(51:15) I lost all my horses when I went to Kootenay. Yeah, I missed them. They didn’t have as good horses. I’d had them two pack horses for years. I used to lead them and turn them loose coming home…Wherever I was that night, that’s where my horses were. They were right there with me.
(52:17) At Wood Buffalo, I had a four wheel drive truck, a bombardier, a snowmobile, a big one like they use at the Columbia Ice Fields. I had a bombardier and J4 mustang tractor and I had one speed boat and two 26 foot plywood scows…One of the 26 foot scows had a cabin on it. And for awhile I had a D8 cat with a winch. They boys (were too little to enjoy all the toys at Wood Buffalo.) Wayne started school in Waterton, the oldest one. Jason was born after we moved to Waterton because he was born in 1972. He was born in Banff, June 21, 1972. They were both born in Banff. Wayne was born January 3, 1966.
(54:53) It (the warden service) really changed, probably about 1967/68, some place there. They were starting to bring in these younger guys with university educations. Then it went to pot when they centralized everybody in 1970. When I left Wood Buffalo… January first 72, Gerry Lyster was the area manager in Fort Chip and I was the warden. I had everything south of the 30th baseline. I had 1300 and some square miles to look after and no cotton picking roads! There was just one road. The loop road come out 70 miles to Peace Point, across the landing and another 100 miles back to Fort Smith. That was the only road that I had to travel. Oh, with the boats I also had an 18 foot prospector canoe, which is a very stable canoe.
(56:51) (In the Stoney Creek district) I had the Cascade watershed, the Stoney Creek and Dormer watersheds, from Badger Pass east to the park boundary. It cut off at a line from the back of Cascade Mountain across four miles north at the bridge there on the Cascade Fire Road, south there was Ernie Stenton’s and Minnewanka district. But I was north to Cuthead summit.
(57:51) (My duties) were the maintenance of the trail, telephone patrol, telephone maintenance, cabin maintenance, everything. I used to come out during sheep season and patrol the Panther… patrolling for sheep hunters… There was a potential problem (with poachers) when I went out, I found camps five or six miles in the park…mostly in the Panther and the Dormer. We had that Joe Blickmore. He use to come up the north fork of the Ghost and into the top end of Stoney Creek. He got five sheep, two goats and a grizzly out of there before we caught him.
(59:06) I never used a computer in my life…just telephones and 2 way radios. The park brass in their wisdom and knowledge…my last working day was the 20th of August and the first of July they wanted to send me on a 6 week computer course. I told them, “You`re stupid! Why send me? I’m going to be gone in six weeks. Send someone that you can use. No point in sending me!“ They said, “Oh, but you need computers.” I said, “I don’t need nothing!” I didn’t go, I refused to go…
(1:0024) Actually, there aren’t that much (funny stories about the warden service to share)…You never seen anybody for a month. But if two wardens happened to hit town the same day, there was a party! You just had to run into somebody in town. Up until 1966, you had to have permission from the chief warden to go to town. You didn’t have a day off, so you were on seven days a week. Our first days off came in 1966. You had a 48 hour week. We didn’t have a union until then…And you couldn’t take holidays in the summertime. You had to take them into the wintertime. You didn’t have one day off a month, you had one day to come to town and turn in your report, your diary and reports and everything and pick up groceries. Even Ernie Stenton, he was at Lake Minnewanka his whole career, he had to get permission to come in six miles to Banff. Supposedly he didn’t do it, but he was supposed to. We were behind the iron curtain on the fire roads…No (I didn’t find it lonely); I lived in the bush all my life.
