I’ll tell you one story…I was law enforcement for a while. That was when Peter Whyte was here. I can’t remember who else… (I think) Peter Enderwick was seasonal. The first memorable law enforcement moment I recall was when the warden office was above the pool. Above the pool you could have a great view of the hot springs. So we had a telescope to look at the goings on down there. So, Hans Fuhrer was looking in the scope and there was a guy wandering around swimming and he has his trunks off to one side and a great big erection and he’s playing with himself, masterbating. Hans says, “Jesus Christ!” So then, the next day we had (this was on the weekend) Peter Whyte had a warden meeting at the warden office. Hans said he had seen this guy. All those young guys are looking (through the scope) and see this guy. They say to Peter Whyte, “You got to do something about this! You have got to do something about this guy!” I went down there and looked at him, and sure enough he’s got is penis in his hand. I am looking around trying to figure out what this guy is doing. Is he looking at women, or men, or kids or whatever eh. So the next day on the Tuesday I called the RCMP in Radium. I said to Pat Ingram (the R.C.M.P. officer), “Pat there’s some guy down here masterbating in the pool!” He says, “I’m coming right up.” It’s early in the morning, abut the time they are just opening the pool. So he says “What’s going on here? What does this guy look like? I say, “He’s a fairly swarthy guy and looks like he has got maybe a 2-3 day (growth of) beard on. So he goes to the hot pool – he knew about the scope eh. He looked down there through the scope and sure enough. He says, “Byron, come with me!” So we jumped in the squad car and whipped around down in the pool he says, “Cranbrook dispatch. 18-Alpha-1. The woman in Cranbrook disbatch responds, “Go ahead 18 Alpha 1.” And he says, “Cst. Ingram here. We are going down to the hot springs to check on a masterbater.” (There’s) Silence on the other end (and) I am laughing so bad eh. She says 10-9. And Pat said, “You heard me!” She says, 10-4 and shut things down at the other end (dispatch end). So we go down and Pat says, “I’ll go up above and I’ll call the guy over. You go down to the pool and make sure he gets in there.” So I go down and I could see Pat up on the top there. And I could see the guy (in the pool). And Pat is indicating to (the guy) to go to me. And I see the guy swimming towards me. I thinking, “What the hell am I going to do here?” I said, “Pat! Pat! Please.” So Pat comes down just in time to get the guy. We get him in the change rooms there and Pat right away starts in on him….”You’ve been seen masterbating in the pool!” And going on like this eh. “We are going to put you on some kind of a list of perverts. Pat is pretty upset by this time and the guy is giving him a hard time… he was an eastern European or something. So the guys says, “Officer, I got an allergy, I got itch. I got itch.” He had an itch alright! (Laughs.) So he says, “Thank you officer! Thank you!” And he reaches over and to shake Pat’s hand and Pat takes it eh. That guy had his penis in that hand just 10 minutes before. As soon as I see that and he goes to shake my hand, (no way) I am gone; I’m out of there! Pat comes ripping out of the change room and he wipes his hand on my back and says, “You Bastard!” So I laughed. That was quite a story.
Stevie: I do have to say that you were involved in much more sophisticated and complex law enforcement issue than the masterbater. When you and (Peter) Enderwick got that bull elk poacher. That was a major thing. That was one of the first ones (poaching investigations). But another thing that Byron did during the last part of his career was actively involved in recruitment of aboriginals for the warden service. And weren’t you the first aboriginal park warden?
Byron: They had hired some guy in Waterton.
Stevie: At the same time as you?
Byron: No, way back in the 1920s or something.
Stevie: The aboriginal recruitment program was significant. There was Byron, ? Courmier and one other person.
Rod: You did that for a number of years didn’t you?
Byron: There are remnants of some of them still around. Patrick ?, Archie H., Shawn MacKenzie.
Rod: Obviously somebody recognized your skills with working with people and trying to convince them of the value of national parks. Also working both in the bush and all that experience you had really helped you to kind of familiarize people with what is involved with working with parks.
Byron: It really did.
Stevie: And the other thing too, he was a really good spokesperson for the program. And the program existed not too recruit them as permanent employees, but as a way for them to see if this is a career path they wanted to go down. And because Byron had had a successful career, – not that he was symbolic as an aboriginal warden, but … and so it was good. And we had some successes and we had some failures.
Byron: We knew that it was going to be a tough sled in terms of a cross-cultural thing. At that time, you know, it was a political decision by the Manitoba chiefs so there was a lot of resistance to start with. Finally, they said , “You guys do it.” There was a little bit of institutional reluctance. Our thought was the interview team (determined that) #1. To make sure that you hire someone who is able to withstand that resistance or bias and that sort of thing. There was a few people with a BSc. They may have gotten chopped up and thrown out right? We also thought if nothing else, they would (be trained to) know about national parks and become a sort of an advocate for what national parks were all about. Also, it helped them to (go on to) something else. It could be a little stepping stone (to go on) And (as it turned out) quite a few of them went to other agencies such as the Canadian Wildlife Service, and other agencies.
Rod: It would sure make them diversified to enable them to go on to other things beyond parks.
Byron: Yes. We knew Carmen Callahoo wasn’t going to do too much with the warden service so she went on and found a real nice niche in Canadian Wildlife Service.
Rod: I think that is a significant contribution to national parks. To bridge that gap and try to provide an opportunity for more native people to be involved in parks. That is no small task. That is a real significant contribution.
Stevie: And one thing – remember in the 70s when we had the conservation corps camps – that was in your portfolio for a while.
Byron: I had a lot of experience with young people. And it helps along the way.
Rod: Tell me about that elk poaching.
Byron: Well it was Thanksgiving. I can’t recall the year. And we always had elk poaching (occurring) in the park – Kootenay Crossing. And so, this one morning I was Duty Warden so I did my usual route up to Marble (Canyon) and looked around. On the way there I see ravens in the bush at Settler’s Road. So I stopped and sure enough I could see down below there is a gut pile. Somebody had poached an elk. By that time I had taken the law enforcement training so I knew to protect the crime scene and all that kind of thing. I kind of stepped down there and sure enough I also found some Twinings tea (bags) right around the site (the crime scene). The poachers had had a cup of tea. You know Twinings tea! I came back out and I called another warden to bring the metal detector, camera etc. – we had a kit eh. We found a 7×64 cartridge along the road. It (the elk) was killed by a 7×64 cartridge. I knew the Conservation Officer, Buzz Herschwood, and these people had allowed Buzz to have this nice log cabin down there. So we did our crime scene thing and did all the stuff we had to do there. I went down to see Buzz. I said, “Buzz, we had an elk poached up in the park.” He says, “Oh yeah?” I said, “It is a 7×64 cartridge.” I had put it in a plastic bag. He said, “Byron, let’s go”. So I jumped in the vehicle with him and we went to all the hunting camps eh. And we were looking for a 7×64 (rifle). We went down Settlers Road and there is all kinds of places and it took all day.
And then Buzz says, “Geez, I had these guys come down. There was a Swiss guy, a French guy from France and the French guy’s uncle-in-law, his wife’s uncle. They went down to see Buzz and (Buzz said) they were doing all this stuff with him. And (they) even had handcuffs put on Buzz. They were taking pictures of Buzz with Buzz’s handcuffs on and all this stuff. And I said, “Oh yeah. Sounds interesting.” So we went to all the (hunting) camps and we stopped the odd vehicle. That is an unusual caliber 7×64. (We found) Nothing.
And we sort of forgot about those three guys. So then, Woledge met a carpenter in the park, kind of a general works (fellow), who was a gun nut. I went down to where he lived and I said, “Willy, what do you make of this 7×64 cartridge? He said, “That is a European cartridge.” And so I called Buzz and asked him if he could meet me in Radium. This was 8 or 9 at night, or whatever it was. I said to him, “You know Buzz, this is a European cartridge. Do you think it could be those guys that came and seen you?” He had shared drinks with them and everything. He said, “Geez Byron, I don’t think so. I don’t know.” Just at that time – serendipity – he gets a call from a Conservation Officer in Kamloops. Meanwhile, those guys (the suspects) had gone through a roadblock in Kamloops – sheer luck, sheer luck!
(They were interrogated about the game in their possession). They said to talk to Buzz. They (Conservation Officers) said to Buzz, “We got these guys!”. Buzz had made a few errors there. They had a goat and they didn’t have a permit for that area, and they also had a bull elk on board eh. So, the guys asked them what were the calibers (of their rifles) and sure enough 7×64. So, I called Peter Enderwick in Banff and I called (Peter) Whyte and told them what was going on as I had connected up a few dots here. We knew where these guys were living. Buzz had said the one guy had a pension
at Whistler. (A pension hotel is usually not a boarding house, but is a real hotel. A pension hotel provides rooms with no or few amenities. They usually have private bathrooms with showers. … European pension hotels may offer a bed in a room shared with others and the bathroom may be a communal one.). We managed to get one address. They guys got charged. The one guy got charged with having a goat without a permit for that particular area. We had this one address. (Peter) Enderwick had gone to school with a lady conservation officer out of Squamish. So he calls her up. The one guy (suspect) is a ski instructor. So she posed as a person wanting ski lessons. So she went up to all these guys and said she’d like to get some ski lessons. They said “Sure No problem.” We knew that they were all back in Whistler.
I booked some flights and got some money for travelling money. I said, “Pete, I’ll fly out of Cranbrook and I’ll meet you in Vancouver.” I rented a small little Toyota or some damn thing. Never rent (a vehicle) if you are on a poaching investigation. Never do that. So we go up (to Whistler) and we found out where everybody lived. We had to go to the J.P. (Justice of the Peace) and get search warrants and all that. We convinced her that we had a case there. Enderwick and I – we got a RCMP and a Conservation Officer with each of us. We made simultaneous visits and sure enough…he had elk in his place, and Jacques Moran was French so the one officer could speak French and he knew him. I said, “Jacques would you mind talking to me (someplace) away from your family?” (At this point) we are in his house already. And he says, “Yeah, let’s go down in the basement.” Why he would take me down to the basement I have no idea. I did not have a uniform then because the airline had lost it along with my luggage. So, I just had civvies on and I explained (to him) who I was and what was going on. I said to him, “Jacques, listen, there’s these guys who poached this elk.” Jacques says, “Oh Yeah?” And right by where I was standing leaning against the wall, right there on one of the shelves was a 7×64 box of shells. I said, “Jacques, they shot it with a 7×64. It doesn’t look good Jacques. I knew you guys were there. I am going to have to seize this gun.” So I seized the gun. I said, “Would you mind coming down to the RCMP (detachment) and talking to us?” He said, “Yeah, no problem.” Jacques was kind of an arrogant bugger eh, and he likely thought “I can handle this guy eh!” So he said, “Yeah, I’ll come down.” And of course he knew the RCMP officers so he was quite comfortable. So he went down and (the other suspect) the other guy would not even talk to Enderwick. But Enderwick did seize the elk. Enderwick is very good at interrogation and interviews. And that god damned guy… Enderwick worked on him for almost two hours or more and he wasn’t getting anywhere. I am writing all this stuff down that Jacques was saying. And Enderwick says to me – he was getting pretty frustrated – “Byron, do you have anything to add here?” “Yes” I said, And I said to Jacque, “I came in on this investigation and I said I was there (at the scene of the poaching) and there were some 7×64 casings there, some Twinings tea. And in the meantime, we’d gone to their campsite and sure enough there were about 20 tea bags at their campsite.” I said, “Jacques, you got a great little family up here, your wife and little kids eh. ….in my investigation…I kind of puffed it up a little bit (to get him thinking about the impact on his family and status in the community – I don’t know what is going to happen here but as soon as you go through that door of the Interrogation Room I don’t know what is going to happen.” I said, “Let’s go Peter.” Peter and I stood up and he says, “Gentlemen, gentlemen. Sit down.” And he said, “Yes, we did it.” And so he wrote all the stuff down in French. His statement is in French…more or less a confession. I said we’d recopy it (translate it). His ass was hardly out of that door and Enderwick was so happy, he was almost hugging and kissing me. He says, “Byron, right on!” I said, “Take is easy.” “Let’s see where this goes?”
So we package up this damn elk; we quartered him. I contacted the air lines and we put old sleeping bags on the antler tines, ducted tape them – all little silver balls – put the whole elk in that little wee car eh. Two hindquarters, and two frontquarters and the head was sticking out of the trunk. We are going down the Squamish highway and people are waving at us. (laughs) Peter and I are just laughing away eh. We go into the airport and went into Cargo and I said, “This thing has to be there to preserve continuity of evidence. I am flying to Cranbrook, I said, “This thing has to be with me.” So I fly to Cranbrook and looking at the (cargo) trollies and there is no frickin’ elk. I thought, “What is going on?” I said, “Do you have an elk on board?” “Nope!” You’ll have to call those guys over there. They will fly it on the next L10-11 flight to Calgary.” And I think that Ivan Phillips went in and picked it up and took it to the freezer locker at Lake Louise Warden Office. We seized the gun; it was a Mannlicher 7×64 – a very expensive gun. We had the big trial (and) both were convicted. But it was $500 fine for all that ruckus and he lost his Mannlicher. That was before the fines were increased to big fines. So, that was kind of my big.
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