The 1974 Junior Forest Ranger Story

A story of my first real job up in Northern Alberta.

THE 1974 JUNIOR FOREST RANGER STORY

1974: Well I guess I had sort of this romantic notion of the noble forest ranger, maybe from the CBC TV show, about this steward or guardian of the wild, so before High School ended, in 1974 in Edmonton, I applied and was accepted by the Alta Ranger program, to go to one of the many Jr. Forest Ranger locations in the Alta Province at the time. I thought, oh that was easy but I suppose the program was quite competitive but two or three months in the bush, serving Smoky The Bear, and getting paid a small allowance, seemed like an adventure that a young man at 18, could not pass up. So I remember wondering, High Level? Where in heck is High Level? And I just found out that it was somewhere way up North in Alta., almost in the North West Territories, way north of my home in Edmonton.

So I remember my dad putting me and my guitar, on the greyhound bus and then the long 8 or 10 hour? journey north. The trip was uneventful cept in those days I think, you could smoke on the bus and I had my pipe and Heather Honey Pipe tobacco and stoically smoked away feeling quite worldly.

Well I got up to the High Level bus station but recall that it was day and not sure if we had driven through the night or what, but somehow managed to hook up with the head ranger, 'Bob S.', and we and the others that had arrived, got in the back of the big 5 ton ? with tarp canopy and headed off about 45 minutes South? On a dirt road to our first camp, which I think was this kind of cook house camp. The truck cab was where Bob also the driver and head ranger and then our cook, Oliver, would ride and the 10 or 12 of us junior rangers rode in the back and hauled this cook trailer along, where jolly fellow and camp cook,“Oliver” (“Morning, Morning, Beautiful Morning” he would always say.) would sleep in and be cooking us our meals.

First order of biz upon arrival at the wood cook house was unloading the gear and setting up the trailer and tents although they weren't exactly normal tents but more the sort of orange tarps, that we had to cut down popular poles for and fasten the tarp to the poles with ropes. It was a bit tricky to eyeball and get the ratios and distances right for the lashings and at the beginning they looked kind of dubious but by the end of the summer, we had mastered the tarp tent setup art and were kind of competitive between each other, who could do the best job at it.

I guess, we also had to dig a latrine and it was a job to figure out a way to go, so that you didn't mess yourself up to much, which we managed to do it eventually and ended up with quite a nice commode, though with somewhat of an open to the crowds and elements view. Oh well that's why they call it roughing it I guess. As well we had to find water to fill up the drinking and washing barrels.

After that first day, I started to feel less worldly and was bit down or maybe homesick or more so frightened I suppose, of what life held for me and us, and it seemed as I wandered away, for some solitude, on a hill top in no mans land and watched the sun go down, with the whining and dust of a distant truck crossing a bridge in the valley below, I was sad and remember feeling so unsure of what to do with my life but anyway after a long meditation, I swallowed my doubts and fears, somewhat, and carried on with the immediate job at hand. I probably was a rather extreme passivist as any, at the time, reluctant even to kill the 100s of huge mosquitoes that would devour any open skin up there, so I recall buying this head mesh or net next time we hit town instead of constantly applying copious amounts of bug repellent.

Well not even really settled in yet, we had our briefings the next day, and started right in on our first task of building this pole fence or enclosure around this wood cook house there and it was rather novel to cut down and build a fence from scratch. The days were long, the work hard and tedious, but Oliver was an excellent cook with good quality food to work with and plenty of it, so it was good, though we had to take turns doing the dishes. I had a bit of a scare right away, when I was chopping something and the axe deflected and landed square on my right steel toe boot. Ah so that's why the added expense. Excellent prep. We also wore these hardhats while working. Blue?

Well during our off times , I would do bead work with beads and embroidery thread I had bought in town and try to fancy up my funky yellow hill billy hat, I had bought at Woolco in Edmonton for the summer job. I continued to smoke my pipe, though they didn't have my tobacco brand and I guess I inadvertently converted and corrupted others to my bad example, who were in want to do something with their boredom, sorry about the nasty habit or addiction. We learned to do our own laundry for the first time, laundry what a concept, mind you only once every two weeks, as that was how often we went to town, though occasionally, we'd wash our socks and underwear in a stream. I think we all must have smelled a bit rank and smoky, as we would only got to shower when we went to town and got no baths.

There were some mischief's in the gang that would occasionally throw a bug spray can into the fire and it would explode, which would have Bob come racing out of his tent to see what was what and scold the appropriate parties, and the keener s and cool guys, that would hang together and play cards with Oliver in his trailer to the wee hours.

Well the fence turned out okay though it was hard soil to plant the poles in but it was fairly sturdy, so we went to our next site and job and set up a new camp where we had to rebuild a nearby wood bridge on a creek that the creek had washed away, on a road that led up to the ranger fire tower. Ten 18 year olds designing and cutting beams and stringers and abutments for a bridge. Well never say die, cause we got it built and it was not without much courage and pride, that we drove over it, in our five ton and went merrily to the top of the hill, to bring supplies to the fire tower. We explored the tower to while there and marveled at the solitude of that job.

Well next and unexpected on the list was that fires had broken out in the area and there was talk of us being recruited to fight them and it was a bit anxious but it never ended up happening, so then we took some excursions and were south of the Peace river, driving west I think, when we got stuck in the mud after heavy rains on the trail. We had to use the winch on the truck or ? To get out and I think we jacked it up to and put wood under the tires, I think the winches steel wire might have even broke and we were stuck a good long time and I think, took a different route back.

Wow the Peace is a very beautiful river and we marveled at the size of the huge poplars, birches and other trees growing there, never having seen such huge trees in Alberta.

Then we were driving on a gravel road to the west? When totally unexpectedly and somewhat mysteriously one of the back left tires, fell or broke off the truck and bounced in front of us sitting in the back, off the front of the trailer we were hauling and down the road it went and the truck came to a grinding halt. Well after ensuring everyone was okay, we looked at the damaged hub and wondered, why or how? But even more, we were concerned as our only means of transport was gone and we had no 2 way radio or cell phs in those days and were in the middle of nowhere. Well we sat there for a couple of hours until another vehicle happened to come along and Bob went and got us some help and a new tire or hub but during the interim we were sort of helpless, so I remember trying to fight off that feeling of doom and gloom that was setting in for some, I went a ways off and was sitting in the center of this grain field to meditate and pray. I calmed down eventually as I had come to rely on meditation since having studied yoga on my own in high school in the 70s. And then 3 hours later things got right and they almost forgot about me, out there in the field but called out and we all carried on.

Well I guess the program had an education aspect, as one week we received some instruction on orienteering, or finding your way and place in the bush, which consisted briefly of measuring “chains” or strides of steps into the bush with and being able to set marks ahead and behind to find directions from the many cut lines in the woods up there, and then finding your way back by such measures, so you don't get lost or confused, where its hard to recognize familiar things, as a lot of the bush looks the same in all directions. It was empowering.

The meals were excellent but you sort of had to fight with the wildlife, as often you would grab some jam on your knife for your bread and there would be dead wasps in it. And then there would be algae and minnows in the drinking water barrel.

Well occasionally we would haul out our guitars, as others had brought instruments along as well and we would sort of go toe to toe with our various repertoires of the Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, John Denver, Ozark Mountain, America, Bob Dylan, CSNY and L. Cohen etc etc.. Music became a necessity as we had no radio, TV, Stereo, cell phones, computers or internet or even books.

Didn't have to many encounters with wildlife other than mosquitoes and wasps. On our last job, we were making a trail around a lake, I was using a pulusky hacking up the thick matted ground and sunk it right into a wasps nest and had to madly dash down the path while 50 wasps ganging up on me, to attempt to sting me good.

As far as the crew went, some had more responsible duties than others, those that worked together well with others were made bosses. The saddest part of the time was when we had to build a lookout looking North to the NWT. We had to decimate and cut down about 3 acres of trees, some magnificent spruce just for a view. Funny you had signed up to be a guardian of the wild and yet here you were destroying it, seemingly unnecessarily. The irony or contradiction of this work life sacrifice, weighted heavily and made some of cry.

We visited as well a bush saw mill and marveled at the enormous blades used to render giants to tooth picks and we visited Rainbow Lake and wandered about the somewhat desolate town site school but marveled at the wild rice that grew there.

One misadventure was, in order to while away the down hours, as having no media or books, I endeavored to, for some reason, to try to carve a Venus statue out of a foot long piece of spruce log, I had found, and do it with my hunting knife no less. It was a bit frustrating, as the wood was unwieldy and a hunting knife the wrong tool. All I ended up managing to do was to slit my hand between the thumb and index finger, on my left hand and gasping, as the blood gushed out and I dashed madly to Bobs tent where he examined it and nonchalantly said, well I would need stitches but the town was an hour away and id have to wait until he got things together to make a special trip to town. The Doc that sewed it up, laughed when I told him how I'd had done it.

I think, we gave a concert one night when we were by this campground and met this older camper and his wife who had a guitar. It was cool.

Then one time, a few of the boys hooked up with this old geezer and sampled his home made hootch and were sick for almost two days.

And then as the season was winding down, we who were over 18, got permission to buy some happy juice and have a party and we had a drinking contest, which I placed first in the drinking with style category.

I came away at the end, as I headed south to home in Edmonton, with the realization that a lot of the forest ranger biz, seemed more to be a PR job, than as much to do with caring for the wild. But I made some good acquaintances, and one Jim? made a suggestion that rather than forestry some of us should go into music but not the writing or performing of it but the recording of it, which was a hot new exciting biz in the 70s, which led a couple of us into our next adventure, of Recording Engineering in London Ont..

And that's the JFR adventure.