(0:10:12) At Lake Louise when I was there, the only running water we had was the Pipestone River going by the cabin and Sandy Joe was born in 1964. So that was quite a bit you know, all the hot water on the stove…Yeah, it was different and they didn’t have disposable diapers! She was born in Banff. Doreen, my ex, she went into Banff with friends of ours. Al Tates, he used to work for the government on roads and that, at the compound there. He was a welder I think…See I kind of get mixed up here, Sandy Joe was born and I think it was the following year or something after, she was about two years old when I moved…Now my son Earl, we adopted him. I was in Bryant Creek when we got him. They are only 11 months apart in age…I’m trying to think (of who else lived out in the backcountry with their kids) early on…somebody was at Indianhead at the old cabin. He’s died but his wife is still living. This was a long time ago. I think he had his kids out there. I am not too sure.
(0:12:58) After we were done that (living in Bryant Creek) then they centralized. I think there were four houses that they built on Harry’s Hill there. Wally McPhee moved into one, I moved had one…Harry’s Hill was on the highway at Lake Louise. The Warden station used to be on the left, but it is not even there now. (By the) compound and then up that hill to the right. They always called it Harry’s Hill. I was there for I forget how many years, I know Sandy was going to school by bus. Then I had a chance to move back into Banff, which I took so the kids could go to school (without having to take the bus). It was a long haul for a grade one kid on the old school bus. I was in Lake Louise for about nine years.
(0:14:29) When it centralized you know it was good and bad. It was good for the family, if you had young kids. I could see the change coming. I was lucky I got Bryant Creek and Cyclone, because after that, that was about it. Then things started to change. To me it took away the job that I liked. Larry (Gilmar) is the same. In Banff (is where Joe spent the rest of his Warden career). That was it and then we moved out to the coast. That would be in 1979/80. I retired from the Wardens. We moved out here, we bought a small motel and we ran it for two or three years in Victoria. (1979) yeah, that is when I left the Warden Service. It wouldn’t be retired, I resigned or something to make the move. It wasn’t what I wanted to do, but things change. We had the motel in Victoria for three years, then I got on with the BC Parks as a Park Ranger. I worked for them for roughly 15 years, but the way it worked, it was only nine months a year. What did they call it? Auxillary. I had three months off in the winter time. But I used to drive truck for a guy, hauling clams and stuff like that, just for something to do. But, I made good money at it too. I resigned from (BC) Parks, a good five years ago or more…Quite a few of the different islands that I used to work at (are now part of the federal parks).
(0:17:34) Oh yeah! (Joe still rides horses). Not as much though because I broke my ankle a couple of years ago. I’m getting kind of brittle! But this horse (the one next door that Joe rides) is pretty good. I go out boating and a little bit of fishing, salmon, but not much anymore. We try to figure out how we can get to Mexico every winter! We try to (go to Mexico every year) but last year we didn’t go because we decided to go up to the Yukon. In June (and) July we were in the Yukon. (We) looked up Smokey Guttman. We rented a motor home and we went from Dawson Creek and did the whole Alaska Highway. It’s a long drive! It was nice, different country. Not too impressed with some of it, very flat. No big trees or anything like that. But, over into Alaska into a place they call Chicken, Alaska, the highway you drive (has) big rolling areas. You can look 20 miles and see a little bit of road and that’s where you are going to be eventually. Not all paved road, but it was good. (We went for) a month. We stayed in Whitehorse because Gail has relations there. We spent two or three days there with them. They showed us all over. Then we went to Dawson City, we spent two or three days there. That’s kind of neat because there is a lot of history with the gold mines. Unbelievable. We just went into Alaska, stayed one night in a little town called Toe. Then on down to Beaver and then Beaver back into the Yukon and then you go down to Haines Junction. It was funny, I walked into the information centre (in Haines Junction) and asked, “Do you know a guy, by the name of Smokey Guttman?” “Oh yeah, he’s just around the corner.” Everybody knows him! I told him, you know, that I might be up there like when he was down at the Warden do, the other year. “We’re thinking of coming up there.” He said, “Oh Jeeze, look me up!” I looked at his museum and “Oh my God, it is something else!”