• (0:14:08) Don – I went into Banff to get my trail guide’s license. Bob Hand was the chief warden and Ed Carleton was in the office too and always a friendly guy to greet you. I can still remember Bob Hand, he was quite rough…I passed the (guide’s) test okay and he says, “If I ever go out in the backcountry and find you without a rope or an axe on your horse I will pull that little popcorn badge off your hat, so fast that you’ll never know that you had it on there!” For years I always packed an axe and a rope. I hadn’t quite figured out what the rope was for! He made an impression! I think he might have been (a veteran from the Second World War.) He was very straight and military looking.
• (0:15:14) Don – It was a horse – trail guides license. There was a system then. You were a Class C guide which meant you could take people out for day trips. Then you went into a Class B guide where you could take people overnight, but only in a certain district. The Class A guide in Banff meant that you had to know the whole park and all the trails. It was a step-up system. We had to pass tests – it was almost like applying for a warden job at that time. We were expected to be good neighbors out there with the district warden. You would help out if there were problems. We would be there to help, firefighting, cutting trails or whatever, bear incidents too when they got to trust us.
• (0:16:11) Don – After Gerry (Lyster) left, Andy Anderson was the district warden at Cyclone. We became good friends…My aunt Rita was cooking at Skoki then. She made great cinnamon buns, so Andy visited quite often! We all helped each other out. We had a bear problem and he got dad and I to pack rifles. Then Joe Halstenson was the district warden after Andy.
• (0:16:59) Don – The first winter I worked for Parks was 1963. Clem Gardner was a noted rancher west of Calgary on the Elbow River. Dad used to work for him at different times. His son Noel went to the mountains at a young age. He was guiding then he got on the warden service. He taught skiing to other wardens. Noel and dad ran into each other in Banff and went to the pub. They got talking and Noel said, “You should send your boy up to the pass (Roger’s Pass). I will put him to work this winter.”
• (0:18:00) I had never been on skis (except for) the spring before when we went into Skoki the first time and almost killed ourselves! Dad was on snowshoes. I wrote a little story about it. Mom had old skis from 1939 that an army boyfriend had given her. She wandered around on them in the foothills a little bit. Charlie Regnier who worked for us came in with us. Charlie and I rented skis from Franz Haus at Temple Lodge. He showed us how to put the skins on. They were real seal skins. We headed into Skoki and it was quite an epic journey! Mom kept falling down and Charlie and I finally made it to the top of the pass. Dad and mom were still coming across the lake. the last we seen of them, Dad had a hold of mom’s ski pole and was pulling her up Deception pass! We all had packs, the old trapper nelson packs. Charlie and I took off down the pass. We just kept going until we piled up, then we would get up and go again. We were soaking wet when we got to Skoki. We undid all the shutters and got the fire going. Then we started back to find mom and she was played out. She said, she “wasn’t coming out of there until the snow was gone and she could ride a horse!” So that was my first experience on skis. I did ski a little bit more that winter. Charlie and I had to go out the next day because we rented the skis. We had snowshoes in Skoki. We put the snowshoes on our backpacks and got up to the pass and there was an old toboggan, like a kid toboggan up there. We got on the toboggan and went right straight down! I know we were airborne at one point! We ended up very close to Ptarmigan Lake by the time that we had stopped. We skied out and every time I’d fall the snowshoes would rap me on the back of the head. I was half dizzy by the time we came out! We had to get groceries and snowshoe back in! It was quite an introduction to running a ski lodge. I can remember Slim Flemming, a bus driver. He was smoking his pipe when we came out, and he said, “You know people die in those places!” I guess it was kind of a warning!
Don skiing 1960s
• (0:20:48) Don – That winter (1963) Noel had hired me…I wrote a little story about it, “Old Snowflake”. Meanwhile dad and his old trapping partner Slim Akins and my friend Roy Adams (a Cree Indian) and Johnny Eden were working on a contract to cut the power line up to Lake Louise. Before that they just had the generator up at the Lake Louise Chateau. They got a contract to cut the trees for the power line. There was three or four feet of snow. It was quite a job. On my days off from Rogers Pass, I caught a ride with this German guy, Vitus who lived in Banff. He was my supervisor at Rogers Pass and had the same days off, so I would catch a ride back to Lake Louise with him. I would help dad and the crew. It was a tough project, cutting the trees and then we had to burn them all. So, my days off were spent back at Lake Louise…
• (0:22:03) Don – I kind of learned to ski! Noel’s wife Gladys had been a ski instructor and she taught me more than anybody actually. Fred and Walter Schleiss were working there too. They were working in the valley bottom and Vitus and I were up at Fidelity. Noel and Gladys lived at Fidelity all the time. That was their home.
• (0:22:28) Don – A few years later in 1966, I think, I worked for the ski patrol at Lake Louise for the Parks. The wardens were still in charge of ski patrol then. Walter Perren hired me. I still didn’t know how to ski very well. He said, “That is not a problem, we will teach you.” He hired me because I knew the backcountry. Joe Halstenson had just moved in as the district warden and he hadn’t been in that area so he didn’t know the back country yet. That was quite a year being on the ski patrol. That was also when I first met Grace! She was working for my mom and dad at Temple Lodge. They ran Temple then too, summer and winter. They took it over the year before. We then operated Skoki and the old Temple Lodge.
• (0:23:34) Don – We had the first skidoo in the country. Gerry Lyster got one right after. They were the old seven horse power machines…Johnny Nylund and I had spent the winter chasing wild horses. That would have been 1964. I am kind of going back and forth here! Mom and dad and Faye went in to open Skoki up and they had the skidoo. Dad was with us chasing horses too, but we would go in on weekends and help out with Skoki from Millarville…I remember that Walter Perren had a ski school at Lake Louise. Gord Rutherford was on it, Mac Elder maybe too, there was quite a few. They were going into Skoki and I came with the old skidoo and I remember towing them all up Deception Pass! Then Gerry Lyster and I had the first skidoo rescue that winter…I was coming out to get groceries with the skidoo and when I was coming back to Skoki. I met a guest skiing out. Two nurses had skied in and they had got on Deception Pass and drank a little wine. They were skiing down to the lodge and one broke her leg. My dad wasn’t there, but my mom and sister were. The trail was pretty hard because of the snow machine. Two guests went up and the other nurse with mom and Faye and they pulled her down to the lodge on a toboggan. I was just coming in down Deception Pass to Ptarmigan Lake…and one of the guests hollered and I stopped. I had to go out because my axle wasn’t that good and get Red Lyster with his skidoo. We went back in with the two skidoos. There was a wire cast at the lodge and they put that on her broen leg (the injured nurse). She was lying on the couch in the lodge, but it was too late to take her out that day. She stayed overnight and the other nurse helped her. In the morning we put her on Red’s skidoo, on the seat and propped her leg up. I went ahead to break trail. We got to Deception pass and the old skidoos weren’t powerful enough to go up the pass, so I had to tie my skidoo in front of Red’s and the two of us pulled her up tandem and got her up to the top and then all the way out to Temple. At Temple there was an old van, kind of an ambulance, an old meat wagon actually! We put her in that and they took her to Banff. I remember we went to see her a week or so later and she said, “You know that ride out on the skidoos was fine, but we got in that van and I never hurt so much in my life!”
• (0:27:13) Don – We were always working in the summer guiding and then hunting trips in the fall. I was usually looking for winter work. So, in 1966, Walter hired me on the ski patrol. Grace was working for mom and dad at the lodge then.
• (0:27:46) Don – The next year after hunting trips were over…Bob Hand was still the chief warden and I went back to see if I still had my job with ski patrol. I didn’t know that the Parks had absolved the ski patrol at that point. He said, “You want to work, do you?”. Show up at the warden equipment building Monday morning.” This was probably in October. The equipment building was down on Elk street. Jim Burles was up on the balcony above the entry where he had the saddle shop. Elmer Jamieson was a foreman. I was handed a pair of gloves and a hard hat and I was on the trail crew. “Oh, I thought I was on ski patrol?” “No, we don’t have the ski patrol anymore”. I spent the next two months working out of Banff on the trail crew for Art Cartlidge, Elmer Jamieson and Mike Crosby were the foremen. It was actually really a good job. We were cutting trails up around the Cave and Basin area for cross country skiing, this would have been 1967. They were trying to have the Olympics in Banff in 1972. Parks were building these trails in anticipation of that…We would go out there every day. I remember Fred Bamber, a warden stationed at 8-mile warden station on the Spray walked out to where we were cutting the trails to see how we were doing…
• (0:29:58) Don – In December I went to Kelowna and worked at Big White, as bartender and maintenance man. They had only one lodge up there. It was a ski club in Kelowna that started it as kind of a hostel. They had rooms to stay and a day care area for all the little kids on the weekend. I was actually the day care guy too. Daycare, bartender, maintenance guy, snow shoveling and volunteer ski patrol. I was there until May and then I came back to Lake Louise for another season of guiding and outfitting.
• (0:30:51) Don – I went back to work at Rogers Pass for Fred and Walter Schleiss the following winter. That’s where I met your dad (Keith Everts). He was working for Peter Schaerer then. That was 1968/69. Fred and Walter Schleiss were in charge of SRAWS, Snow Research Avalanche Warning Section. Peter was doing avalanche research for the NRC, the National Research Council out of Ottawa. Peter worked out of Ottawa. He worked for the Division of Building Research. Part of it was figuring out snow loads in different areas in BC. I worked for Walter and Fred that winter. I stayed up at Fidelity a lot. I was on Walter’s shift. Bob Haney and Randy Chisholm were on Fred’s shift. Mike Pittaway, the son of Bert Pittaway, worked on the crew too. He was a really good skier. Gordie Peyto was the warden stationed at Rogers Pass then. It was quite a bit of fun actually. We tromped through the snow a lot! Fred could get quite rammy. Meanwhile, Peter was always relaxed and pleasant. We envied Keith! I worked for Fred and Walter Schleiss that one winter. They were actually very good to work for and I learned a lot. The next winter I went to New Zealand and Australia and traveled around.
• (0:35:26) Don – I came back to Lake Louise with the guiding and outfitting business for the summer and the fall. Noel Gardner was living at West Castle then. He had something to do with the Westcastle ski area. Noel and Gladys lived out by Beaver River. My cousin Ted Loblaw was the ranger at Westcastle. I guess Ted and Noel got talking about avalanche control people at the ski hill. One of Andy Russell’s sons was working there too, it might have been Charlie.
