MH: Do you have any lasting memories as a Warden?
MC: My favorite horse I had to put down a couple of years ago here, old Eli. I used to be the retirement home for horses when they retired from Jasper but I couldn’t take them all. I mean they used to send them to the slaughterhouse and it just didn’t seem right to me. Jim Bertwistle and I, we got the first two horses that they actually gave permission to sell. They maintained that the government couldn’t sell them because they had the national parks’ horse brand on them. But we got the first two horses and I brought one home here, Lyle and he turned into Becky’s pony club horse and then I got Larry, Peggy, Oscar and Eli and I can’t even remember them all. Eli had a club foot and so after a backcountry trip, he would come out lame so I got him when he was just a young horse. I think he was 11 when I got him so I had him right up to when he died at 28 and he was definitely my favorite horse. But you know I had some good ones in Lake Louise and Banff too. My first year in the backcountry Keith Everts gave me his horse, Kim and she was a big tall horse but she liked to gully-run and that was the only thing I didn’t like about her but I got that out of her finally. She actually reared up and right over once going up a small rise. Luckily, I came out of the saddle because there was a big divot in the saddle horn. With old Deuce as a pack horse. And then my next year I was in the backcountry in Lake Louise. I had Topsy as my saddle horse and she was a going concern, too for sure. Yeah, I had some good horses over the years for sure and some wild ones too. I remember Tuffy. Our Barn Boss in Jasper was Jim Chesser, and he liked to mix things up, old Jim did. He liked to give you a horse that was a bit of a challenge. And anyway, he gave us Tuffy this one year, and I was riding with my partner Clint and the very first time we went to pack Tuffy he just blew up, went bananas ballistic and threw all the pack boxes off. And so I figured, okay, Dale Loewen had shown me a trick where you put the halter rope overtop of the hitching rail, and tie it to a set of hobbles on their front feet. And if they’re going to pull back they pull their front feet out from under them. So we tried that with Tuffy and old Tuffy, he was fairly smart but after a couple of times he stopped blowing up. Once we were going over the South Esk loop and there’s a real steep section and Tuffy’s pack started to slide up onto his neck so we had to stop and repack him on about a 40-degree angle. And we just put a set of chain hobbles on his front feet and Tuffy would go to blow up and he would hear that little jingle and he’d go, okay. I might as well just sit here. And every time we packed Tuffy from then on, we put a set of chain hobbles on him and he never did that again. But you learnt a lot that’s for sure and you learnt by doing. Trial by fire either you make it or you don’t. Mike Eder has quite a story about swimming the Snake Indian River and I think he might have even lost his saddle in that one. Like, he lost a lot of stuff and darn near lost his life. Everybody’s got some good stories. I continue to have what I call “warden dreams” about once every couple of weeks and it drives me crazy, because I’d like not to, but I still have dreams. And they’re getting a little less frequent, but I still have them. I’m sure it stays with everybody. I spent almost 30 years in the Warden Service. If I’d retired in the spring instead of the fall, I would have had 30 years in.
MH: Do you ever miss being a Warden?
MC: You know things come to mind once in a while. That warden campout that was going to be in Salmon Arm last summer, that would have been a lot of fun. That would have helped to hash over some stories and stuff. But I’m happy to be retired. It’s been just over seven years for me now and life is slowing down a bit. I am 72 and I’m fairly active. I have a pretty good cross country ski trail here when we ever get some snow. I got a nice five point buck this year hunting and made most of that into sausage. So I still like to spend my time outside, I don’t like to be cooped up in the house too long. My kids are like that too. I know Merewyn, when she was little, she could be fairly contrary at times and you had to get her out on the swing set for at least half an hour every day. It wouldn’t matter if it was -25 or -30 with blowing snow, I’d get her out there for half an hour. My kids are still pretty tough and really like it outside and they’re pretty good at bushwhacking and finding the trail. The time in the Tonquin really helped them out quite a bit that way I think.
1:24:01
Well I think it was 2009 when they finally split the Warden Service up and we finally got our firearms. We were trained by the RCMP at Depot and the RCMP do Law Enforcement totally differently than Park Wardens do. And I think maybe they do a little bit more training specific to park wardens now than they did then. But everything we’ve learned was pretty much the way the RCMP did it, and like I said, we practice Law Enforcement lite and you’re trying to educate, trying to get voluntary compliance and wanting them to get away with a warning. I’m not sure that it is still working that way or not. And there’s an eagle that just flew by this window.
MH: Do you have any photos of yourself as a warden that you would like to donate? Artifacts?
MC: I can send you some via email. Early day photos were slides or boxes of photographs that are not cataloged and mixed up. Now everything is digital which is easier but they are all over too…on your ipad, computer etc. But I’ll try and get you some photos.
MH: What year did you retire? What do you enjoy doing in retirement?
MC: I retired in 2016 and up until a couple of years ago, I was looking after retired park horses so I kept my hand in there and I like bow hunting I practice with my bow every fall and I did some Coho salmon fishing out in Terrace, BC. last fall and caught a couple of nice Coho and canned them. I spend a lot of time gardening and I have a nice orchard and I do some canning and I make some really good raspberry jam. We have a couple of sea kayaks here and I have a good boat so we’re going to hopefully do some boat camping around Tweedsmuir Park. We were going to do it last summer but with the fire season the way it was here; I didn’t want to leave. What happens here in BC is if they put you on evacuation order and you’re not home, you don’t get to come home, they won’t let you back in. So we stayed home all summer and I’ve got two fire pumps that were both all set up with hoses and sprinklers on the roof and everything so that turned into a bit of a hobby to be prepared for fighting forest fire here.
Home Sweet Home
MH: Is there anything I haven’t asked you that you think I should know about the Warden Service?
MC: I’m not sure what the backcountry management is like in Banff but in Jasper, they reclassified a huge amount of the backcountry into wildland which means they don’t have to keep up the trails anymore. And that is really sad because we used to have such a great trail network. I used to always go on trips clearing trails and there’s a lot of the park they don’t do that to anymore. The whole North Boundary trail, I’d be surprised if you could even find it in spots now. The management has really changed and it used to be more easy going to work for parks and now it’s more uptight and you’re looking over your shoulder for someone who is going to report you for something rather than look over your shoulder to look out for the park. It’s sad. And the indigenous hunting in Jasper and the lack of staff and lack up trail upkeep, it’s not like a big happy family anymore. It used to be that other wardens and other parks staff were a part of your family and working for parks was a way of life and not only wardens get to work in a postcard but everyone who worked in the park did. I hope these mountain parks are still around for our grandchildren and their grandchildren but I do have doubts. Climate change is happening; the glaciers are disappearing. There is one by Maligne Lake in Jasper, the Mary Vaux Glacier. It was a very small glacier when I first saw it in 2000 but the last time I saw it in 2016, it was almost completely gone! That is really going to change how parks are experienced differently by our grandchildren than they were by us. Not a whole heck of a lot we can do about that now. We are past the point of being able to change that. It is kinda sad but it is what it is. And the dispatchers, you guys were such a vital arm of the warden service and my hats off to you guys. And a lot of the old dispatchers really come to mind that I have really fond thoughts of.
MH: Anyone else to interview?
MC: Greg Slatter if he hasn’t been done. Geoff Clark, Terry Damm.
Another one I forgot to mention was bad Bill Browne. He was quite the character. I don’t know what happened to Joe Storm. I worked with him in Jasper. Al Gribbin was a warden in Lake Louise and he and I were backcountry wardens doing boundary patrol together. I’m sure you have done Gunsmoke? Frank Burstrom.
I did some boundary patrols with Frank Burstrom. One time he was staying out for another shift and I was in town, talked to him on Single Side Band to see if he needed anything as I was heading back out. All he wanted was a couple cartons of smokes! The day we rode out from Scotch Camp, we went over Elk Pass to Dormer, and it was so cold and 6” of snow on the ground and lots of ice on all the river crossings. I had mitts on and every piece of clothing on and here’s Frank in his Stetson, smoking a cigarette and riding along like nothing. We get to Dormer and light a fire and nobody had been there for a while and a pack rat had made a nest in the chimney. So, when we lit the fire, the cabin filled up with smoke, you had to get out. Back then we didn’t have headlamps and it was dark out…we had a coleman lamp. I gave Frank as much light as possible and he was up on a ladder on the roof trying to clear the chimney in the dark. So, we got that fixed, and aired out the cabin and I’m starting to make dinner, and Frank is sitting there at the table and telling me his grand plan for “vegetation manipulation” as he called it, for making fire breaks, and he had some really good ideas. Mid-sentence he stops talking and I turn around and look at him and he’s sound asleep and 10-15 minutes later, he woke up and starting talking again, picked up where he left off. He was a funny guy, great guy…great traveler.
Monique Hunkeler first started working with Parks Canada in 1989 as Secretary to Banff National Park Finance Manager. She moved into a position as Dispatcher for the Banff Park Warden Service and later worked within Banff National Park and Town of Banff’s IT departments. She is experienced with the interviewing, transcription and archiving process the Park Warden Service Alumni Society.
