LP: Do you have any lasting memories as a warden? Favourite, park, cabin, horse, trail, etc.?
TW: I think for me, one of the lasting things I’ll remember is – they don’t really have them anymore – warden stations and warden cabins, and in Jasper they had like five or six different warden stations. My favourite time as a warden was when I was working at Sunwapta Warden Station. There were five families that lived there, and we all worked together, and it was like a little community. We did a bit of everything, and so for me that was a special time and those people that I worked with and lived with at that station are still very special people. It was a heck of a lot of fun, too. You were 45 miles from town, so you didn’t really get bugged by town stuff. You could do your own thing, so I was pretty lucky and it was pretty special for all of us. We all seemed to get along. There was myself, Joe Buker, Al McDonald, John Niddrie and the boss, Brian Wallace. We were all really good friends and our wives/girlfriends lived there too. My wife Sheila Luey and I would babysit Brian Wallace’s kids and things like that, so it was just way more than a job, it was a lifestyle. Now, I drive by, and Sunwapta Warden Station is closed. They don’t even have the generator running anymore, houses are all empty, so it’s kind of sad to see that.
LP: What aspects of the Warden’s job do you miss most about being a Warden?
TW: I miss doing a bit of everything. Now I’m in town (Banff) and I hear a siren go by and it’s like is that a warden going somewhere or doing something or is that a public safety guy going to a rescue or is that EMS? I kind of miss that part. I guess I was always a bit of an adrenaline junkie, I didn’t mind risk, and liked emergency response, so I always missed that part of it. Then the camaraderie of working with partners and as part of a team. Then finally, the ability to go skiing one day and ride a horse the next day and then go for a hike. That was one thing about being a warden, no matter how bad things were or how mad you were, you could always just leave the office and go for a hike. That was one of the special things about the job is you could always get away, go for a hike and recharge, go for a bike ride and recharge or horse ride and recharge.
Terry Willis on an ice climb in Yoho National Park
LP: What year did you retire? What do you enjoy doing now in retirement?
TW: 2019. I always played lots of hockey, so I still play hockey. Three times a week I play hockey, ride my bike, walk, etc. My wife and I have two giant dogs, so walk the dogs, just go for hikes, travel, stuff like that. I also got a little side job working with Alex Taylor (another retired Park staff) and his drone company RavenWest in town (Harvey Heights/Canmore). I only work a few days a month, but he does a lot of work for parks and other government agencies. We teach drone courses and spend a lot of time doing wildlife and resource surveys and mapping.
LP: Would you recommend the park warden job to anyone today?
TW: I still think it’s the best job or one of the best jobs around. It’s probably even more fun than being a paramedic, though being a paramedic was lots of fun, but you need a certain personality for it. I’ve seen a few wardens, like in the new world, new wardens who haven’t lasted that long because they didn’t really have the mindset for it, so it’s not for everyone. Even with just doing the law enforcement stuff, it’s still a pretty darn good job. You still do interesting investigations, you get to go to other parks, you get called in to do operations in other parks if they’re short staffed. You might get sent to another park for a couple of weeks and, of course, there’s the fun of dealing with emergencies and urgent incidents. There’s lots of variety, training, using firearms; it’s all fun. it’s still a great job, it’s just not as fun as it used to be. If I was a young person again, having a warden job would still be good. You still get to ride horses, you get to ride your bike, you get to do boat patrols, you go on helicopter patrols, stuff like that. You can still go skiing, you can go for a cross-country ski and see if everyone is obeying the rules and get some exercise. There are not many jobs where you can still do all of that.
Leah Pelletier is a journalist and photographer based in the Bow Valley. She currently writes for the Rocky Mountain Outlook covering mountain culture, the arts and news from Kananaskis County to Banff. She joined the paper in 2025 as a graduate from SAIT’s journalism program.
