Byron and Stevie Irons

Rod: You did one heck of a job by the sound of it.

Byron: Yeah, everything kind of came.

Stevie: I remember Enderwick cheered. Those were in the days before you swiped your credit card – remember the old Chargex days? Wherever Byron went to the Lookout and he hauled all the garbage out and he went through all of those chargex slips to try to find their names. I remember he did that.

Byron: I did that all the way down to Canal Flats.

Rod: It sounds like you did a real thorough job.

Byron: That part of law enforcement I liked. The business of interviewing and confronting and all this stuff, that part was a little uncomfortable but we did it.

Stevie: And really, you and Enderwick complimented each other because you have two different styles but it was a good combination.

Byron: I almost kind of puffed myself up as a bit of a hero by out-crafting this guy but Peter Enderwick kind of wore him out (through interrogation) and then I stepped in and he kind of confessed.

Stevie: You were the closer.

Byron: I remember Boychuk telling me once “The whole class goes through that door into the unknown. So I puffed up and turned the heat up on old Jacques….referring to ‘your little family and your respect in the community’….I turned it up eh. And he was going to lose all that so he crumbled. He got $500 (fine) and lost his gun. And that damn elk was going to Germany.

Stevie: I just have one question and I asked you this before. Who was your favourite Chief Park Warden that you worked for?

Photo courtesy of Larry Halvorson.

Byron: I think PJ! Perry Jacobson.

Rod: He is quite respected, that is for sure.

Rod: One more question about your backcountry experience in Kootenay. Were you in charge of the conservation corp ? You had lots of experience with different groups of people.

Byron: And trails too.

Stevie: When you are backcountry that was when you put in some back country campsites.

Byron: I remember Neil Wolege telling me to take these guys up to Fay Hut. So I had two girls, Robbie Klettl (Toni Klettl’s son) was with that crew eh. And so, off we go up to Fay Hut. We got all the stuff, backpacks and we are well provisioned and all this. Neil said, “We are going to haul you out in three days.” And of course the radio was never very great up there. We go up there and on the way there, there’s the 2 girls and 2 boys, and it is a long way to Fay Hut. We come around this little bend and there were two girls, beautiful blonde girls, and they were topless. The guys (eyes pop out) and the one girl says your only going to see for a few seconds so everybody stepped off the trail so we watch these girls go by. Those 16 and 17 years olds, they thought, “Holy Mackerel, this is a wonderful job!” So we go up to Fay Hut and that Robbie Klettl sexually pestered those girls all night. All I could hear all night was “Robbie! Robbie!” (laughs) And those girls they sunbathed in the nude up there. And they got all sunburned. They were all red and they’re naked eh. Robbie was rubbing their ass and it was just bright red eh. The guys are saying, “Look”, and I am not wanting to get into this eh. The girls in those days, Holy Mackerel! They were rubbing suntan lotion or whatever they were rubbing into their butts and back and legs.

Rod: Well, that is something we had to deal with in all parks. The days when people were free camping. That was a big deal in Jasper, Banff as well. Was there something like that in Kootenay – a free camp at any point?

Byron: No.

Byron: Woledge one time, he said, “Byron, you go to do all the inventory in these cabins.” This was the middle of winter. He said, “Well I get Jim Davies in here.” So we flew into Floe Lake. You’ve got to count every cotton pickin’ thing – spoons and everything else. My first backcountry trip with Woledge, my first trip ever on a frickin’ horse. Woledge says, “Meet me at Numa Falls. Bring your horse.” We get in there and I picked old Star up, and he had a great big appaloosa horse. So off we went. It’s the first time I’ve ever been on a horse in the backcountry, and that frickin’ Star would fall asleep while that other horse was a hell of a walker eh. And old Star would perk up and go like this (indicating Star trotting to catch up?) all day. So we go up to Numa (Pass) and Neil he had to go around a deadfall and the horse fell through a big boulder that had moss all over it (and got stuck). Neil is shouting “Get up!” , he’s kicking the horse and yelling and shouting. I said, “Neil, let’s try something else.” Finally, we rolled the horse out of there. He looked the horse over, got back on the horse, and off we went again. Went over Numa Pass and down below…and he says, “Byron, this is where I am going to put the cabin.

He said, “What do you think?” I said, “Oh. Well you’ve got water there – it is my first trip in the mountains. I said, “Yeah, you got a nice meadow here and all this stuff.” So, Neil says, “Okay, we are going to build it.” He built the frickin’ cabin there. (Later) Dave Cardinal and I went in there and kind of winterized the place and we put flags up and lucky we put flags up, surveyor’s tape. (Later that winter) we fly up there and we try and go over Numa Pass and a hell of a bounce in wintertime. Scared the shit out of Davies, and scared the shit out of me too…flew into the basin there. Went out to the main highway and came back around and flew up Helmut and up into Numa. Going around I said “There’s the area here and of course in wintertime it is very obvious it is a frickin’ slide path. The reason that at the bottom there was a nice clearing was because it was a slide path. We couldn’t land because it was so bumpy. None of these flags …..Jim says, “I think there’s been a slide and your cabin has got wiped out here.” So I called Neil and said, “Neil, I think the cabin got hit by a (snow) slide and got wiped out.” Neil says, “Oh, no way!” This is on the radio. I said, “We are going to be setting down at the divide which we did and Woledge comes up. He says, “No God Damned way!” I said, “Well Neil this is my second winter here.” I hadn’t had that much experience. “It looks to me as if it is gone.” Jim Davies backed me up on it. He said, “Neil, I think it is gone.” It has just been built the previous summer – the summer of 1974. They flew all the logs in and the Trail Crew put it up. Cecil Cooper did it. It was a nice cabin. It was a log cabin. The (Park) carpenters built it (Shubert and Hollingsworth). So they long-lined everything in and Cooper put it together. They flew in the carpenters and it was a real nice cabin. And so, he sends Brian Sheehan and Hans Fuhrer in there. And those guys hadn’t even seen it, so I explained where it was. They get there and Hans has probes and they are probing around and sure enough they dug down and found that the roof had blown off and all this stuff eh. As soon as it came spring we went in and we found mattresses and all the stuff in that cabin the whole thing had blown apart. So the guys dismantled it and flew it up on top of Wolverine where it stands today.

Fay Hut. Photo courtesy of Larry Halvorson

Rod: I want to thank you very much for sharing your park experiences with me. Full credit to a career in parks that was pretty successful.

Byron: The way I look back on it I am satisfied with it.

Stevie: It was a great life. I got to work for 40 years in a National Park.

Rod: It is interesting what you said earlier. Your time in parks was great. But life is a lot more beyond parks you’ve gone onto other things and interests. It has all worked out. I think all of us value the time we spent in parks.

Byron: I’ve had a great experience and have great stories.

Stevie: I more good memories than bad memories.

Byron: I told John yesterday when he asked me what I was doing. I told him I was working for the band down there for different things. I said, “It is the second best job I ever had.” He asked, “What is the best job you had?” I said, “working for the warden service. You know, John, I can’t believe that anybody would complain about being in the warden service but they did. I knew some guys who did complain. I have no complaints about that. I have been there and done that and I changed what I could and what I couldn’t (change) I just moved on. That is just the way I am. Just totally enjoyed it. I am not a Polyanna but I am a realist. And things all worked out.

Stevie: P J (Perry Jacobson) always said “You are only as good as your last shift.” And that is true and so a few years ago I was doing interviews for a fire position. The board included Ed Abbott, Ian Brown (from Revelstoke) and me. We knew all the guys who were interviewing. I only had one question. That was, as Perry Jacobson said, “You are only as good as your last shift.” What was your last shift? They would look at me and then look at Ed or Ian. So then, they would tell me what they did the day before. The second part of my question was, How good was it? And what I was looking for was (since) you have been in the warden service for 20 years or whatever, do you still like it? Every one of them answered it the way I wanted to hear. They knew what they’d done and yes it was great, it was good. I think that is what happened with all of you, you enjoyed it.

Rod: I think that the variety of the experiences and the people you met…..one thing I always enjoyed about the warden service was that you learned from each other. Everybody has an interest. If there is a willingness to show and share some of your skills, you pass on a lot of skills to not only young people but the rest of us too. I never had the pleasure of working with you Byron but I sure heard a lot of good things. Thank you again for agreeing to be interviewed here because you have both made a significant contribution to parks.