(26:10) But it was just getting to me…I’d come home and my new wife was really supportive of me, but she said, “This is going to kill you, if you keep on doing this.” I had 35 years of sick time that I could use! So I spent the last year as sick leave. I got a doctors certificate because my blood pressure was getting high and I wasn’t sleeping properly and this kind of stuff. So then essentially I retired. It was interesting when I retired, they had a nice retirement party for me in Erickson or something. Most Parks people showed up and lots of local people. Lots of these guys, my biggest critics of the elk program, they showed up because they knew that I was trying my best to do what I could do for them…Everybody got up and said a few words about what a great person you are and this kind of stuff. The Parks people they didn’t say much, Ray Fenn was the Superintendent and he got up and said, “Marv has been here for 35 years and he’s done this and he’s done that and thanks a lot and here’s a little token of appreciation.” But the most heartfelt goodbyes came from my harshest critics! Today, I still remember that as my fondest, fondest memory! You know the guys that were yelling at me at these pubic meetings, calling me everything under the sun. “It’s your fault and you’re the reason why our families are not surviving and we had to sell our farms.” They were the ones who gave me the nicest, (most) heartwarming goodbyes. To this day, that still touches me you know…I really appreciated that. That is probably my favorite memory of the warden service. It was a really difficult task to be dealt with and I took a bullet for Parks Canada at all those meetings. Theoretically that is what the Superintendent is supposed to do, but he sent me instead! As I say, I can almost remember what those guys said about me and it brought tears, it still brings tears, I’ve got a little tear in my eye now just telling you about it…
(30:33) So you (know) the three parks that I worked in, Jasper, the Fortress of Louisberg and Riding Mountain was the last one…Jasper was probably my favorite because it got me started on the road in the warden service. I have still have friends that have retired now from the good old days in Jasper and from those mountaineering schools and the horse schools and whatever else that we went on. They were really special, but (so was) Riding Mountain in those last few years, I met my wife, (Diane) the love of my life there…Now we live in Whitehorse and her kids (are here). Her husband passed away in 1993 and we got married in 1998…
(31:39) As an interesting sidebar, when I retired we became campground hosts at Lake Audy (Manitoba). Diane was a Lab and X-ray Technologist in Erikson, she still had a few more years to work, so we became campground hosts at Lake Audy. Then she retired a couple of years later. My son in law is a game warden up in the Yukon and he had to go to his firearms and law enforcement training in Hinton for four months and our daughter was up here. She didn’t have any kids then, so she phoned us and she said, “Why don’t you guys come up?” The campground season was over by the first part of September. So we jumped in the camper and came up. The idea was to spend the month here and the next thing you know, I was getting a little bored. So I said, “I think I am going to get a part time job.” There are all kinds of people looking for people to work up here. It’s called Why You Win it’s a website and somebody was looking for a horse guide and a canoe guide at a lodge down towards Skagway. I quickly put a resume together and sent it to this email address and half an hour later, this person phoned me and she said, “Where are you?” And I said, “Well, we are in Whitehorse.” She said, “Can you come to work tomorrow? I need a horse guide and a canoe guide…” So I said, “Well, I guess we can.” The next day, we drove down, it was an hour out of Whitehorse towards Skagway, it’s called Spirit Lake Lodge. A couple of days later, my wife became the horse guide and I was the canoe guide. What we were doing was taking people off the cruise ships, Alaska Cruises. They would come from Skagway and we would take them, a bus of 26 at a time and it was usually two buses a day…one in the morning and one in the afternoon. So we had 13 people on the canoes on this beautiful lake. I would take them canoeing and give them a little bit of history and there were sheep on the mountain behind us, so there was lots to talk about. Diane would take them horseback riding for an hour and then we would meet them at the lodge and have lunch, then we would switch groups. I’d take the other group canoeing and she’s take the group that I had canoeing out on a horseback tour and then we would put them on the bus and send them on their way. Half an hour later another bus would come and we would do it over again. We did that all summer long…usually the cruise ships are over about the end of September.
(34:59) So then we went back to Manitoba and it was getting cold and miserable and we thought this is getting ridiculous! Let’s get out of this cold weather. We decided to go to Vancouver Island and we were going to spend a few months out in Campbell River or somewhere. We didn’t know where, we thought we’d go and see what it is like. So we got out there and we were in Campbell River for about three weeks and it rained nonstop! We couldn’t get dry and it felt colder than it was in Manitoba! The next thing you know, we were packed up and we went back to Manitoba and Diane said…her previous husband and his parents used to go to Arizona all the time in the wintertime, they had a house down there. She said, “I’ve never been to Arizona with you yet. We’re going to go!” So we packed up and we headed to Arizona. Three days later we were sitting in Apache Junction and there were horses everywhere and there were cowboys everywhere! The western life is still being lived everyday down there. We stayed in a campground in town and we went around and looked at the different horse corrals…People with their horse trailers will just move in there and live there for six months and have their horses there and ride all over the country and six months later they head home. So I said we have to bring our horses here. The next thing we get home to Manitoba and in October we took off with our horses and headed back to Arizona. That was 2006 or 2007. We found a nice horse motel, (that’s what) they call them down there. We spent about four winters in this horse motel. We met lots of good, mostly American friends, from Michigan and from North Dakota, Washington and all sorts of northern states. You know places cold as hell in the wintertime! And we became really good friends. When the housing market crashed in 2010 down there, we had been there for four years in this horse motel, this place with our horse trailer. So we thought, we should sell our house in Manitoba and buy a house down here. We bought some nice horse property, the price was really reasonable. So we’ve got a real nice place down there. That’s where we go every year. Right after Thanksgiving, we take off and we are gone for six months and then we are back in the middle of April, back up (to the Yukon). Now we live in our RV up here in the Yukon at our son in law and daughters place in the summer and help babysit, look after the kids and whatever else. Then every October we go there. We’ve been doing that since 2007, so we are on our 11th year of going there and we haven’t regretted a minute of it! We will continue to do that until our health doesn’t let us do it anymore…
(38:39) Another story I have to tell you, was when I was in Riding Mountain people used to poach elk there. We went to a lick one spring and there were elk bones all over the place. They must have shot six elk there. I don’t know why they would shoot them in the spring, but I guess they get pretty fat, pretty quick sort of thing. We thought, we are going to set up a sting operation and see if we can catch these guys. So me and another guy, another warden was there and we said there is no point in setting up these video cameras on an elk trail because all we are going to do is get a hundred pictures of elk going back and forth to the lick. So I said, “Let’s get a garbage bag and hang it on a tree on a bit of a trail. Not a real well used trail and we can see if somebody comes in there. See if they see this garbage bag and (you know) curiosity killed the cat…Let’s see if they go over and have a look at it. We did that and went back about four days later. It was probably a four hour ride to get into this place. We get in there and open up this camera and the first thing we see is two guys standing there looking at this garbage bag, rifles on their horses…We are ten miles inside the park, so they can’t say they made a mistake… the horses are looking right at us too, at this camera because they can hear it clicking. The guys couldn’t hear it, but the horses are standing there looking at it. We recognized one guy, but didn’t recognize the other guy. So we were pretty excited that now we had some good evidence to do something. So we went down to where this guys farm was the next night…and sure enough there are those two horses in his pasture. We knew that we had something going. So we decided that we are going to set this thing up. We didn’t want to set it up so that we would be going through the private farmland and then coming into the park. So we decided…we are going to service this camp from inside the park. Art Cochrane who was one of my better backcountry wardens at the time, he kind of blazed a trail into this camp from a different direction, it was all inside the park. So we thought well, we will just change people, take supplies back and forth…We had four guys sitting there 24 hours a day for five or six days and then we would bring in new guys and new feed. We rotated them around and never did see anybody at the time…
(41:43) Anyways, one of the (local) outfitters, and I will continue this story, his name is Dean Sandulak. He had an outfitting business on the outside of the park and he took summer trips into the park. He had deer tags, so he would hunt elk and deer on the outside and in Duck Mountain and wherever else. But he was a pretty legit outfitter. Anyways, Dean decides he wants to find a new trail across the park to some place that he hadn’t been for summer trips. So he and a friend of his get on their horses and they start going across country. It was miserable and raining and wet and whatever else. They had their slickers on and their hats pulled down and they rode further across the park. So they intercept this horse trail that we have been servicing this camp on. It was just sort of heading in the direction that he wanted to go. He said, “Let’s just follow this trail. Somebody knows where they are going.” He followed that trail right into our camp…Art Cochrane was in making some lunch or coffee or something and one of the young guys, I think it was Jonah Mitchell, I’m not sure about that. But anyways it was one of the younger fellows, he was outside doing something or other, and all of a sudden out of nowhere comes these two desperado looking cowboys! They didn’t have guns or anything, but he didn’t know who they were. So he grabbed his shotgun and smoked one into the chamber and Dean…said, “Their hands went as high as they could into the air, saying, “Don’t shoot!” Art recognized Dean’s voice and he said…to the warden who was with him, “Put the gun down. Those are friends!” So he did, then Art said, “Get off that horse Dean and come and have a cup of coffee!” Well, poor Dean was shaking like a rag…so they talked for a little bit and Art says, “You know Dean, we’ve got a lot invested into this camp. When you guys get home, we’d appreciate it if mum’s the word…” Dean said, “Don’t worry, “I’ll never say a thing about this ever…” As it turned out the guys never did come back in, so we broke the camp down. But Dean on the flip side, when he came in to get his guide license and all this kind of stuff, he got all kind of preferential treatment from me! He did his part to keep quiet, so the least I could do was pass his guide’s license…
(44:54) As it turns out then (Dean) sold his outfit and he was gone. I didn’t know where he went? It turns out that we sort of followed him! He came up here (to the Yukon) to visit his kids and he thought, “I want to be an outfitter in the Yukon. This is the kind of place that I want to be an outfitter.” He sold his outfit in Manitoba and got some investment guys. The guys he hunted with in Manitoba from the States and they kind of helped back him. And he bought Trophy Stone Outfitting in the Yukon. I never saw him for four or five years…To live in the Yukon if you are a senior citizen they give you free hunting licenses, free fishing license, free camping permits for any provincial park or provincial campground. They really look after you because they want people to stay when they retire. So I was in there getting my free fishing license at the game office one day and I heard Dean’s voice. He was registering a grizzly bear that one of his hunters had shot. I said, “Sandulak, is that you?” “Yes!” he said, “Miller is that you?” We couldn’t see each other because we were separated (by the partition). We were like long lost brothers you know and the next thing you know he says, “I’ve got to take 40 head of horses into our base camp on the 20th of July.” This was in the spring sometime. He said, “Do you and Diane want to give me a hand? I’ve got some new wranglers, (but) I don’t know how good they are going to be? I’ve got 40 head of horses and it’s a three day trip to get the horses into the base camp.” I said, “Sign me up!” The next thing you know we went up there and we spent four days trailing the horses in…and now I work for him! I do lots of expediting for him. I pick up his hunters at the airport because they are about a three hour drive away from us. So I pick their hunters up and I take them to their hotels and then I get them on the planes and then I pick up their groceries. Then in September, I moose guide for the month of September on a lake and take moose hunters out and then the both of us go to Arizona for the winter! So we got them hooked up into going to Arizona and we found them a nice place to live down there. We spend all fall together and then we spend all winter together.
(47:33) We rent gaited horses in the States, Missouri Fox Trotters or Tennessee Walking Horses. We ride them in the States and we just leave them down there at a friend’s place. We still have our Quarter Horses which we keep at Fort St. John for the winter. Then when we come back we pick them up on our way up here and we keep them in our yard here for the summer. It’s a lot cheaper to board them in Alberta or Northern BC than it is up here for the winter. We’ve been doing that for the last seven years and it has worked out quite well.
(48:15) One program that we did and it is a little off the topic but a good friend of ours has a mustang training program at the Florence Prison in Arizona. They had 700 wild horses from Nevada and Montana and they developed a program where they hired two or three excellent horse trainers and they mentor the intimates in the program to become horse trainers. So they spend four months together, it’s a wild man and a wild horse…the program is so successful that Randy, the head trainer, who has become a good friend of ours, has had 75 inmates go through that program and he’s only had two reoffend when they got out. Most of them got into the horse business somehow, whether it be a ferrier or riding at a race track, or doing something in the horse industry. It’s a real successful program. To make a long story short, he was looking for some more horses. So…Randy comes up here and Dean gives him a free moose hunt to come up here and he shoots a 60 inch bull moose, with the idea that he wanted to see what kind of country the horses are going to be exposed to. So he got a free moose hunt out of it for the price of flying to Whitehorse from Arizona which is expensive enough. Then he went back and he developed a training program so that we’ve got eight mustangs here now that came across the border when we came back in April and they are getting shod today. They are going into their first experience in the Yukon tomorrow when they start going into the base camp…it was a real successful program. But we don’t know if these horses are going to take off and become wild horses in the Yukon, but they are all geldings so it doesn’t make any difference…they are smaller horses, but they are tough as nails. It’s an interesting program and if it works out, if Dean likes these horses, the other outfitters (might) want some up here, so he is probably going to become a broker of the wild horse program. It’s too bad in Alberta, with their wild horses there that they couldn’t do something similar in a prison in Alberta. Maybe they will some day, I don’t know…It is a wonderful program and the guy, the trainer is also a preacher, so he has a cowboy church service once a month and he does it on a mustang. He does it on horseback sort of thing. He started off there with 20 people the first time and now there is 300 people at the prison going to this cowboy church service. He’s just one of these guys that draws people in…it’s an interesting sidebar, but I’m getting a little off my topic here!
“I know number six, is quite a broad question, “What did you like best about being a warden?” But were there some things that stand out?”
(52:10) Well, you know, what I think it was, was it was a career that I couldn’t have asked for anything better. I loved being in the outdoors, I loved horses, I loved people, animals, wildlife. Now I kill moose for a living, so it’s a little bit off the sidebar, but that’s okay! It gave me such an opportunity to see different parts of Canada and to learn from other people and to be in the most beautiful parts of the world…I think that is what I liked best about it and I would have never have changed careers.
(53:02) I was really sad when it took the turn it did, in the late 1990s or whenever the handgun issue (started) and Parks Canada got in their nose that they didn’t want the warden service to become something that they couldn’t manage. So they essentially got rid of us all, except for a handful of people. That’s still a sticky point in my estimation. If I’m bitter at all, I’m bitter at the way that, that it went, because the warden service was such (an effective organization) I’ve been out of it for 16 years almost now, I don’t even know what’s going on in the national parks anymore. We visit Kluane once in a while, but you never see a warden. If a Parks Canada truck is driving around with some technicians or somebody in it, but you don’t see a warden because there are only one or two here, I think. Who knows where they are even or what they are doing? It’s not the same as it used to be and I guess that makes me sad in a way that it took that turn because it was such a great career for somebody that had a little bit of education, but had lots of desire to do things in the wilderness and to deal with people and animals… I really get choked up when I think of what it still could have been. There’s no reason why, it couldn’t have been the same. And I’m sure that other guys that you have talked to have probably got similar sentiments. Parks Canada treated some very good people, very badly I think in that respect and soured them. It certainly is not what Parks Canada objectives are, to sour your people. I think a lot of superintendents or people that weren’t really wardens were intimidated by wardens who were the bosses of the parks basically. The wardens knew what the hell was going on and lots of superintendents didn’t! I’m sure that you’ve probably heard that from other people as well. The change got me, that’s kind of what forced me out…I retired at 58, but I had 35 years of service. I started in 1971 or 72 or something. So I had 35/36 years of service. I was ready to retire anyways, but I might not have had it not gone the way that it had gone…but in hindsight I’m glad that I retired. I just love what I am doing now.
“It sounds like a wonderful life.”
Yeah, I don’t want it to end! But unfortunately it probably will when the price of insurance costs too much to go to Arizona. When it does, it does. We’ve had 11 or 12 good years so far and hopefully we get a few more before we have to change our MO.
“It sounds like you make the most of it (retirement).”
I like to say, I think we do. We love horses, we will always be horse people no matter what we do. We will always have horses of some sort and dogs. We’ve got lots of dogs. We enjoy camping and hunting and fishing. Just being around the wilderness sort of thing and we are in the Yukon, so we’ve got lots of wilderness to see!
(56:51) You know one guy I really liked and I was really shocked when I heard that he passed was Dennis Welsh. Denny and I had a special relationship in Jasper. I was the Backcountry Coordinator for several years. Denny seemed a little hard around the edges, but he had a heart of gold sort of thing. He was always there for me if I needed something, or horses moved, or whatever else and advice on how to do things and how not to do things with the horses. I learned a lot of my basic horsemanship skills from Dennis in that respect. I was shocked when I heard that he has passed away. I sent a note to his family at the service there to read about Dennis, things that I could remember, that really kind of stuck out in my mind…
