(1:24:45) One of the things that really was a bit of a sore point with me (with regard to bear management) is that the stuff that was really down played…we had 20 some charges into court for illegal garbage storage and we also had some convictions on it because that was the time when we made a concerted effort to contain all the garbage so the bears couldn’t get at it. We had specifications of what they had to do in order to prevent animals from getting at it. It was handed out and over a period of time. People started to be warned that you have to do this and the regulations were in place. It was by and large ignored by I would say most businesses in Banff and most residents. What really caused us problems was when it did come to court and we did get a conviction, the judge would just give them a very token fine like $10 or $5 and what do you do? Really, if you can’t get the backing of your court system on laws, on common sense laws really, what do you do? And then of course we were criticized for not doing enough. What are we supposed to do, throw these guys in jail? Pay for it ourselves? They were making all the money. It was kind of funny because Terry Milewski was here. (CBC news reporter.) He came to the office and he said, “I hear you have a garbage problem.” You’ve heard of Terry Milewski from CBC news? In his younger days, he came in and he said, “I want to do a story.” I said, “Okay. I think that is great. We will give him all the help we can.” He said, “Now what is the problem?” And we filled him in on what’s happening. He said, “That is really too bad…I am going to see what I can do.” He went up to one fellow in the back alley in Banff and there was the chief cook throwing a bunch of grease into a bin and he didn’t bother locking it, he left it open. So Terry went up to him and said, “Do you realize what you are doing is illegal?” And the guy just laughed at him. That was on national TV. Well, I get a phone call from the owner of the restaurant, basically really reprimanding me for having the nerve to send him there. I said, “Well if the shoe fits wear it.” And he has never forgiven me to this day, this fellow and he is one of the probably biggest businessmen in town… Terry did a very, very good job on that. It was on CBC, it was just great! When this guy (the cook) basically said, “So?” That just spelled it out, that was all he needed to do. He said, “Well this is a typical reaction of other people too.” That was one of (Terry’s) stories from Banff when he was still around here. Now he has gone to greater things…
“Do you have any lasting memories of being a warden? Like a favorite place?”
(1:29:30) Well, I liked Bryant Creek. I liked it better than Egypt Lake. And in the fall, I really liked the north end, like Clearwater, We did a lot of travelling there on horseback in the fall during hunting season. Every time we rode into an outfitter camp we had to hold our breath and make sure that we didn’t get shot!
“Did you ever miss being a warden once you retired?”
(1:30:30) Oh yeah, you bet! Well, the camaraderie. But you know I am glad that I am out. I don’t know if I would be living this long if I didn’t. There is way too much BS and way too much bureaucracy. There is a limit to bureaucracy, it was just getting ridiculous. You spend most of your time doing paperwork, what does that accomplish really? There is some necessary stuff, but there is a lot of unnecessary stuff because it is never used. A good indicator of that is when Parks downsized they did away in most parks with central registry. You know what central registry was? That was where all this paper was kept. So why did you do it to begin with? And then you were scrambling around for information after. I know after I retired I got lots of calls from here and there and everywhere…about the Field generator (in Yoho National Park) plant site about the oil pollution and everything else. I said, “I have a memo here, basically I pointed that out to the Superintendent of the day.” And he said, “To mind my own business.” And I sent it to them. The Treasury Board rules are that you don’t take land back that is contaminated until it is cleaned up. Well, they took it back anyways. But nowadays, I’ve gotten rid of all that stuff.
“In retirement you work as a realtor?”
(1:32:38) Yeah, I did that until I got sick again. Ever heard of Guillain-Barre syndrome? Not too many people have. What it is, is an autoimmune problem whereby cells in your body are attacking the nerve strands and putting holes in it. It means it short circuits. I was down to 140 pounds from 230. I was paralyzed…it paralyzes everything, you have no feelings. I had the slower version of the Guillain-Barre which is called CIPD, chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy. There is a myelin sheath on the nerves which is like an insulator on wire. Well when one has a whole bunch of holes in it, you get all kinds of shorts. It doesn’t go through. I came down with that in 2005 and I am still recuperating from it. The best guess from the neurologists is that it was probably caused by the flu shot of the day because it had something in it that one year and there was a spike in this particular thing. That is kind of what they put it back on. Ever since then I haven’t been doing any selling, I just do the books for the company. I still am a partner in the company (Cascade Reality)…And I travel…We’ve got an RV and we go camping in the wintertime wherever. We just came back from Mexico. That’s why I got this nice tan! We were only there for a week, but we usually go every winter for longer than a week though, but this year was cut short because of the mess here… (Paul and his wife Marion live right on Cougar Creek, which in June 2013, flooded due to extreme rainfall. The flood had catastrophic effects for those living along the creek as well as in the whole Bow Valley.)
(1:35:50) I’ve got four grandchildren and believe it or not, I’ve got three great-grandchildren. But you know real estate was something that was okay after retirement that was an easy thing to do. I was actually the broker for the company, I was responsible for everything, but I gave that up too…
“Is there anything I haven’t asked that you would like to add?
(1:37:19) This Jimmy Rimmer thing Well, Jim had a bulldog, a white bulldog and that dog would just do as he wanted. I was out there one time because we had to go out and do something at the elk trap. I said, “Keep the dog home, don’t haul him around.” So the dog took off somewhere and Jimmy hollered at him, “Here Spook! Here Spook!” That was his name. Of course the dog didn’t listen, he just carried on with what he was doing. He said, “See that dog is pretty smart. He knows that I am just kidding!” And I remember that time I got there and he was just all blustered. And he says, “You know I was out in the pasture looking after the horses and this stupid moose charged me. Good thing I had a pitch fork with me!” He put the pitchfork up and the moose ran into it and there was still blood on the pitch fork. Good old Jimmy!
(1:39:03) Did you interview Andy Anderson yet? (Andy Anderson was interviewed in the fall of 2010.) You probably spent a couple of days there! I worked for Andy for quite a while. In the wintertime a lot of the times he hauled me up to the office to do his finances and stuff. I spent half of my winters up there.
(1:37:47) There is kind of an interesting story about avalanche control. I think that this was probably in the earlier 1970s. In the wintertime we were out bombing the Sunshine Road. It was Peter Fuhrmann, Billy Vroom…and Jim Davies was doing the flying. I was down below with the explosives and the detonators in a truck. It was a real bad avalanche year, that year. So I stopped at a place…The road would be closed off so the helicopter would land on the road. We would have all the charges prepared for the detonators, then we would load stuff into the helicopter. Fuhrmann was sitting on one side and Billy Vroom was sitting on the other side. One would then put the charge in and the other would light it and throw it out. We did our first bomb, the bomb went and they did the far end first. Of course a couple of things came down. Then they went to the middle. I asked them, “Is the place I am parked here, is that okay?” He said, “Oh nothing has ever come down there yet. It is no problem.” “Okay.” They put a bomb in and the whole bloody mountain slid! All I could hear Fuhrmann saying was, “Back up! Back up!” I thought to myself, “Well, he can’t be talking to anybody else except me.” So I put it in reverse and backed up and there’s trees coming across the road and everything else. It built a new avalanche path! I had all the bombs in the car and everything just went white! After the dust settled I looked and there must have been 50 feet of garbage on the road where I was sitting. Peter came down and I said, “Thank you Peter.” He says, “I am glad you heard me.” Yeah, the whole mountain slid with one bomb. To this day every time I drive by this one avalanche path I say, “That damn near was my Waterloo!” It would have been because boy those trees were just a coming, everything was torn out. That was a close call of a different kind!
