(0:20:57) I just liked the way of life (that is the reason Joe wanted to join the Warden Service). The way of life! I knew Jack Woledge, George Balding and a few of the Wardens before I even got on. The way of life and probably the variety of the job and the work. Never the same. You never knew what you were going to do the next day. The hours, you know we never paid attention. Most of the time, I didn’t even know how much money I was making! And it wasn’t much!
(0:21:55) Phone line work, trails, cabin (maintenance) basically that is what we spent a lot of time at (in the district system). Again, I’m trying to think when I came on in 1960, in the wintertime they always stuck me in the ski area because of my skiing. Even at a couple of Warden schools, I taught skiing with Walter Perren. “Oh, Joe you can do this.” I always got the real beginners. We had a lot of fun. We would go to Norquay, Sunshine, Lake Louise (for the Warden ski schools). I had Wardens from Riding Mountain National Park, Prince Albert that used to come out and they were terrified! But you know, we didn’t try and scare the hell out of them!
(0:23:14) I’d go out to the (Ya-Ha Tinda) ranch and pick up my horses when I was out at Cyclone because then I could ride up to Scotch and the Red Deer cabin. Most of the time in June, you couldn’t really get into Cyclone. If I could get in there, I would basically stay one night and then (go) down to the Pipestone because there was just too much snow up there yet. Then once I got everything good and the trails were good, I would take the wife and the kids up. Yeah, (Doreen and the kids were in Banff). We were living at the old Buffalo Paddock house. The old one right by the tracks there, it used to belong to the CPR. Yeah, I think they (the Carleton family) were there too. Jim Robertson lived just across at the barn there.
(0:24:27) The variety (was what Joe liked best about being a Warden).
(0:24:35) Nothing really. Everything we did, you know, I liked it. (Except) law enforcement, but I got along okay in that. That was more when we centralized. When we started working ten in and ten out. Like I think in my whole Warden career, I would be lucky if I wrote out ten tickets! Oh, I know one job I used to hate, that was when we centralized too, that was being the court Warden. I’d be as nervous as a ‘cut cat’! Everybody kind of got a shot at it (being the court Warden). The court day was only on Thursday. One day a week, but you had to take all the files down to the Judge. It was okay, but I didn’t care for it.
(0:26:13) Well, I had some pretty good experiences! Like at Mount Coleman, I had Smokey Guttman in a rescue basket on a mountain climbing school and we were going down and some guy, an RCMP (officer) up above, moved and rocks started coming down. I got hit and a few other bruises. Smokey was all covered in a cage, so he was okay. That was probably my first good one, because that was almost the first climbing school – first or second -I forget. That was up Mount Coleman, they had a camp up there. The DPW camp, so all our climbing was done around that area – Nigel Creek and up on the glacier. Another one was at Lake O’Hara, at the end of the lake we did a long repel. I unhooked, turned around to walk away and dang it, I got hit by a rock and it broke my hard hat. I’d have been dead (if I hadn’t had the hard hat on). Larry Gilmar, said I was going to walk right into the lake, I guess because I was really stunned (from the blow). I thought some other Warden snuck up on me and kind of hit me with something on the head. After that I got a gold helmet and an award and all that, and I’m lucky to be alive! I had quite a few (injuries) Oh, yeah (Joe liked the climbing). Terrified most of the time, but I enjoyed it! I wasn’t a top notch climber, but I got there.
(0:28:26) Just the usual wrecks (with horses). I didn’t get bucked off too often. I can’t remember getting bucked off. I had some real wrecks with the pack horses and stuff like that. That was just part of the job, I guess. But, the thing is, then we traveled alone, eh! I’d go out for ten days. I had one horse for my chain saw and gas, another horse for my grub and then my saddle horse and away you’d go. No radio, no communication. Unless, like if I was going to Cyclone. If I could get to Cyclone there was a radio there. But all the other cabins,(had) nothing (no radios). Not in Cyclone and Bryant Creek they were too far in (the backcountry for phones). So we had no communication except the old single side band (SSB radios) which only operated or worked to about seven in the morning. I remember Ed Carleton that was one of his jobs when he worked up at the Administration Building, they had the Warden Office there. He’d be there in the morning to get the radio (calls) because once they turned on all the lights on in the Admin Building it interfered with the radio (transmissions). That was our contact with Banff in the morning. The neon lights interfered or something. Then, at night the radio reception was pretty good. We used to call around to Jasper and the different cabins that had radios. Even in the evening, that was like “Girls Night Out” they could call and talk to one another. Not too long (though) because we had to charge the batteries up. Never even thought about it (the lack of communication in the backcountry cabins). You were just very careful about what you did. I mean you’d think things out. You just didn’t do something stupid, or try not to anyways! Funny, I never even thought about it. Jeeze, if I broke a leg, what the hell was I going to do? Oh, I would have figured it out at the time. Oh, yeah, it (the horse) broke his spleen or something (Warden Neil Colgan was kicked by his horse in the backcountry and died of his injuries). He’s lucky he left a note that he had gone up to that lake, I forget the name of it. But he’s lucky he left something there because there (would have been no way to find him). We used to do that a lot though. We’d leave a note, going up to another cabin or something. Then when we had the radios, we’d say we are going up to Pipestone cabin for two days or something.
