parks you worked in.
Bob: No I just can’t say I had a favourite really. I couldn’t have enjoyed the Parks I worked at any more. It was always exceptional places to live and work, and incredible people to work with. The work was rewarding and challenging but like you say, each place was so different, so I couldn’t really say I had a favourite. (Tape 20:43)
SH: What were some of your main responsibilities over the years? (Section 2 Tape 0018)
Bob: Well I count myself as fortunate in that a major proportion of my career was working as a generalist Park Warden. What that meant is I had the opportunity to work and develop skills and capabilities for a whole range of responsibilities. That made the job incredibly fascinating. It was never dull. Over the majority of my career I really embraced the idea of being a generalist and tried my hardest to be as good as I could be at every aspect of the job. Whether it was law enforcement, or wildlife management, or fire management or avalanche control, public safety, environmental assessment, I really tried to do my best in all of those roles, and I did get to work in all of those roles.
As you know at Rogers Pass that had some roles that other parks didn’t have like being the ambulance service for highway accidents and running the magnetometer for searches for vehicles caught in avalanches.
The Warden Service was set up that if you were keen and you were willing to put in some of your own time as well, you really could work your way up in terms of your abilities. You could take advantage of all the training that was always going on, whether it was in park, or at a regional school or even occasionally a national school. There was always opportunities to keep training and to become more skilled and more confident. I was able over the years to eventually work in all aspects of Warden operations.
In 1984 I transferred back to Jasper from Pacific Rim and landed another season of backcountry work as the Brazeau District warden on the South Boundary. That was a great return to the mountains. I missed the West Coast but it was also great to be back and reconnect with friends, co-workers and the Rockies. The Jasper adventures resumed. I worked a couple of years of high-use area law enforcement and received great training and experience in this role. We had a good team led by Al Stendie, my old boss from Maligne, and we did our best to be professional and effective in protecting the park and people.
In the late 80’s I joined Brian Wallace’s Fire and Vegetation Management Shop in the old Resource Building at the Warden Office on the Maligne River. This was a completely new role which always made for challenges and rewards. Different parts of the operation included wildfire suppression training and preparedness, initial attack, prescribed burning, vegetation management, fire history research. Brian ran a tight operation and ensured that everyone progressed in terms of skill and experience. Fire Management in National Parks was getting a lot of attention and the work of Brian’s team in Jasper and Cliff White’s in Banff were breaking a lot of new ground. At that time there was concern from the provincial forest services about those first big prescribed burns in those National Parks. The Fire/Veg position was a summer seasonal role. I was able to spend 2 winters on avalanche control – one on the team at Marmot and another doing control along the Banff-Jasper Parkway out of Sunwapta Warden Station. I enjoyed avalanche control work to the extent that I took a winter away from Jasper to be part of the BC Provincial Control Team for the first winter the Coquihalla Highway was open. After that winter and an offer of a fulltime position with the province I returned to the Warden Service.
Towards the end of the 80’s I landed what was for me a dream assignment with Wes Bradford’s Wildlife Shop. Wes and Rick Ralf knew I had a real passion for wildlife work. My new winter role was to lead the park’s winter operations for the Greater Jasper Ecosystem Mountain Caribou Study led by biologist Kent Brown. There had been a documented decline in the park caribou population and this was an initiative to investigate their ecology and possible causes. In the early winter there was the capture and collaring of caribou and aerial census surveys. Over the remainder of the winter I, together with other wardens and volunteers, collected a variety of field data. There were road and aerial surveys to track collared animals. Some transects were completed by skidoo, snowshoe or with skis with backcountry cabins as staging points. Caribou tracks and carnivores tracks were all documented, snow profiles were done, pellets and scats were collected, predator and highway kills investigated. The days tended to be long and cold but 4 winters flew by.
In 1990 my new wife Adrienne Mason obtained her dream job as the Public Education Coordinator at the Bamfield Marine Station. She could not pass on that opportunity and as luck would have it my old position of Bamfield Warden has just become vacant. The stars had aligned and we both could move into great jobs in the hamlet of Bamfield – population 170. The job at Bamfield Marine Station (BMS) was everything Adrienne had hoped for. I was able to rejoin Rick Holmes as part of the West Coast Trail Warden Team. Rick now had a team of 3 at Port Renfrew and there was myself to cover the west end of the trail from Bamfield.
(Rick spent his entire career, aside from 3 winters in Rogers Pass, at Pacific Rim. He ran the Port Renfrew operation until his retirement which I think must have been around 35 years)
It was like old times only now the number of hiker evacuations per year had grown. The emphasis on search and rescue had grown but so had the training, equipment (rigid hull zodiacs) and overall capabilities. I worked on the West Coast Trail from 1991 – 1993 when I moved into the much sought after Broken Group Islands Warden position. The Broken Group Islands is a bit of paradise and working out of the floating Sitka Warden cabin completed it. Each summer from 1994 – 1996 I’d be teamed up with another warden and we’d cover the Broken Group Islands 7 days a week from May to November. Therese Cochlin and Rundi Anderson were two great partners in the Broken Group Islands. In the winters of these years I set up Pacific Rim National Park Rreserve’s GIS and Data Management program after going back to school at BCIT for GIS training. Towards the later part of my career I moved out of the backcountry and into a more specialized role at Pacific Rim. I was assigned the role of Human-Wildlife Conflict Specialist when they first created that position in 1997. I was able to do that until I finished my career. Once again I was able to return to my particular interest in wildlife but this time it was in a full-time capacity.
Even in that specialist role I continued to be a generalist to some extent. Working in a small park, you can be a specialist, but when stuff happens everyone has to come together and work as a team to carry off the response. I never totally stepped away from being a generalist. I and all the wardens worked at keeping up our search and rescue skills, first aid skills, backcountry and boating skills, shooting skills, etc. Several of us were designated Search Managers both on the job and as volunteers with West Coast Inland Search and Rescue. (Section 2 – 04:30)
SH: Yes, you had a good career that way for sure. What did you like about being a Warden? What didn’t you like about being a Warden?
Bob: I really liked being in all those different roles over the years. It was always exciting to be pushing the envelope on yourself. That was something that I realized very early on. The very first summer as a patrolman, and the first climbing school with Willi, is that I was going to be pushed to find out what I was capable of, both physically and mentally. That was how the organization ran. You always were expected to give your best and more, and that was always a given, whatever the role was. And whether you knew how to do that role or not you better soon learn.
I remember when I was working at Rogers Pass. I’d go to Jasper on my days off. One winter I was volunteering at Marmot with the Avalanche Control team – Rick West, and Darro Stinson, and Marv Millar were up there. At the end of one shift, they’d swept the mountain and it was just Rick West down at the bottom and myself left up on top at the hut. Rick called on the radio, “I need you to bring the double track skidoo down the mountain to the bottom here.” And I said, “Well I’ve never driven a double track”. And he said “Well now’s a good time to learn. Be down here in ten minutes. This is how you turn it on.” So that was often … you sort of had to jump into different tasks. What I learned was that you really learned about yourself and that really helped build your confidence in your own capabilities and how to problem solve and how to work yourself through situations. That was quite a gift that you could apply in all parts of your life, but it was absolutely essential in your career. The other special part of the organization was that you went through everything with the other wardens. You worked together on prescribed burns, clearing trail, putting up phone line, climbing mountains, searching for and recovering bodies, ski-touring across icefields, patrolling the backcountry on horseback for boundary patrol, extracting a patient from a vehicle at a car accident, ski cutting an avalanche slope, searching in a storm for a missing boater, handling a darted bear, etc.
Partners and families were also part of the organization, particularly if they lived on a Warden Station. And then there was the social aspect – station bbqs, Warden Days, the Warden Cup, the Dead Head Room at the Atha-B…
The bonds formed through these experiences were strong.
SH: Good answer. So what didn’t you like about being a Warden?
Bob: There were ups and downs. When I first went into the backcountry in Blue Creek, with Brian Wallace, as a rookie, novice backcountry warden, it was right after the experiment with centralization at that point in time. So the backcountry had sort of fallen into …. had been neglected. They pulled the backcountry wardens out of the districts for I think it was five years at that point. Not surprisingly, the districts had all fallen into disrepair. Trees down, fences down, and cabins in bad shape, dirty campsites with lots of garbage. So, going into the backcountry that summer, it was really discouraging to see how this ill-conceived idea had played out. I heard lots from the older wardens about this being a crazy idea in the first place. Then, over the years there would be these sort of ups and downs where different things were tried and sometimes it really made you wonder where these ideas came from. So at times you were left wondering what’s happening and why? But as an organization you took the hand you were dealt and you made the best of it, even if you didn’t understand the why’s and wherefores.
I think in the latter part of my career, the amount of time that was being required to be in the office, I had growing responsibilities in the latter part of the career, but it just seemed like for everyone, the amount of time that was required to be spent in the office was ever increasing and the ability to be out in the park, knowing and protecting your park, and working in your park and keeping your skills up, and keeping your ability to respond to any and all situations was getting more difficult to pull off.
