(1:34:23) Ole – Anyway we were on a fire school where the curling rink is now. That used to be old Moffat’s Dairy. He got his tie caught in a fire pump. Pretty near broke his neck. But he’s lucky the pump just backfired and didn’t take him. But he got his tie tangled up in a fire pump. It wasn’t running yet but he was trying to start it. But his tie was tangled up in there. Whether he did it himself or not I don’t know. You know on purpose, to make a story.
(1:35:15) Ole – We had to wear ties when we were in uniform. We weren’t supposed to (wear ties when we were patrolling or doing trail work). Only if you were checking fisherman or something. Nobody ever did much out in the bush. When you went to town (you wore your uniform). Guys on the highway had to wear it. Going up to Sunshine you were supposed to put a tie on…Put in an appearance. Drive up to the ten mile I usually had a tie on…Strome had a quite an outfit there. About 30 horses split two ways. Al Johnson was his main guide and himself and they each had a helper. He ran a good outfit. Erling Strom. Al was a good horse breaker too and a real good horseman. The last colt he brought up, a big black colt, the next year I saw him leading the train. And Old Chinook, he was really up there. That horse was trained to walk up the hill and that was all he did with a pack on. He lead Al’s pack train after that.
(1:36:32) Brewster Creek had a lot of bears. I imagine it still has… grizzlies. But all that high country had grizzlies. There was one, I always thought it was the same bear and so did Jack Woledge. It’d get into Shadow Lake cabin. One year it got into Red Earth and then he went over and tried Sunshine out. Got in there. Then he ended up at the ten mile on Brewster Creek. Jack Woledge then got some trouble with a bear up on the Spray. He figured it was the same bear. He’d break in and make a mess, get in the cupboards looking for food.
(1:39:30) Ole – Oh God, it’s not a service anymore [in response to question: How did the warden service change over the years?]. It isn’t. Moe Vroom, I was talking to her. She said, “You know, I came back and went to the warden office to see some wardens. See how they were doing, this and that, she was interested after Bill had died. She said, “There were nine of them sitting there at the computers looking at the screens, typing away and not one in the field. She said, and I believe she’s right, she said, “They are going to lose the ranch [the Ya-Ha-Tinda]. They just won’t use the damn horses.
(1:40:38) Ole – After we left the Windy cabin, Fred Kraft’s father-in-law, I forget what his name was now. He was out fixing phone lines with a team of horses. He moved into Windy Cabin. He was unloading the wagon and taking his food boxes off the wagon…and getting them into the fire shed because it had good hinges and was well spiked. He put his food in there and in the morning he heard a big noise and a grizzly tore the fire shed door off. That was the end of the phone line. He quit. He drove back into town. He was heck of a nice old guy. No (he wasn’t a warden). He was just all by himself fixing phone lines. He was overhauling it like, putting in new posts and this and that. Fred Kraft was a warden, but he didn’t retire as a warden. He quit. He was at Stoney Creek and he transferred over to Yoho and then I don’t know what happened. But anyway he ended up as a worker in the creamery in Sundre. That’s where they went to.
(1:43:12) Ole – There are some (legends associated with the warden service) that I am wondering about. And my memory is terrible. Somebody mentioned at the do (the Centennial Celebration) in Banff that so many wardens were killed on the job. I wonder which ones they were. I know one of the first ones was the guy in Jasper, Goodaire was his name. Up the Tonquin. He was killed. Toni Klettl put the posts in. Toni Klettl and I went up there. I was just the Chief then. He had some chains and we put some chains around the grave site. And the stories that have come out of that were terrible. My dad said, “Yah, all they found was his boot. The bear ate him up.” And that was years ago. I was just a kid. So he was the first one. And there was a guy who drowned…in the Snake Indian River. They said he was a tippler. They had a few drinks and he went down to get some water. It was in the winter time and he slipped in. The other one I know who died on the job was that young lad that came off the ice fall in Jasper at Tangle Creek. He went ice climbing by himself. Then there was the guy who was killed in my old truck. He was on the TransCanada by Lake Louise. He was driving my old four by four. It was long after I left there. He was looking at something on the highway and something run over or hit him…There was a young guy killed, he was kicked in the kidney by the horse. That was up at the Red. I just don’t know who were the others, it was more than I thought.
(1:47:00) Alice – I just started to read Dale Portman’s and Kathy’s book. We’ve had it for quite a while, it’s just the fact of getting started. I haven’t got that far in but I remember when the Mexicans fell off [Mount Victoria] because we were at Healy Creek when that happened.
(1:47:08) Ole – Hughie Jennings packed them out with his horses.
(1:47:34) Ole – That happened after the war (the public safety training). Bert Pittaway was a push on that. Walter Perren, he really tied it in.
(1:48:00) Ole – There was one [rescue at Lake Louise]. Dale Portman was on the one at Lake Louise, being rescued. Walter Perren rescued him and his partner. Dale Portman had a chunk of meat knocked off his rear end. I think it was him that had the chunk of meat off his rear end.
(1:48:30) Alice – And there was the guy who fell off the cornice in Sunshine there and you didn’t find him til August.
(1:48:31) Ole – He was one of these guys, a very important fellow. He was going to find a new route to Shadow Lake and he went up the wrong way. And he walked off a cornice. The big cornice off Brewster and they found him in August. I was sick at the time when they found him. With the measles or something, I forget what it was. Walter Perren and somebody else went up there. Walter walked right in and looked and he found him right there. They figured that he’d come off that. We searched for three weeks for that guy. Looked for tracks and everything else. See there is nine miles of cliffs around there.
(1:49:32) Alice – (There was) that rescue that that guy froze to death going over to Marble Canyon with Glen Brooks on the highway. When there was that big storm. He (Ole) had to go to that one.
(1:49:48) Ole – Yah, Deegan and I. That was when I was in town.
(1:49:58) Alice – Yes, that was the first winter that we were married.
(1:50:00) Ole – I had a Dodge, what they called a van then and I got stuck at the seven mile. The snowplough and the other truck got in ahead of me and “Woomph” down came the slide. It plugged the highway. Donny Hayes was ahead of us too. We got up to Vermillion Pass going down to Marble with shovels and it took us all night. We passed the truck that he was in. Somebody looked in and said they couldn’t get him. By that time everything was stuck. We just shovelled and walked all the way along to the canyon. The wife was there, Mrs. Patterson…and she’d been frost bitten pretty bad. They got through with a grader the next day and picked him up
