(1:47:47) Gord – There is lots of lots of wildlife, mostly sheep I guess nowadays.
Do you ever miss being a warden? Or, the Warden life?
(1:47:57) Gord – Oh yeah you miss the camaraderie as much as anything!
(1:48:06) Sharon – It is interesting because moving here to Valemount, it was in some ways really hard leaving Jasper. I can remember grieving for about two years when we knew that we were going to be leaving. Just hiking the trails and crying. But coming here we have met people who are very similar to our early relationships. We have met some beautiful pioneers here that really have the pioneer spirit. There were no roads in here and they actually lived like backcountry wardens. So moving here, hasn’t been that different for us because our relationships, we have a lot of younger friends, maybe more younger friends than older friends, but the older relationships that we have established are with people like Sandra and Gord McClain and the mentors that we had in Jasper, the McKirdy’s. How they have made their own entertainment with music. Like Gordon Carson building violins out of the local wood. I am a potter, so the crafts people that I have met here are extraordinarily good. So our life here is not that different for me. Gord I think misses the relationships because you have friends here, but it is not a daily thing, like a job related thing.
(1:49:41) Gord – You are not working on projects…But the connection to wardens, past and present wardens, is always going to be there. We always attend Warden Days for example. Maybe it is not quite the same. I am always kind of surprised that there are a lot of wardens who are working, or not wardens but you know what I mean that don’t show up for it. There is always a good turnout of guys who have retired who worked in the 1990s or whatever and the camaraderie is always there, it is just like family.
(1:50:27) Sharon – You know what is interesting? I am not sure how it is now, but when you retired I remember standing there and them asking something and I can’t remember if it was you or myself saying, “We really didn’t feel sad leaving the warden service because we knew that we were leaving it in such good hands.” Gordon had mentored a lot of those young people and our daughter was a warden so she had brought a lot of young people to our home. You saw that they had as much if not more knowledge about ecology and the environment, and preservation than maybe even we did because they had a more scientific basis to their knowledge. Ours was more intuitive and on the ground, a hands on feeling about life. They brought more to the table sometimes so we felt that we were really blessed to have had the area and the time that we had. But you know we were now leaving that time behind and the new people were going to be bringing up the ranks. There is part of me that really wants to hold a positive attitude because I think that will create more positivity, it is a ripple effect. It is like the echo right? But sometimes a person gets a little scared because there are these signal points. You think it can change, you just want to keep holding on to the belief system that they are not going to throw out the baby with the bath water because I think that we have these beautiful young people just waiting in the corridors to do the work that should be done. And it is different than what we did. What we did was right for the time and now it is a different time.
“Sharon, what do you do in retirement, you mentioned you are a potter?”)
(1:52:54) Sharon – I am just getting ready for a show here in April. It is exciting, but it is also kind of scary because I haven’t got as many things made as I normally do because of Rundi moving and being busy enjoying the baby, enjoying Keslin and supporting them in their move.
“Gord do you have any hobbies that keep you busy?”
(1:53:24) Gord – Well, Sharon keeps me busy!
(1:53:26) Sharon – Actually he is part of my project. We call ourselves Shagora, Sharon and Gord Anderson. I do pottery and he is my fireman…He pulls it all out of the kiln for me because they are very heavy and when you do Raku pottery you pull it out molten hot and put it into straw or dried leaves. It creates a chemical reaction because it is so hot that it gives you all these incredible colors. Also it is a way of giving up control and sometimes it is not so nice, other times it is very nice, so you are always hoping for magic! Also when I do animals or anything he helps me, I’ll say, “What’s wrong with this bear head? Why is it looking like a wolf?” And he’ll say, “Well, it needs to be broader here, or make the snout longer or shorter.” So he helps me with that and he is very good at pulling out the pieces, he has to pull out the heavy pieces, I can’t do that. He is not afraid of fire. I am a little bit afraid of fire.
(1:54:43) Gord – And we’ve got a bunch of horses here that keep me busy…
Gord Anderson on Centennial Ride – 2009
